Dr. Jeremy Sharp (00:00.568)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Testing Psychologist podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Jeremy Sharp, licensed psychologist, group practice owner and private practice coach.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Testing Psychologist podcast. I am really glad to be here with you. I have a return guest today, Dr. Linda McGee. She’s a clinical psychologist and nationally recognized moderator, mental health expert and speaker. She was recently elected as APA president of the Assessment Psychology Section of Division 12, Society of Clinical Psychology. She was a past president of the Maryland Psychological Association.
Dr. McGee is one of the nation’s foremost experts on culturally sensitive testing and assessment for diverse populations. She currently teaches assessment and diversity at George Washington University’s Forensic Psychology Program and is visiting faculty with the GWU PsyD program. Linda is back. Linda has been on podcasts a few times before and I am thrilled to have her back as always. Great conversation. She’s an amazing person and always up to
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:48.172)
something meaningful. we talk about lots of things. She recently launched the Multicultural Psychologist podcast. So we talk about why she felt compelled to do that, to create a space for honest conversations about culture and identity and assessment. We talk about the joys and challenges of podcasting, her mission to help other clinicians break down systemic barriers, and her vision for supporting the next generation through.
lending libraries and scholarships and so forth. as always, there is a lot to take away from this conversation. is a dynamic, engaging individual and is doing incredibly important work. So, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Linda McGee.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (02:48.27)
Linda Hey, welcome back.
Thanks, Jeremy. I’m happy to be here.
Good, good. Yeah, it’s so good to see you again. It’s been a little while since we’ve done anything like this, but.
Yes, yes, and many things have changed in the world since last we spoke.
That is for sure. Yeah. Things changing in the world, things changing in our lives. You know, this is why I got to catch up with you every year or two because. maybe we start, tell folks what you’ve been up to recently and what’s changing in your life at least.
Dr. Linda McGhee (03:14.894)
I love you, guys.
Dr. Linda McGhee (03:24.472)
Well, I think that the last time I was on your podcast, I was promoting the Multicultural Assessment Conference, which we did two virtual trainings on. And I really wanted to segue into a podcast. And I made the decision to do so. Now, when I made the decision to do a Multicultural Psychologist podcast, this was before all the political changes. And I had this in my mind for…
It just happened to coincide with lot of changes in the world, but it made me realize that I needed to do it. know, and I needed to talk about these issues because they remain issues with our clients. And Jeremy, you know this because I presented at some of your conferences.
The demographic of America is continuing to change at a very, very rapid rate. And one of the things that I have discovered through going out and speaking and training is that people don’t necessarily know that. Right. And even people within our field don’t know that. Right. So, you know, and, and, and with all of those changes.
comes nuance and in a world where everybody wants to talk about things in bumper stickers. know? So everybody wants a sound bite, but when a clinician walks into a room or a tester walks into the room and they’re across from someone, they’re not a sound bite, right? And they’re also not necessarily what they appear.
You don’t see the totality of them. You don’t see who they’re married to. You don’t see who they’re parenting. You don’t see a lot of aspects of their culture because you’re just looking at the person that’s crossed from you and you’re making value judgments based on, you know, how much melanin they have in their skin. What’s their native language? Do they have accent in English? Do they appear to be cisgendered? So we don’t know a lot.
Dr. Linda McGhee (05:46.796)
We’re also not geared toward talking about it. So I don’t know if you remember this, Jeremy, but I had this slide about how many people are admitting to be in the LGBTQ culture. And it started off with the age even beyond the boomers, which I can’t even think of what they’re called at this exact moment, but they were the least likely to claim LGBTQ status.
And then up to this present generation of Z and alphas who 20, 25 % are saying that they have some relationship identity wise to the LGBTQ community. And so when you look at that chart, you might think, well, they’re just more likely to say it, but that doesn’t necessarily, you know, just because they’re more likely to say it doesn’t mean that older generations don’t have those factors.
They’re just less willing to say it. So when I, I use that as an example of nuance, right? Just because only 2 % of baby boomers are willing to say that they’re LG TVQ doesn’t mean that that they actually aren’t. Right. And so what made me do this was we’re still ethically bound to treat humans in the best way and to test and assess humans.
in the best way possible to the highest ethical standards congruent to their culture. Again, I use a lot of research. So this is just not about my feelings. I tell everybody, and God we trust, everybody else has to bring data. And so my talks, my training, and my podcasts are rooted in
Research, okay, it or you know significant experience of someone who’s been in the industry 40 years And then also like again the demographics Suggest that we need to stay on this and we need to find ways to talk about this and I wanted to create a safe space where people can listen and now they can listen and get See use but just if you’re interested in something, there’s no pressure
Dr. Linda McGhee (08:15.574)
You can click on the Marilyn Montero talk. You can click on the talk about EEEE. You can click on, I just did one about maternal health and perinatal mental health. You can click on it and you can listen and you can share it with your students and you can share it with your practice.
You know, and it doesn’t have to be like a huge training in order to do that. And I wanted to create a space where people felt like they could learn safely. And finally, I did the podcast because clinicians are telling me they really need this information. That they still, we still are not getting it from our training programs.
Yeah.
Dr. Linda McGhee (09:09.142)
We’re getting out there and we’re feeling like, okay, like I don’t know anything about this, right? But the person walks in your door.
Right, right. Well, and if it’s, yeah, if it’s anything like my training, it’s very theoretical. Like we may have, you know, there’s a class maybe, or maybe you do a little like weekend one day workshop or something, but to actually hear people talk about the practical experience I think is huge.
