Lions at the gate: How weaponization of policy prevents people of colour from becoming professional psychologists in Canada.

Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne, Vol 64(4), Nov 2023, 335-354; doi:10.1037/cap0000352The purpose of this article is to shed light on how weaponized policy supports a system designed to exclude racialized individuals from becoming professional psychologists, contributing to the undersupply of mental health care providers, which in turn contributes to a mental health crisis in Canada. We first describe the origins of the current shortage and lack of diverse representation in professional psychology and conclude with a list of recommendations to dismantle historic and unjust policies. As explicit racism became more stigmatized over the decades, policy tools evolved to become more abstract and give the veneer of fairness while maintaining the original exclusionary outcome. Weaponized policies are part of a much-used but little-examined structural toolkit that serves to disenfranchise disempowered groups. We illuminate the history and adoption of these policies with examples, show how they were explicitly created to prevent people of colour from gaining power through education, and how they protect existing racist systems. The absence of historical perspective in training gives aversive policies plausible deniability, making structural change difficult. These policies have metastasized and become entrenched, persisting covertly in a multitude of policies and procedures that continue to strangle educational opportunities for people of colour and deprive Canada of diver...
Source: Canadian Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research