Training and Education in Professional Psychology

2010, Vol. 4, No. 1, 16 18

2010 American Psychological Association

1931-3918/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0017472

Microaggressions by Supervisors of Color

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Stanford University and Fielding Graduate University
Supervisors of color are not only targets of discrimination but also perpretators. The denial of supervisees identities reveals a lack of respect and empathy, creating significant barriers to a good supervisory
relationship. An area of professional development for supervisors of color is understanding the diverse
identities of our supervisees, who are increasingly multiethnic and transnational. Supervisors of color
also need the opportunity to examine their experiences of microaggressions both as sender and receiver
and reflect on their own identities and how they impede or enhance the quality of supervision.
Keywords: microaggressions, supervisors of color, identity, professional development

I am a so-called mixed-race Asian American, Japanese on my

mothers side, Irish on my fathers. I was born in Japan, raised in the
United States, and have resided in Japan for most of my adult life.
Throughout my life, I have been identified by others in various ways,
at various times, and in various contexts. I also identify myself in
various ways, flexibly and situationally asserting identities as Japanese, American, Japanese American, Japanese Irish American, Japanese and American, Asian American, Hapa, and Haafu in Japanese.
Years of multicultural supervision, as both supervisee and supervisor, have provided a wealth of data that helps me to understand
ethnic minority perspectives. I present my experiences through narrative as a way of contributing to our knowledge of the racial and
cultural dynamics in supervision. Because much of what happens is
subtle, covert, unintentional, or unconscious, we need methods of
analysis that allow us to understand the experiences and psychological
processes at work. I view these dynamics through the lens of microaggressions, a concept introduced to me by psychiatrist Chester Pierce
(1970) when I was a graduate student. He described microaggressions
as small, continuous, seemingly insignificant acts that are an essential
ingredient in race relations. Others have expanded on this work, with
psychologists making notable contributions in using microaggressions
to explain the interpersonal dynamics when people interact and confront issues of race, ethnicity, and culture (e.g., Sue et al., 2007). In
this article, I use microaggressions to examine my racial experiences
in supervision.

The problem, I thought, was simple. White psychologists do not

understand people of color. So the solution was for us to educate
them. But I found out that it is a lot more complicated than that.
I pursued multicultural training with great zeal, going from coast to
coast for practicum, internship, and residency. I met wonderful teachers, some of whom still mentor me today. The training was invaluable
in raising my consciousness, knowledge, and skills in working with
diverse populations, which is still the focus of my work today. I also
encountered some difficulties that I share here, in hopes of bringing
out into the open a topic that I rarely hear discussed. Names and
places are masked to protect the identity of the individuals involved.
For my internship I forsook the prestigious sites in Boston, close
to my university, and chose to get specialized training to work with
my people. I drove cross-country to the West Coast and eagerly
dove into my work. But one of the first psychologists I met, Dr.
Chun, shook my hand and said, So, you want to work with Asian
Americans, as though he was somehow intrigued by the situation.
I was stunned and confused by his statement. Why did he say such
a strange thing? I wondered why an Asian American graduate
student wanting to work with Asian Americans was worth commenting on. Was I supposed to explain why I was there?
This experience complicated my simplistic conception of us
versus them. I thought I was part of us, people of color training
to become multiculturally proficient psychologists who would be
able to teach White psychologists how to work with our people.
The assumption seemed to be that we already knew how to work
with our people, by virtue of some innate and acquired qualities
derived from genes and social experience. But in one of my first
encounters with one of us, I was forced to face the unpleasant
question of whether I was regarded as part of the group. Did I fail
to meet the necessary membership requirements? Was acceptance
based simply on blood quantum, or were there other standards?

But You Look White!