Right, right. And, and you know, even the theory and even to talk about the didactics of diversity, I think that there’s still like, I had one class when I was in, when I was in a PsyD program and at GW where I teach and now, but I teach a three, three year sequence there, right? starts off with, you know,
thoughtful, where are you? Where are you as an individual? Then where’s the client centered? And then what is the interaction between you and the client in the room? know, a thoughtful, you know, sort of going through differences. So, but I do understand even now people are getting basic training, like we all now have gotten, we’ve all gone to unconscious bias training, but we don’t,
really go beyond that. And we’re struggling and we don’t want to say, no one wants to come to you Jeremy and say, I don’t know what to do with this person. Or I don’t, I think I said the wrong thing. Can you help me? Right. You know, or this person didn’t show up after the first visit and I don’t know why.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (10:56.066)
Well, I mean, to your point about podcasts and people just being able to click, that’s one of the things I love about podcasts is that you can learn in a safe environment. Nobody knows what you’re clicking on or what you’re listening to. And I think that’s especially important in this multicultural realm. Because as you know, we’ve talked about people are scared, myself included, to seem dumb and to ask questions that are
silly or offensive, you know, it’s a fraught realm for a lot of folks and you don’t want to seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. so to have a podcast is fantastic.
We don’t want to make mistakes. We don’t want people to accuse us of being some is, you know, racist, sexist, homophobic. And we avoid, as humans, we avoid discomfort. Right? And in this country, a lot of these issues are uncomfortable. They’re uncomfortable to
tell your professor in a class or even, you know, to go tell your boss. Like I, always, I always joke with my students. It’s like, I know that I should tell you to go to your supervisor and you should go to your supervisor. But a lot of times I didn’t go to my supervisor because my supervisor was grading me. And so, know, while I want to make it clear, I want everybody to go to their supervisors, but I do understand why people are reticent to do so. But when you’re in a room.
with you or you’re out walking, you can listen to this podcast. And, you know, I do it myself. I was on one yesterday about intersectionality and it was just wonderful hearing from the experts and people who has fit their lives were doing this. And for me interviewing him, and I know the same for you, even though you, we’re both busy, the podcasting is a labor of love. really is. It’s like, you know, you feel like that you are doing
Dr. Linda McGhee (13:03.05)
something and you know I I feel like I’m talking about diversity in the storm right now.
There’s a big storm.
and just continue to talk about it. But it’s, it’s challenging. I will not say otherwise.
Yeah, I want to hear about your experience with the podcast and just, you know, what you’re, what you’re loving about it so far and what’s challenging about it so far.
okay. So normally I would give you this answer that would be like a highly intelligent answer. and you know, basically research based, but I’m just going to say from the moment I hit record on the first podcast, it has just been kismet. It has just been very comfortable. I’ve been very happy with the caliber of people that have said yes. And I’m coming, I’m coming for you, Jeremy. Don’t worry.
Dr. Linda McGhee (14:06.312)
Yeah
I’m here whenever.
and you know, people are just really receptive to it. and happy that I didn’t stop talking or didn’t try to, you know, kept the dialogue going. And, know, a lot of people want to continue to learn, but they don’t necessarily want to put themselves out publicly. so the podcast is a way for.
people like you and me or you and I to continue to start, keep the dialogue going among professionals, all of which are trying to be better clinicians, better assessors and diagnosticians, and to meet the needs of their clients and this training and better business people.
Being good at diversity is good for business.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (15:12.957)
100%. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you want to be a place that people can feel safe to come and, you know, that gets around. That’s a, it is a business component too.
Right. So it’s nice because people want to come on and talk about their life’s work. Right. And to get credit for doing a lot of work that a lot of times is largely unseen, open and subject to attack. People are doing this work at great costs, career wise. you know, I mean, I meet a lot of brilliant people that could be doing a lot of different things.
you know, so, it’s good to give them flowers, while they can smell them. That’s an old African-American expression. Give you, give them their flowers where they can still smell them. and, I’m happy to do that and to commend them and just to sort of immerse myself and the joy at which the guests are talking about their life’s work is, has been something that I didn’t anticipate.
That’s so cool. Yeah, yeah, it’s, you make a good point. Like just to give people a stage where they can light up a little bit. That’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun. And it’s really cool. mean, especially in our field, like you said, people like toil in obscurity a lot. Like we live in these very small sort of silos or whatever. And maybe you publish some articles and like,
72 people read them or something, you know, but like getting on a podcast like now I’ve got a thousand people who are hearing this or two thousand people or however much you know, maybe more and
Dr. Linda McGhee (17:00.02)
Or that person that says that listening to this podcast changed my life. Or made me know that I was going in the right direction when I was facing a lot of critique about my dissertation or my major area paper or the kind of people that I wanted to see. Yeah.
And I want to take this time and I don’t want you to edit this out, Jeremy, but I want to see, I wanted to take the time publicly to say thank you to you for a giving me my podcast start in this field and where the assessment people are few and far between you talk about toiling and obscurity. Us assessment people are basically the, you know, the minority of the majority. And, and then, you know,
clinicians of color in assessment are like way down in there the small percentages if the number of African-American psychologists is four percent the number of assessment people into assessment particularly in assessment in the way that I am Is very small percentages, so I want to thank you for giving me the platform Thank you for like being a very silent ally sometimes
by having me on the show, by helping me establish myself in this field, and to always be encouraging when I come up with my schemes of things that I want to do, and allow me to use the testing psychologists to promote them. I just want to say that publicly because we’re always in the age of criticizing people and saying people aren’t doing enough, but I want to thank you for doing what you’re doing in your own little quiet way.
