Geoff W. Sutton Blog

MICROAGGRESSIONS at WORK and SCHOOL Cultural Diversity Microaggressions are the harmful acts of host-culture members toward people considered part of a different culture. The acts communicate negative attitudes, insults, snubs, slights, and rejection. The acts may be intentional or unintentional but function to restrict the progress and freedom of those who are considered not a part of the host culture. Microaggressions accumulate and have the potential to cause significant harm. Therapists and organizational leaders need to be aware of common microaggressions. What’s in a name? A lot. Names are a primary component of one’s identity. Granted, when you first hear an unfamiliar name it can be a challenge to get the spelling and pronunciation right. Sensitive people make an effort. Perhaps you know someone whose name is often distorted? Some of us give up and adopt a spelling that can be pronounced by those in the host culture. When I was growing up I went ...

Power of Psychotherapy I was a psychotherapist for many years. Like others of my era, we went to conferences, watched demonstrations, and read books in an effort to become better therapists. Many of us had years of supervision during school and after graduation. We believed that new research would uncover effective treatments or new components of treatments that would help our clients get well. Several other factors came into play: medications and managed care. As  medications  became more specific for the treatment of common conditions like depression and anxiety, I and others began to wonder about the value of psychotherapy- especially if medication was better or equal to psychotherapy and cost less. In this light, I began to take courses in psychopharmacology in the hope that psychologists could prescribe medication. I worked with others to pass legislation before I decided to retire from psychotherapy. The second factor was the emergence of  managed car...

EFFECTIVE APOLOGIES What Works? Individuals and business leaders often find themselves apologizing or dealing with requests for an apology. Most are seeking forgiveness and many wish to make things right. But correcting mistakes is not always easy. Having an affair destroys most romantic relationships . Some partners do forgive and reconcile. Many do not. In an age of ubiquitous cameras, high speed internet communication, and hackers, odds increase that cheaters will be revealed to a wide audience. Of course, it’s not just the spouse or partner who suffers—children, relatives, and close friends hurt as well. Usually the small stuff can be handled with an “I’m sorry” as long as it appears genuine.  When the offense causes some difficulty, reputable businesses make amends. For example, after incorrect ticketing in China, I was moved to business class–too bad it was only an hour flight! Larger offenses cause more distress and law suits are costly. Church...

Mexican arrested by border patrol, from capsweb On the Psychology of Politics “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” The forgoing quote is from John Ehrlichman in 1994. Dan Baum includes it in his April 2016  Harper's   article: "Legalize It All: How to win t...

Wars linked to religious motives are part of history. But lost in the details are clear causal connections between one or more religious motives and the atrocities common in warfare. In contemporary western cultures wars are conducted at the ballot box, in the courts, and in the media. Cultural war dead are counted in terms of lost pride, lost causes, lost traditions, lost influence, and even lost money. Cultural injuries can be measured by assessment of anger, resentment, plans for revenge, and money spent on causes limiting the rights of various subcultures. In the United States and western democracies, Christian traditions that informed cultural norms codified in law have been overturned at an incredible pace leaving Christians wondering about the limits of religious freedom. At this point we can only guess that in the future, people will look back on the 2015 Supreme Court decision to affirm same-sex marriage rights as indicative of the decline in the degree t...