Gratitude in Supervision

In Oregon, .9% of registered mental health professionals identify as Black/African American and 1.6% identify as Asian. 90.1% identify as White. I had just learned these stats in my last two months of 3 years in my graduate-level counseling program. Though the stats are shocking, at the same time, it was not. This past year, during the most important time of our program: the great internship of working with real clients and not awkward over-performed class role-plays, I was given the honor to have four amazing supervisors, three of them, identified as BIPOC supervisors. Not until the end, did I realize how special that really was. 

Dr. Page

I had the honor to be Professor Page’s student in three different classes. In fact, she was my first “official” professor at Fox. It was also the same class where I met Jessie. Having freshly moved from SF, I didn’t think anything of having a Black professor. Not until realizing that at Fox at least, it wasn’t common. At the time, there were only two full time Black professors, the other being the department head, Dr. Dempsey. 

Professor Page, another native Californian, has pulled me after class countless of times to check-in with me and I had no idea why. Not only was I one of few Chinese-Americans in the program, I was the only Chinese-American male. I didn’t understand at the time, but those conversations with her has completely changed my outlook and perspective of the world as I have only lived in SF my whole life. Prof Page gave me the tools to navigate my life not only at Fox, but also my life in Oregon. Little did I know, two years after that class, she would be my site supervisor, where I continued to grow professionally with her teachings. 

As her intern, Prof Page would challenge all five of us to not only learn the counseling work, but also social work as well. She challenged us to learn about what’s happening in our society whether we agreed with a cause or not. The important key was education. We had conversations around the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter rallies, the effects of Covid, the tension around election, and the rise of Asian hate crimes. Normalizing having these conversations, not in a hoorah come on my side way, but just to simply talk about it, has given many of us the confidence to have the conversations when our clients would bring it up in session (and it does come up). 

With humor and grace, Prof Page has been an awesome supervisor, professor, and mentor in growing in this field. The many weeks of challenging my own self-doubts, or correcting the work in areas I lacked (and there were many), I have grown a fuller appreciation of what counselors do and how we show up to advocate for our clients outside of those 50 minutes. I am extremely grateful to have been able to work with her. 

Jerrica Ching

In a few short months, I also had the opportunity to be supervised by Professor Ching, who was one of the faces of (sly) Fox’s advertisement of “diversity”. Under Professor Ching’s guidance, she walked me through working with the population I hope to serve, the Asian community, a community that is not particular known for talking about their mental health or feelings. With a critical and detailed eye, she helped me conceptualize so many different clients and the types of questions that were never on my wheelhouse. Also, as a Hawaii native, I got to use the word haole in convos with her, that was fun. I am honored that she will continue to be my supervisor post-grad.

Dr. B

Working with Dr.B as my university supervisor has taught me so many things about my work. The biggest is to check my own biases when it comes to a client’s belief. We did an activity on religion, and she showed images of voodoo dolls, and a classmate anonymously wrote “scary, witchcraft” something like that. At the end, we learned that there are people in the south and around that believe in voodoo as part of their religion and beliefs. This was the first activity we had with her and it snowballed into more moral and ethical work than I have learned in my other two years of the program.

From her time in the Air Force, to her family and upbringing in North Carolina, I have heard so many stories that all accumulated and connected to the importance of the work as counselors. I learned it was not just a year of grief and mourning, but that spirits of those who passed had transitioned. I learned it’s not feedback, but rather feed forward. I also learned about her experience as a sex therapist, and she helped inspire me to go back into another program to get my certification. If completed, It would make me the only Asian male registered sex therapist in Oregon (unless someone beats me there).

Dr. Dempsey

Though never formally my supervisor,

Dr. Dempsey played a huge part at the time for me sticking around the counseling program, which meant sticking around Oregon longer than the initial year. Learning his verbiage and speaking cadence when working with clients has really helped shape how I communicate to mine. Dr. Dempsey showed me that counselors don’t need to be, as I’ve experienced: White, talk “proper”, or quiet with low energy. We always went back and forth on Warriors & Blazers conversations, and he’s given me many word of advice talks throughout the program. For that, I am thankful.

In my 3 years in the program, I have learned from many classmates, professors, adjuncts, and friends…. However, these four faculty members have really made me feel heard and seen, in a place where I questioned if I belonged many times. They listened and related to me when I felt like no one else in the program could. As our cohort is three days away from what feels like the most dragged out ending ever, I will continue to look back at these four, and know I wouldn’t be where I am in my work without them.