Well, that means a lot. Yeah, I’m very tempted to just, you know, in the interview now and run and hide, edit all this. But no, that really does mean a lot. And I’m super grateful. I mean, it goes both ways, right? Just super grateful that we overlapped and somehow got connected. I can’t remember how that happened. I mean, you’re a force and I’m just lucky to kind of be in your world.
Dr. Linda McGhee (19:13.518)
Thank you. Thank you so much. I wanted to just go back to the, asked me about the podcast and I kind of spoke about it globally, but already I had someone come up to me with the narrative of the autism story, which was my show with Marilyn Montero, the creator of The Biggest Two. I’ve had so many people come up.
that are parents on the spectrum, that are clinicians working in the spectrum and diagnosing the spectrum, to just say how much clarity she brought to their journeys and giving things names and understanding that in her heart, she wants each and every person that she sees in diagnosis to be seen as an individual, not a cookie cutter diagnosis.
Right? And how we have to develop each and every client’s story and to best help them and their families rear and raise and nurture people that fall on the autism spectrum. just, you know, just that one so far and the show on the EPPP that just came out.
It’s really garnered a lot of attention. hopefully, you know, again, we start off with Jeremy Wright, who’s like Mr. Assessment. And he’s just so, I mean, he has more energy than me. And that is actually saying something. But he was a perfect kickoff to talk about all the ways that we need to continue to think, not just about
But how I want that I wanted the podcast to be the intersection of psychology and culture regardless of whether it’s training Treatment of course every aspect of every show has something about assessment because that’s where I live and that’s where I love and so Every to just be the intersection and they’re not necessarily limited. So that’s why I
Dr. Linda McGhee (21:34.144)
I’m interested in training. think I told you, mentioned to you on one of our calls that I’ve just been appointed to this task force that has to do with the APA task force on the EPPP. so I’m definitely interested in how we’re not just the EPPP, but how we are. We have a supply of psychologists that remains pretty steady and not nearly enough to meet the needs of the general public.
how we treat the supply that we’re putting out, how we paid them. So there are a lot of fences and a lot of gates. And then we have people just as soon as they’re getting in, they’re leaving because of burnout. that’ll be my next appearance hopefully on your podcast is I’m gonna write hopefully a book about that. so I…
To have the people from the EPPP on who have been struggling with EPPP was really something that I really wanted to focus on.
Yeah. Okay. So you’ve said enough about this EPPP episode that I’m, I’m pretty interested. want to people to go listen to it for sure. I don’t want to like take all the wind out of the sails. can you just say like 15 to 30 more seconds about what this EPPP episode is? I looked at the title and yeah, just to peak people’s interest a little more.
So there are a couple of things. One is, you know, in response to the ASPPB bringing out the EPPP-2, there was quite a bit of uproar, right? And a couple of states have adopted it already, but the testing itself, both the EPPP and the EPPP-2 have been the subject of a lot of scrutiny. And the pass rates are, even if you don’t look at race, the pass rates are not high.
Dr. Linda McGhee (23:34.562)
that not traditionally the highest when you look at all regulated professions, right? And the history of regulation, right? And licensing, which a lot of times came after the advent of civil rights. So licensing generally did not occur in this country until the Civil Rights Act was passed. And it was used like, for example, you and I were just talking about South Carolina.
South Carolina didn’t test, didn’t license the lawyers until after the Civil Rights Act passed when women and minorities started to enter into the field. Right? So, know, and also this is a nuance point, but psychology was trying to solidify itself as a science, as a legitimate science. And this testing came along to sort of help legitimize them.
Right. And so again, we’re looking at all these factors that don’t necessarily have to do with competency and safety of the public. But when you look at, when you look at race, the pass rate in the studies that have been done, suggest that there are some racial differences. And I wanted to highlight those people.
in terms of their humanity, right? And what we’re losing when people can’t pass the test so they can never practice without supervision. And some states in Canada have a limit on how many times you can take them. Right? So you literally, you know, in Canada, think they just up until recently had it where you couldn’t take them. And so now to sort of close the loop,
They are telling their stories, their economic, their emotional, their traumatic responses to this. But now the states are facing unprecedented demand, right? And so already in other fields, there has been a push to like relax licensing, like the state of…
Dr. Linda McGhee (25:57.164)
The state of Illinois, I think, waived some of the social work licensing guidelines. And then there were states like Texas that were considering if you got within a certain percentage of passing that you could add supervision. So there’s always been these kinds of things as sort of common sense ways of sort of making up for the fact that people can’t pass this exam.
The latest shot over the bow has been Texas deciding to scrap the E triple P and come up with his own testing.
I did not hear about that. Okay.
And Louisiana is thinking about it. And I think their meeting is next week. So, you know, I am holding my potter. I’m trying to stay neutral. I’m trying to stay where the research shows us. But I will tell you this, my perspective and my presentation to the APA board of directors on this issue center around the fact that I come from a licensed field, law.
Sure, sure.
Dr. Linda McGhee (27:07.857)
And the requirements for psychology were steeper. You know, so for example, we have to take comprehensive exams in psychology. Right? So we take classes, we have to do finals. We have a major area paper or dissertation, and we have comprehensive. A lot of states still require post-degree hours.
Right. I was a part of the, the, the, the move to help Maryland get rid of some of those. Right. But even when I was not in any kind of position of power, I just wrote him a letter like, I don’t understand this. Right. You know, why would you guys not be with the psychologists? Why would you make it harder and make me have another year where I’m not earning money because I can’t get a job because I’m not licensed. So that’s how I came to this point. When you look at the.
pay the average salary, not beginning salary, the average salary in psychology is $65,000 a year.