Seeking to expand my multicultural training beyond Asian Americans, I did a postdoctoral fellowship in an inner-city Black community in the Northeast. I was describing my first session with a new
client when my supervisor, Dr. Green, stunned me by asking, How
did she feel about getting a White psychologist? I was at a loss for
words. Was she serious, calling me a White psychologist? How could
I answer such a question? I looked at her with a confused expression,
and she quickly corrected herself. I mean, I know youre Asian. . . .
Then she blurted out, But you look White!
This incident took place more than 20 years ago, but I still recall it
vividly. What happened next, though, is a blur. Memories of most
racial incidents like this end abruptly, with the aftermath flooded over
and buried. I only know that I was unable to respond coherently and
effectively to what seemed to me an assault on my identity.

STEPHEN MURPHY-SHIGEMATSU received a doctorate in counseling and

consulting psychology from Harvard University. He was professor at the
University of Tokyo and is currently on the faculties of Stanford University
and Fielding Graduate University. His research and consulting practice focus
on issues of cultural diversity and mental health in transnational contexts.
CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to
Steven Murphy-Shigematsu, Stanford University, 462 Carolina Lane, Palo
Alto, CA 94306. E-mail: smshige@stanford.edu
16

SPECIAL ISSUE: MICROAGGRESSIONS BY SUPERVISORS OF COLOR

There was another psychologist at the clinic who was friendly

enough, but one day the secretary confided that Dr. James often talked
about me. He calls you the Harvard guy. Hes always asking me if
your clients are disappointed when they dont get a Black psychologist. And I say, No, theyre just fine with Dr. Shigematsu.
Dr. Green and Dr. James later subjected me to a case conference
on an Asian American youth in which each of them based their
analysis on their experience with one previous Asian American
client and an article they had read. They didnt ask me for any
insight, and feeling silenced, I didnt offer any.
At the end-of-the-year party, Dr. Curtis, another psychologist
who did group supervision, revealed her first reaction to my
cohort. Yeah, when I walked into that room and looked around at
your faces, I said to myself, Im going to have to do some serious
educating here. What she said didnt surprise me. That was the
way she treated us all yearas though she knew and we did not.
To her, she was us and we were them.
What had she seen when she first laid eyes on us? I suppose she
saw a sea of White faces. There was a White guy there, Bill, raised by
a single mother in Arkansas. Then there was Ricardo from Colombia.
And there was Louise, a mixed-blood Chickasaw Indian from Oklahoma. Julie was a lesbian White woman. Then there was me. Like the
others, I suppose we all appeared White to her. But besides George,
who was Black, our identities were quite different from what she
ascribed to us. We each had our own form of otherness and were not
nearly as ignorant of diversity issues as she assumed.
What was going on in the minds of these supervisors? I think I
got a clue at an American Psychological Association convention a
few years ago when I was startled several times at sessions on
ethnic minority issues when speakers remarked how good it was to
see so many White people in the audience. I looked around the
room and wondered, how did they know who the White people
were? Were they aware that some of the people they were glibly
labeling as White would not identify in that way?
I am sensitive to these incidents because I am often one of the
people whose identity is mistaken and imposed by others. I know
that these kinds of incidents occur in supervision, even in places
that you might think are immune to them, such as multicultural
psychology training centers. Microaggressions are even perpetrated by the most unlikely people, supervisors of color.

Im White, but Im not American

Supervisors of color most commonly work with White supervisees, a relationship ripe with the possibility of microaggressions.
Although supervisees may perceive supervisors of color as experts
on the minority experience, we also become targets of supervisees
misconceptions and prejudices. Supervisees may judge us as less
competent, challenge us, and resist our authority. When supervisors of color feel our competence and authority being challenged
by a White supervisee, we might respond to these microaggressions by feeling compelled to prove ourselves. We can even
respond with our own microaggressions, which we may also
deliver in situations in which they are undeserved.
When I asked about previous experiences in supervision, Ariane
told me how she had tried to explain to her Puerto Rican supervisor
her sense of dissonance between the way her clients viewed her and
her own identity. She believed they saw her as just a typical White
woman, whereas she identified as Danish or European. Ariane had not

