Label Me This?
I had a lot of conversations and emails after my last blog on gender fluidity.
Thanks for that. There were a few that especially got my wee brain to thinking. One in particular questioned whether we were all making too much of these labels. And if it would be more beneficial to focus on the person and how we feel about them. Shared with a beautiful yet poignant example of a family’s love and acceptance of a trans child.
So I headed to the thinking spot of my favorite boy bear, Winnie the Pooh. “Think, think, think.”
A few scenes from my life flashed with this contemplation. None of them about gender identification, by the way. All of them about the use of labels with some benefits and some cons.
Nearing completion of my clinical psychology PhD program, I worked a 12 month internship at a Pennsylvania state school and hospital for adolescents. I have lots of flashes of memories of that time, both exhilarating and deeply humbling. Mostly, I felt grateful to enjoy the quality training, my likable colleagues, and those often delightful, usually challenging teens.
Getting teased one day by the staff, I was asked if they’d have to call me “Doctor” when I graduated. “You betcha,” I said “even my mother has to call me freakin’ doctor!”
We shared a good laugh and got back to work. As I walked back to the intern office, I realized that I meant it. I was finishing the most challenging 6 years of my educational life and I was damn sure gonna use that hard earned title. Even now, as I recall the challenges of those years and the way I grew, I understand that sentiment. That label was really important as I strengthened my new identity.
I was ready to slap Doctor in front of my name at every opportunity.
When I graduated, the staff thoughtfully gave me a shiny gold nameplate for my desk. I read my name with its PhD caboose with a grateful smile as we all celebrated. “One more gift!” said my coworker as she handed me one more nameplate.
“Call me freakin’ doctor”
You can bet that nameplate went on my desk in the intern office. Then life went on as I left the world of academia and wobbled into environments that would test and mold me as a young “doctor.” The days of handholding were long gone.
Another memory arrived which fast forwarded me a dozen years when I was running a nonprofit agency in New Jersey. Working within a creative model, we helped teens stay out of those hospitals and residential centers so they could heal in community. Truth be told, those centers didn’t want these kids given the severity of their trauma and behavior. Training newly graduated PhD clinicians, I noticed something telling.
These young therapists threw around their “doctor” label like enthusiastic guests with confetti at a wedding.
I understood this. I remembered the insecurity I felt as I entered new jobs requiring competent application of my clinical skills which often seemed shaky at best in the face of tremendous challenge. In supervision, we explored their vulnerabilities and strengthened their skills.
I helped these new PhDs soften their use of “Doctor.” Learning there was a time and place for this label.
Exploring how to use or not use with community colleagues and examine the benefit of this label with clients, in school meetings, and at court appearances. Including how that well-earned term provided bolstering to shaky legs and a nervous stomach.
Relationships shifted when Dr. was followed by a first name or plain old first names were used with protective service case workers who had decades of experience. Interactions with a little labeling thrown in as a descriptor or token of respect kept the focus on the people, not the label.
It was also a time of label dissection to peel off the many diagnosis and rigid opinions about these teens and their families.
Labels carried information, yet unexamined, they often disrupt the potential to experience the (real live) person in front of you. It made better sense to help staff, community agencies, the teens, and their families understand their needs, strengths, and behaviors in ways that defied the demonizing labels they all carried. Examining individual strengths, vulnerabilities, gifts, and skills yet to be developed empowered healing rather than diminishing a person as part of an “undesirable” group.
It was valuable work, this label deconstruction, so the benefit of humanizing reconstruction could take priority.
Another memory flashed of my sweet Dad who tended to use first names with everyone. His doctors, friends, executives, and little kids. I had to roll my eyes a bit when he was seated on the rug in a second grade classroom on Grandparent’s Day. Playing a social interaction game of greeting one another, a wide eyed boy tripped over remembering my Dad’s last name.
“Call me Bob,” my Dad smiled.
Only to invoke the teacher’s rapid instruction to use “Mister.” Poor kid was set up. Recognizing when labels are set in place, for better or worse, there is a time to comply and a time to challenge.
I’ve seen Mister Bob do both with great success
I guess I could say I was raised by a “label rebel.”
So many flashes of “ sweet labeling” in my years of life.
The pleasure of calling friends “Mrs” when newly married or “Dad” when entering the magic of parenthood. My newborn baby being (fondly) called “nosy” when she was a few days old. As a new “Mama,” I quickly corrected that label to “curious” since she hadn’t yet begun to speak and fend for herself. Witnessing the hurt of labels with ethnic, gender, and racial slurs that broke my heart. Or disordered parents or teachers identifying children as “bad,” “worthless,” “lazy,” and “stupid.”
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
So. Not. True.
I’ve witnessed the horrible outcome of verbal abuse in families, schools, neighborhoods, religious institutions, workplaces, peers groups, and self-talk. Wounding can happen when labels intend harm, respectful labels are missed, or a person’s desire for a label/no label is misunderstood.
Perhaps there isn’t one correct answer about how to use a label well or not so well. Maybe, just maybe, you could be “curious” about any label bandied about.
To understand what it means to the one using it or receiving it. Learning what is helpful and what is harmful. You don’t live in an all or nothing world, although many people are “black and white” thinkers. It’s tricky, but this duality, engrained in culture and language, can be disassembled one label at a time.
It’s a slow, but worthwhile process and it begins with one person, one label at a time.
Coming full circle yesterday, a colleague from grad school asked if I had course descriptions he needed for advanced certification. While I couldn’t help him, I realized something important. My Master’s and Doctorate diplomas, rewritten with my married name, were so very important when I ordered them. Leaving that nonprofit agency to open my private practice, I felt a bit unsteady. I figured those diplomas, and all they represented, would give me some respectability as I started over from scratch. My plan was to hang them on the wall above my desk so they’d “have my back.”
My newly lettered diplomas took 9 months to arrive. By which time, I realized I didn’t need to be called freakin’ doctor anymore.
That label was no longer necessary and those diplomas are collecting dust in my basement. All of this “think, think, thinking” revealed the importance of deeply examining those labels that remain, whether they be rigid, fluid, or fragile. Perhaps some are important, others are loosening, and a few are collecting dust in my basement.
I imagine that I’ll be considering those labels I use for you as well. Giving some the heave ho as no longer necessary. And enjoying the ones that remind me of who you are.
You Beautiful Soul, you.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
HeartWarming
News
A recent study examined the impact of mindfulness on “Linguistic intergroup bias” (LIB). University students were asked to describe cartoons depicting various scenarios, such as one adult hitting another. The response could be factual (one person hitting another) or make a character inference (they’re violent). Bias was found when cartoons were viewed as friend (factual descriptions) or enemy (inference). Inclusion of mindfulness (observe thoughts as fleeting mental contractions not part of cartoon event) reduced biased responses. Other studies suggest that mindfulness may reduce stereotypical and prejudicial thinking. Why not try it out? Thoughts are like floating clouds, watch them pass.