Is that, that seems crazy. Yeah. That’s very low.
It is in fact, according to the APA, it is in fact the actual opening salary. I mean, the actual average salary. And so the open, the average opening salary is even less, beginning salary is even less than that. So I’m looking at what you get out of it, the money, people having a hard time. You and I were talking about business slightly right before where I’m having, you know, we’re in the DC area.
Dr. Linda McGhee (28:47.522)
things are slowing down here because layoffs to the feds and people have to have are struggling with insurance. The ones that take insurance and they’re struggling with private pay and they’re in organization. Yes. I see it. Right. I see it. I have never had a testing low until recently, you know, and I’ve been in this field since five. Okay.
And hearing that from a lot of people, that same story, just, I’ve been doing this forever, I’ve never had to market, and all of a sudden, the phone is not ringing.
My best buddy and I we had a conversation last week and she’s she went to GW with me we shared office space up until recently and She and I had this discussion about Wow, you know So, you I see it on the on your Community pages. Mm-hmm. People are having the same issues and Given that we’re probably one of the bigger ticket price items in psychology
Yes.
Dr. Linda McGhee (29:55.95)
I’m not surprised. So most psychologists I know work really, really hard for what money they do earn. so what I’m looking at is twofold. One is how can we make way for people to be in this field with us? How can we start looking at basic equity?
Right.
Dr. Linda McGhee (30:22.19)
Yeah. In terms of our field, you should not have to take a vow of poverty to be a psychologist. You know, you remember when you did that talk about money, guilt at our conference and it’s just like, solidified everything that had been going on in my head. So every time I see somebody say, well, why don’t you take insurance or why don’t you do that? I’m like, I do not have to take a vow of poverty to be a psychologist.
my gosh.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:33.41)
Yeah.
Dr. Linda McGhee (30:49.238)
I don’t know where that come in, where that came in from.
But yeah, I wonder, I mean, it’s baked into it, right? I mean, we barely get paid as grad students and then we go on internship and at least for me, I made $24,000 on internship. 26, okay. So then I get a huge increase for postdoc up to 29,000. That’s sarcastic by the way. And then, you know, we come out of postdoc and it’s like, okay, so now I’m supposed to.
a
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:22.574)
Start a practice or take a job or whatever and make well, maybe 65 maybe more, you know, how does that even work?
But you know, if you’re making more, hey, great. But average wise, people are seeing a lot of clients. They’re having to do a lot of testing to make not so much money. And also it’s hard to get into. what I’m trying to say to you is not just that the salary is low. That’s not, the discussion is you can’t even really break into the field because of the fencers and barriers. And that…
is one of the things that I, one of the reasons why I started the Multicultural Psychologist was to start a podcast. But in the second and third iterations of what I want to do, one of them is to start a lending library. And I’ll be on your Facebook page soon because I’m going to start collecting materials to be a, young clinicians who have supervision or who have been trained.
an assessment to be able to be in a lending library for two years where they can borrow assessment equipment without expending. Like I think the waste, the new iteration of the race waste is like, you know, it’s, know, $1,800 or something. It’s a lot of money. Um, and people just don’t have it. So that’s one of the things that I want to do is to start a lending library in the DMV. I’m going to start in the DMV.
Hopefully one of these universities or people that I affiliate with will help me. And the second thing I want to do is to look at bringing down the costs of assessments for, know, like getting raising funds to have low cost assessments. And finally, to start to look into like, if you want
Dr. Linda McGhee (33:18.904)
to join, like you have this Crafted Practice Group, I want to do some certifications in terms of culture. So people can listen to podcasts, they can listen to speakers, they can join discussion groups, and then at the end of that time, they will get a certification. So those are things that I have going on. Of course, not busy at all and not ambitious at all.
I mean, those are some of the ways that I want to give to this profession, which has given me so much. You know, I was a practicing attorney and I wasn’t happy. And I would be happy as a part of my day when I would go volunteer. And fortunately I am married to a phenomenal human being and he was like, well, why don’t you go do what you want to do?
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So someone who would willingly give up, I’m not even going to talk about the money, from banking law over to psychology. You you didn’t want to talk about the 65. You know, it’s a factor. Let’s just put it that way.
a little bit of a pay cut to make that switch.
But I’m where I need to be. I’m just alive in psychology.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (34:46.561)
I chatting with you. just want to highlight that phrase alive in psychology. That’s so good. But that’s why I love these conversations is that you go for the things that you want to do. I think it’s just a good model. I mean, for anybody listening out there, you made a huge career switch. And then just since I’ve known you within psychology, you do these different things. You have a practice and then you teach and now you’re doing the podcast and you’re writing the books and you did a conference. You’re a good model for pursuing what brings you joy and what feels
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Dr. Linda McGhee (36:58.38)
Well, you know, I hit a certain age and it was like, hey, what are you holding back for? And then, you know, I mean, I’m going be serious for a second, but it’s not like sad. You know, I have wonderful parents. I’m just going to say that. And they both passed in the last five years. But when I, when people write to me, they talk about all the help that they did, they gave to people.
And Jeremy, my parents didn’t have any, you they didn’t have formal education. And they like, you know, people were coming to me, your mom helped me when I had this issue and she wrote a letter for me and your dad helped to get me a suit when I was in trouble and I needed to go to court. you know, he helped to, you know, helped to raise money for, to pay off his church and.