17

come to the United States until adolescence and often felt different
from her American peers and culturally out of place. She painfully
recalled how her supervisor had dismissed her claims of difference,
insisting that she was in the United States now, and the reality was that
she was White. He told her that she had to accept the situation and
even change her behavior to fit with that of a White American.
The supervisor appeared intent on teaching Ariane the important
lesson that there is a social reality of how others view her and there
is privilege that comes with the designation of White. He probably
felt it was important for her to acknowledge how she is perceived
by clients. However, in his zeal to teach her this lesson, he did not
acknowledge that it may also be important for her, and for her
clients, to know that her identity is at odds with her appearance.
The supervisors either or worldview prevented him from acknowledging the gray area of identity in which Ariane dwells.
George was a guy who was unmistakably Black to most observers.
In supervision with me, he mentioned a previous Black supervisor
who had provided crucial mentoring by supporting Georges emerging identity as a Black psychologist. However, the supervisor became
ineffective in Georges eyes when he was unable to acknowledge that
George was anything else but Black. George talked with me of how
he felt ridiculed when he tried to explain that his Irish roots were a
source of empathy with his White clients and confusion with his
Black clients. He told me that he longed for a supervisor who could
see how inside he was also Irish. After all, George had been raised by
an Irish American single mother in a mostly White area of a Boston
suburb and had never known his Black father or his fathers extended
family. He was now purposely working in a Black community, which
brought up considerable conflict for him. But his supervisor could
only see him as Black and showed no understanding of Georges
identification as Irish and how this could raise issues for him in
relating with his clients.

Youre Not Seeing Me

Acknowledging that we are involved in microaggressions, not
only as victims but also as antagonists, is a necessary step for
supervisors of color. When we deny our supervisees identities, we
are re-creating a common situation for them in their lives. The way
in which we define people on the basis of physical appearance may
lead us to make completely wrong assumptions about what is
significant in their cultural background. Race tends to overwhelm
all other markers. We hold powerful assumptions that true authenticity is racial, and even insist that others fit themselves into the
categories to which we assign them. We often emphasize peoples
Whiteness or Blackness, but for them another identity may be
more salient. We can fill an important role for supervisees by
helping them to deal with the reality of their own particular forms
of privilege. But we also need to acknowledge other, less visible
parts of their identity that may be fundamentally important for
them, such as a hidden ethnic identity or sexual orientation.
In trying to understand the identities and worldviews of my
supervisees, I draw inspiration from Erich Fromms (1963) observation that respect can be understood by its Latin root respicere,
which means simply to look at. To me, this means that we show
respect as supervisors when we try to see our supervisees clearly,
not through our stereotypes, biases, and assumptions. This view
motivates me to try to gain more understanding of supervisees
identities and worldviews.

18

MURPHY-SHIGEMATSU

Some of the negative experiences I have had in supervision were

probably caused by the inability of supervisors to see me clearly,
which felt disrespectful. They may have been confused by my
racial appearance and had difficulty placing me in the category
Asian because of their perception that my physical features were
inconsistent with the general image or stereotype of an Asian face.
This confusion was expressed in our relationship, as I challenged
them to expand their conception of what an Asian looks like and
the boundaries of the group of Asian Americans.
I believe that these challenges are common in supervision.
Supervisors abilities and inabilities to understand the identities of
our supervisees greatly affect the content and quality of supervision. When supervisors made assumptions about me that were at
odds with my own sense of identity and group affiliation, it created
a major barrier in our relationship. Not surprisingly, I trusted them
less and disclosed less.
Although each individual supervisor has his or her own personal
limitations, there are also systemic issues at play. We are all part of
social systems that construct imagined communities of monolithic
ethnic and racial groups. We are assigned by others to one of these
groups, given a label, and assumed to have all the stereotypic characteristics associated with that group. We in turn do the same to
others, normally on the basis of no more than a glance at a face or a
name. This process can be smooth when our designation matches the
other persons self-identification. But in my experience as supervisee
and supervisor, it often does not. When we as supervisors remain
stuck in our own essentializing tendencies to divide people into fixed
racial and ethnic groups, we do a disservice to supervisees who do not
fit easily into dichotomies and categorizations and instead overflow
into cultural borderlands that defy simplistic generalizations.