And then I kept thinking to myself, what a wonderful tribute, first of all. And then second of all, if they could do that with no resources, you know, then what could I do with every resource, with the Jeremy Sharps and people behind me? What? I could just reach for everything, right?
Well, so, yeah.
You know, what can I do with all the resources that I have and all the people out there that care about making this feel a little bit better? There are so many people out there, even the ones that have no clue about how to do it. They know that we need to stay vigilant.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (38:35.278)
Sure. Well, that community is a huge part of it too. You know, I hear that so often, just getting in these groups, psychologists get together, just not feeling isolated, feeling like there are people who believe in you and people are going to hold you accountable. Right. You who can lift you up.
And the field is really, it can be isolating. For sure. And particularly like solo practitioners, know, it’s very isolating. You only see people three times, two or three times in the testing environment. It can be isolating. to have, I’m in a group now that I was just telling you that I listened to someone who yesterday who was encouraging people to bring people along.
to continue to work. And she also said that, know, if she knew, if she could give her young self advice, what advice would she give? And she said to rest.
Dr. Linda McGhee (39:34.33)
And that’s something that I have really taken to heart the last couple of years is that I want to do this podcast a couple of years ago, but my body was like, you need to rest. You need to go find your place at the beach. You need to go, you know, put your feet in sand. And so I mix now what I’m doing, even though it sounds like a lot, I spaced it out. And if it doesn’t get done,
in the three months that I want to do it, then I’ll get done in the next three months. You you just have to let yourself rest, particularly doing the kinds of really serious trainings that I do. I have to take care of myself psychologically. And as clinicians, we need to all really have defined paths of self-care.
Do you think that’s possible for folks who are just starting out? mean, because that sounds great. That sounds amazing, right? Like, I like to rest here and there sometimes too, you know? But we’re at places, you know, just transparent. I think we’re both at places in our lives where like we’ve had some amount of success and like that buys a little time and, you know, buffer and whatever. Like, do you think about like, how can people do that if they’re just starting out? Should they try to do that? Like, you know, how’s
I think their survival is based on them trying to figure out some ways. even given what we’ve said so far in this podcast about them having to hustle to make any money, I mean, we’re just seeing it everywhere, but the amount of work that young clinicians have to do in order to pay rent, like I’m in the DMV. I have a 25 year old child and the rent in this area.
Yeah, you can see him. He’s, know, tall as my roof. But he, the rent is $1,800 here for a basic one bedroom. And it’s pretty much like that in a lot of parts of the country. And so like, how, how can I say to you that a clinician has to find self care when you have to work? Sometimes they’re seeing 25 people, sometimes they’re having to do a testing or two a week.
Dr. Linda McGhee (41:48.046)
There’s not much room to rest, but then I’m seeing it in terms of burnout. Right? I’m seeing people saying that they’re not staying in the field. People not joining committees, not becoming a part of anything, not, because they can’t afford it, and then they’re burnout. Right? So like all these state associations and all of these things that we rely on, they, we’re relying on people who are aging, getting very…
Elderly in terms of their service and that we can’t replace them right so I I saying this advisedly, but I’m still saying that They people need to find ways to take care of themselves and I want to say this the younger generation Have more self-care built in in terms of what’s going on in their head
than our generations. It’s been talked about while they were growing up as a part of their wellbeing. And sometimes we even joke about it as bosses. It’s like, my God, know, yeah, they’re like, they’re gonna tell you, look, that’s all I can do. And they’re gonna push to be compensated for it.
sure.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (43:00.878)
that younger generation.
Dr. Linda McGhee (43:14.154)
And so there’s many parts of me that are like, commend that, but I still think that if every person who has in their bailiwick treating, assessing, diagnosing, consulting, training in the area of mental health, there has to be ways that you’re taking care of yourself so that you can be the best that you can be so that you’re bringing the appropriate balance into the treatment room.
And so, you know, like I think a lot of areas where people sort of run a file of ethics is when they’re not balanced, when they’re not taking care of themselves. And so they’re using inappropriate forms of self care and that shows up in the treatment room or then the assessment room.
Yeah, yeah.
And with regard to culture, a lot of times they just have not been exposed to training. They’re like very set in their own minds about what is and what isn’t. you know, lack of exposure. So sometimes when people say something to me that I find to be aggressive in terms of culture, I really look at them and I sometimes think they just haven’t had the exposure.
to, you know, they just have no idea.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (44:40.078)
That’s a kind attribution.
Yeah. And I’m being kind deliberately because I want people that are listening to this to understand that you can cure ignorance. You can learn more. Now, whether you want to apply it and whether you want to change, that’s a whole different other thing. Because the reason why you say that as a kind attribution is a lot of people don’t want to.
Right? But, but I, yeah, I go back to the original point that I came on with is the demographic is changing. The models that we rely upon to make money are dependent upon us becoming our us, our services meeting the market.
done.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (45:31.574)
Right, right. Yeah, so that’s important. Maybe we talk about that just for a second. I mean, you said the demographics are changing. I think a lot of us are maybe aware of that, you know, at least a vague sense. let’s put some numbers to that. yeah. I mean, our nation is becoming more quote unquote multicultural, right? And what does that actually mean? And how? Yeah, how does that impact us?
number
Dr. Linda McGhee (45:56.078)
Well, for one thing, know, now half the children that are under the age of five are not white, more than half. For the first time, I think in US history, the number of actual numbers of white people went down one year. The last year that they, no, so there were actually less numbers.
Right. So that means less of a birth rate, more of a death rate. Absolute numbers. They were actually less white people the last year that they did. can’t remember the year. Again, what I said before, we’re getting married later. Right. We are questioning our, we’re admitting that we’re wrestling with gender.
Absolute numbers. We’re not like
Dr. Linda McGhee (46:51.598)
sexuality, all of those things that normally weren’t talked about, right, are talked about now and are questioned right now. And if you just look at your school children, for those of who have younger children, think about who they’re playing with, who they’re coming home, what they’re coming home and telling you. You know, it’s a completely different dynamic. And what I hear from psychologists is,
You know, I don’t want to do that. I’m not using pronouns. I’m not doing any of that. And I I actually hear this from people. So one psychologist that I know and respect was like, I’m going to have to retire because I’m not doing any of this.
so we are, women are out, you know, are getting more, have surpassed men in terms of degrees. Yeah. So we truly are a changing demographic. More people are saying that they’re multiracial. Right. You know, more than one race. Right. We have majority minority states. think there are six of them now, you know.
I was just in Texas doing training with the school psychologists in Texas and you know, they’re in a state where there’s, know, the school children break down to mostly Hispanic and Latino majority. And that’s a particular school district. So, I mean, we are changing and a lot of people don’t know, but in our minds, because we all have this unconscious bias, we sort of even overplay the other.
So if you ask people the percentage of Jews in this country, the percentage of Muslims in this country, people would say you’re like nearly 30 % of each group. Right? Which doesn’t make any sense. The numbers of Jews in this country is 3%.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:47.874)
Yeah,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:54.152)
Yeah, that’s, mean, honestly, just for me, that is, that does seem like fewer than I would have.
Exactly. So in our minds, we don’t have information. So one of the things that I discovered since I started doing the podcast Jeremy is that I need to talk more about that. So in addition to these guests, which are a lot geared toward mental health professionals, although anyone can listen, and I’ve had a lot of people say that they understood perfectly what was going on. But in addition to that, I’m forcing myself to get on social media to start talking about
these granular changes that people can understand because people just don’t have information. They’re getting their information from more and more social media, more and more not credible sources, more and more polarized sourcing, right? And more and more echo chamber where everyone feels the same exact way. They just don’t have facts. And sometimes when I see people
Right.
Dr. Linda McGhee (49:58.956)
say something online, I know that they’re not, they think it’s the truth. It’s not an opinion, right? The number of Jews in this country is a number. It’s not an opinion.
Absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (50:13.87)
opinion.
Um, so I want to start giving information about those kinds of things.
I love that. Yeah, I have an observation and a question around that just to like drive that point home. I was talking to someone, we had friends in town the other day and they were making a comment, not to call out the older generation. this is happening all over the place, but they were saying that a lot of folks in maybe the boomer generation grew up with this idea that you could trust the news. Like the news was legit, but that has shifted a lot over the years.
where news is now entertainment, but maybe for this, lot of folks in this particular generation, you know, there’s still that holdover of, no, the news is news, even though it’s not, you know? so that kind of contributed. That was an interesting observation for me. My question is, and you kind of hit on it with social media, the minute you said, oh, I’m doing social media, I thought, okay, how are you kind of like combating that echo chamber phenomenon? You know, like, are you
aware of that? you like doing it on purpose? Like spread it to different places? Like how do you, how do we tackle that? I wrestled with that too.
Dr. Linda McGhee (51:25.39)
Truth is not a shield against misinformation. This is what I have discovered and this is one of the areas that I personally am studying. And if there’s anyone out there who’s listening that’s a misinformation, disinformation expert, please, please, please call me. Maybe Jeremy and I could do a joint show or something like that on that. you do not combat disinformation by…
just telling the truth, right? If there is a truth, right? But what you can do from what I understand is understand the nature of disinformation and understand that people will say something that’s not true a thousand times, right? And there is a very specific method there. And I noticed that, you know, like some illegitimate sources will somehow
get their information to a so-called legitimate source. And once a legitimate source gets in and reports it, even if it’s later proven to be false, it’s out there in ethos, right? And it’s out there in people’s psyche. So you have to have deliberate campaigns of people, not just me, not just you. You have to have people out there talking about the truth. And I see
And my little bit of social media engagement that’s not business, I see more of that now where people are like, more people saying, you know, that’s just not true. Or what’s your source for that? You know, just challenging immediately before it sort of penetrates. People are challenging these things. But it’s very difficult. And this is one of the ways that social media is not helpful.
Right? Is that, you know, it has been a part of people isolating themselves and isolating themselves physically, isolating themselves. One of the other things that I gave you in statistics when I presented to your group is that more and more people are living alone. And so they’re isolated. And so they get into these groups that kind of recruit them.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (53:48.468)
Young men
And, you know, they become a part of this loneliness epidemic. And people joke about that, I think it’s real. I mean, I know it’s real, and I think it’s a huge problem for future generations.
Certainly, certainly. Can I ask you a question? mean, I just, since we’re tapping into this, yeah. I mean, I just like the podcasts I listen to and different content and whatever. You know, I hear a lot about how young men are falling behind, like living alone, not having relationships. And again, just total transparency. In my mind, I picture young white men, like video games, you know, a basement. Is this something?
that as far as is happening like in the black community in, yeah.
It is, for example, like after COVID, know, college enrollment plummeted at first and then people started going back into schools. it like, for example, African-American males didn’t, right? So it’s not, it’s a factor for, I think all groups, right? You know, and it has many, many causes.