You Know What Its Like to Be on Welfare

Although supervisors of color need to better understand the
developing identities and worldviews of our supervisees, we also
need to better understand our own evolving identities and worldviews. The need for White supervisors to learn multicultural competence is obvious, but little attention has been given to the needs
of supervisors of color. The discourse on how we are victimized by
disrespectful and abusive White supervisees raises the question of
how we deal with these microagressions.
When I was in training, I was surprised to hear Dr. Harris introduce
Bill, a new intern, to the group by declaring, Hes our White boy!
We all laughed, and Bill smiled. He seemed embarrassed, possibly
even hurt, but he knew that this was not his home territory. He knew
that he couldnt respond, Its real nice for me to be supervised by a
colored girl. That wouldnt go over well. But I wondered if it was all
right to make him the butt of our jokes. Was it possible and acceptable
that the supervisor was working out her racial resentments and injuries
through her relationship with this White intern?
In multicultural contexts, such as the training centers I mention,
there may be an institutional culture that provides a place of respite
and refuge from the world out there where one must function as a
minority. In the multicultural context, supervisors of color are the
ones in control, the experts who know because we are the right
ethnicity. We are in our own little world of privilege and entitlement,
where we become the gatekeepers and the authorities. But we may be
confronted by disturbing incidents that complicate this simple picture.

A White trainee told me of an incident in supervision in which she

was describing how she had empathized with her Black client because
she too had once been on welfare. She had said to her Black supervisor, Well, you know what its like to be on welfare. But the
supervisor surprised her by answering, No, I dont. The intern
confided in me that her supervisors frank response opened her eyes
to her own unconscious racist assumption that all Blacks, including
her psychologist supervisor, would have necessarily had the experience of being on welfare. I wonder how such racist assumptions affect
supervisors of color. Are we offended by what is projected onto us?
Do we feel pressured to reveal personal information? Are we tempted
to fulfill supervisees expectations and stereotypes and prove our
authenticity? Do we confront the question of just how native we are
in the community in which we work?
I believe that the professional development of supervisors of color
can be enhanced by risking vulnerability, owning entitlements, and
assuming an attitude of not knowing. In my own efforts at dealing
with microaggressions in supervision, I try to be more self-reflective
in my practice. The more mindful I am, the better I become at
reflection-in-practice in the moment that a microaggression occurs. In
a recent group supervision, I made a statement about Blacks and
noticed that I turned to Bob. I immediately reflected with the group on
why I may have done that. Bob was our darkest skinned male. Was I
searching for affirmation from the person I saw as the most legitimate,
authentic member of the group I was talking about? What did this say
about how I thought of Jim, a lighter skinned member? Why hadnt I
turned to him? Was he less authentic in my eyes? What did my action say
about my own assumptions and needs that are expressed in cross-racial
encounters? How might my own identity struggles affect supervision?
This experience shed great light on the tensions in my development.
Supervisors of color need the opportunity to reflect on their experiences of microaggressions, both as sender and receiver. It greatly
affects supervisees when their supervisors are dealing, or not dealing,
effectively with their own identity issues. We can enhance the opportunities for growth and transformation for all involved, including
clients, by focusing attention on our own identity development.
We all dwell in grayness, some more than others. We all have
otherness, although the forms are not the same and not equal.
Getting in touch with our own otherness is a way of empathizing
with the otherness in our supervisees. The increasing ethnic diversity of people in training forces us to be open to broadening our
scope to include more borderland issues that are multiethnic and
transnational. We are challenged to develop ways of seeing the
world in which race and ethnicity are no longer BlackWhite or
either or but full of richness and complexity in which we may
discover new power and creativity.

References
Fromm, E. (1963). The art of loving. New York: Bantam Books.
Pierce, C. M. (1970). Offensive mechanisms. In F. B. Barbour (Ed.). The
Black seventies: Leading Black authors look at the present and reach
into the future. Boston: Porter Sargent.
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Buccheri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B.,
Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life:
Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62, 271286.

Received November 21, 2008

Revision received July 8, 2009
Accepted July 24, 2009