Dr. Linda McGhee (55:06.338)
One of which, honestly, I think has to do with the fact that males mature and the education system is not aligned with that. Two is the, all of us that went to college are encouraging our kids to go to college and not any other options. Right? And we’re urging them to go immediately. So if they don’t do well, which is what happens a lot because they’re not ready,
is that they end up falling out and then you, it’s not just falling out. One client said to me, I just want her to try it. I said, no, no, no, no. If she tries it and fails, that undermines her self-confidence. She’s already struggling, right? So like these trials have a cost to them. I think that we’re not intervening and have interventions early enough for boys.
there was a gentleman that started school in New York and for African-American boys and he started high school and then he realized high school is too late. So they go back and do middle school. So I think that, and also programs that like the community college level. Like I’m, I’m, I’m outside of DC in Montgomery County and there’s a Montgomery County, college that is, you know, well respected, but they have programs to help.
boys make it through. know, they need more support, more organizational support, and we need to train in more trades and how to be a business person. know, because look, your kid may just decide, look, I’m going to be a plumber. And that’s not the end result, right? It’s, I’m to be a plumber. And then I decide in 10 years, well, you know what, after all, I decided I want to do something else.
Totally agree.
Dr. Linda McGhee (56:58.54)
But there should be something for kids who do not want to immediately go to college. And who aren’t, know they aren’t ready to go to college. They know they’re not ready. They know they don’t have study habits. So one of my friends just told me this morning, she said, her son said, even though he went to a prestigious school, he, was kind of easy for him in high school. So when he got to college at a prestigious college, that was a bridge too far. Right?
so I just think that there are global reasons why boys are falling behind. think we parent them differently. you know, I think, you know, they’re, they’re, the education system is not there. The social systems are not there. We just expect them to know what to do. And girls tend to sublimate through achievement. So they’re not to say that they don’t.
struggle with stressors and depression also, but they can, know, generally, because we’re generalizing, they can generally get it done. You know, they can pop the degree off, right? It doesn’t mean that they’re not struggling, right? It’s just that it shows up differently. But I’m, you know, I’m a firm believer that we need to, men and women need to
Right.
Dr. Linda McGhee (58:24.376)
gear a lot, some of our efforts toward making sure that men can hold their own. Like they’re falling behind in terms of college graduations and you know, and then they’re falling behind in terms of graduate, graduate degrees. Right. and you know, even within trades and, things like construction and women are making gains.
Yeah, it’s important. I just have, yeah, we have one of each, right? I have a son and a daughter. They’re both, you know, let’s call it 13 and 14. You know, we’re in that ballpark. And I just am watching.
Time has passed. When I first met you, they were little. huh.
They were little. I know they get big really fast. So tough. But yeah, I’m watching them really closely, especially, you know, our son just around, you know, how engaged is he? Does he feel supported? Does he have friends? Is he hanging out? Is he playing too much video game? You know, it’s I think that’s we got to be aware of this and to bring it back to the clinical part, you know, this is something that shows up in our assessment practices as well. And like we got to be aware of these contextual factors for
how things maybe differ a little bit.
Dr. Linda McGhee (59:39.47)
And how diagnostically, which I think we could kind of turn to this area now, how it comes out in terms of treatment. So you have a young man, he may not be reporting any kind of symptoms that look like a mood disorder whatsoever. But he’s striking out at everybody, he’s angry. And to understand that that’s the manifestation of depression in…
Yeah.
Dr. Linda McGhee (01:00:08.788)
in youth, right, to understand that as a biological basis for making a distinctive diagnosis and not just saying, well, Jeremy, not me just saying to you, well, he’s just an adolescent, that they’re all angry. No, not to that extent, not that long, not to the fact where he’s not doing things that he used to do. So we need to know about cultures and being a boy
and individuating into a man is a culture that I don’t think that we understand given that, you know, given that we could understand it better.
Yeah, I mean, you have thinking about understanding this is we’re circling back, but are there particular frameworks that you like to rely on like in the assessment process? Are you, know, I Pamela Hayes, you know, the addressing model, like this is all, you know, there are ways to kind of approach this whole process. Is there anything that you kind of fall back on?
I tend to, because I was trained dynamically, that’s how I frame my discussions and it’s even how I look at research. But I think like my, and even within that dynamic where I look at sort of an ego-psychological frame, their thinking, their emotions and defenses, their relationship to self and understanding of self.
and their relationship with others, right? Within that context, I look at culture, right? Like things such as, I’m just gonna give you an example, because people always say, give me an example when we’re talking about assessment. And I now, in all my trainings, try to write a paragraph or two so that I can present to people. But like if you wanted to talk about how they relate to people and you have a young man who is,
Dr. Linda McGhee (01:02:11.886)
largely silent and unresponsive in school. Right. You could, you could just say, you know, this person has undergone like a lot of rejection from his parents and is dealing with some stressors, like maybe a parent is incarcerated. And so, you know, and you know, he’s had some run-ins with teachers that, you know, he has perceived to have to raise some cultural implications. Right. And.
You you write about it like that. It’s just a matter of fact, two or three sentences. So this might not excuse, but explain, right? Why he’s unresponsive to you as a teacher, right? And he’s not being rude. He’s just not being responsive, right? And so to understand culture means that we want to be on guard for how we’re characterizing behavior.
Right. And so like, like in terms of an African American boy, like I had somebody say, you know, he’s being rude and this and that. I’m like, well, what’s he doing? Right. And well, you know, he’s just not talking. So, okay. So he’s not talking. He’s not participating. I understand that. And I understand that that’s not cool, but like, where’s the rude. Right. So, know, to understand that.
we look at behaviors based on our own internalized biases, right? And that, you know, this kid is not responding because, you know, various things might have happened to him. Again, we’re not excusing it. We’re trying to explain it to understand the person. And so I am continuing to work on
Ways through through my writings and through writing these book chapters and and I will continue I I I know there’s another assess there’s an assessment book in me when it will come out, I don’t know but about ways that we can start to like normalize thinking through that lens of an acceptance that we all have these biases and that when we’re writing that sentence
Dr. Linda McGhee (01:04:33.516)
when we go back over it and we stuck on that word rude, know, that we can like think about it and just like, and then just holistically telling the story, right? I look at some reports and they don’t have anything about the kid’s interests. They don’t have anything about what they’re good at.
You know, and like to think, are we doing everybody like that? Right? And again, this is not to call out. This is just so I’m saying these things on this podcast so that people can think, how can I do this better? And you know what? All right, I didn’t do that for that. I didn’t do that for the gay kids. You know, I do it for everyone else, but I don’t, you know.
And there’s so many tricky and political issues that we’re all dealing with right now that, you know, like I have parents, I don’t want you to call them by their pronoun in the report. And the kid is like, insist that you call me by the pronoun in the report. So I’m doing a training with Marilyn Montero where we’re going to talk about what goes in the report, how we can look at the kid the most holistically, doing that with WPS in September, I think.
Definitely has
Dr. Linda McGhee (01:05:59.05)
And just like the most compassionate, holistic report writing that gives you the best reporting that we can do, right? As opposed to just writing down X’s, O’s, test scores. Who is this kid? Right? What is going on with this kid? Your kid might be like, I might have missed the fact that he has something tragic go on with him.
when he was younger. doesn’t, you take it, let’s take it out of race for a second. Like there just might be developmental trauma that is not incorporated. And it’s like, how do I write about that? How do I write about it when I know that 150 people are going to see this report? Right? How do I write about it sensitively? How do I write about a, do I write about a person’s race in the testing report? Right? I don’t put race necessarily in a testing report.
And as I say on your Facebook community all the time, reasonable minds can differ. Right? But, you know, I don’t always put it because, you know, like sometimes I would be putting it if the person was a minority and then I would notice I wouldn’t put white. And one of the things that I give Jordan Wright a lot of credit for
is in the chapter that Tanisha Drummond, Shelina Heard and I wrote in his book, Assessing the African American Clients, he put a chapter on assessing white clients as his own separate culture, right? And that does two things. One, it legitimizes the fact that that is a legitimate area of study, right? Two, assessing whiteness. And two, it takes…
the other races out from being the satellite around lightness. Right?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:08:04.536)
Yeah, yeah, that’s such a good point. Gosh, there’s so much we could. I’m so sad our time is up, Lin-Oh, we’re getting out of the time. Gollies go so fast.
I
Dr. Linda McGhee (01:08:14.476)
But one thing I want to mention is that I did this chapter on assessing black clients and Jordan writes a central series on assessing multicultural assessment, multicultural populations or something like that. And we’ll put the correct book title there. And the other chapter that I wrote, I’ll quickly speak on is bipolar. And I wrote the multicultural part of assessing bipolar. And the thing that
stuck out with me is how we tend to misdiagnose the one down population. Like we tend to misdiagnose women, we tend to misdiagnose marginalized populations. So, and we tend to misdiagnose LGBTQ populations. The implications are stunning because you don’t get the right treatment. The treatment is misaligned, the meds are misaligned.
It’s costly in terms of life trajectory, lifespan. They have people that are misdiagnosed oftentimes have a shorter lifetime. The implications of us getting better at this are enormous in terms of the lives of our clients. And so I just wanted to emphasize
that chapter on assessing people with bipolar spectrum disorder edited by the Kleiger and Wiener.
Yeah, and we’ll put links to those, at least to the books, you know, and try to get the chapters. Yeah, yeah. I can maybe add a little closing thought to just to cap that, that, you know, I’ve been deep in this AI world here over the last couple years, and there, when you dig into the research around misdiagnosis and like bias in AI models,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:10:21.064)
That’s a real thing as well, which I think a lot of people are probably aware of. just to highlight that too, this is something we have to pay a lot of attention to. I think moving forward, there’s a big opportunity to do better. Well, I am grateful for you being here as always. And our time flies by. We packed in 17 different topics and made them all meaningful.
Absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:10:50.826)
largely on your part but yeah people I think we’ve talked about the podcast but what’s the best way you know if people want to find you and talk to you and listen to you
you can find me at TheMulticulturalPsychologist.com. And it has its own website. You can sign up to get notifications of issues. You can figure out how to get CEUs from Society of Personality Assessment, my sponsor, and all kinds of things. I’m all over the web. I have a speaker page, a practice page, and it’s under Linda McGee. So you can find me easily and just reach out to me.
Nice, nice, that sounds great. Well, thanks for being here as always. And look forward to the next time that we chat. Take care. All right, y’all, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Always grateful to have you here. I hope that you take away some information that you can implement in your practice and in your life. Any resources that we mentioned during the episode will be listed in the show notes, so make sure to check those out. If you like what you hear on the podcast,
Thank you, Jeremy.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:11:56.982)
I would be so grateful if you left a review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you’re a practice owner or aspiring practice owner, I’d invite you to check out the testing psychologists mastermind groups. have mastermind groups at every stage of practice development, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. We have homework, we have accountability, we have support, we have resources. These groups are amazing. We do a lot of work.
and lot of connecting. that sounds interesting to you, can check out the details at thetestingpsychologist.com slash consulting. You can sign up for a pre-group phone call and we will chat and figure out if a group could be a good fit for you. Thanks so much.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:13:00.61)
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