Navigating Cultural Identity and Mental Health: The Journey of Dr. Pauline Yeghnazar Peck

Christina McKelvy: 0:14

Welcome to Apology. Stories of Hope, healing and Resilience. I'm your host, christina McKelvie, for this episode. We speak with Dr Pauline Gekizar-Pet, a licensed psychologist who specializes in working with intercultural couples and daughters of immigrants. As a child of Middle Eastern immigrants herself, Pauline has navigated the complex crossroads of cultural identity and mental health in her personal and professional life. She vividly recounts her journey from the struggles of growing up in an immigrant household specifically being a daughter of an immigrant to her deep dive into white Western psychology during her higher education, getting her doctorates. Pauline doesn't shy away from unpacking the challenges of reconciling her family's unique cultural experiences with Western Eurocentric psychology. She shares her transformative journey of unlearning and re-learning, replacing textbook theories with insights gleaned from her own lived experiences. She also thoughtfully discusses the crucial role of therapist accountability, emphasizing how understanding one's capabilities can lead to a more meaningful and effective therapeutic relationship. So join us for an engaging, insightful conversation where we unmask the nuances of mental health in the lens of cultural identity. We're going to be right back.

Christina McKelvy: 2:00

Welcome to Hopology Stories of Hope, healing and Resilience. I'm your host, christina McKelvie. Today we have Dr Pauline Yagnazar-Pec, a licensed psychologist out of New York and California. Welcome, Pauline, how are you?

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 2:14

Hi, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us.

Christina McKelvy: 2:18

So you know, today I just want to kind of pick your brain a little bit about your focus, your area of focus, how you came to work in your field. So tell our audience a little bit about what you do and what that looks like.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 2:31

Sounds good. So yeah, I'm a licensed psychologist and I'm physically located in Santa Barbara and it was a long and windy road that ended up with me being here. But even farther back, if I kind of trace the story, I was born in Iran and born to an Armenian family. There we, just a few years before I was born, the entire country had gone through military coup, completely changed regimes and we were in the middle of an eight-year long war with Iraq. So lots of turmoil and so many of my family members extended family members, you know, friends, all of the family, friend and network, especially Christians, who at that time were being kind of persecuted under the new regime fled to either America or Australia or England. So my family immigrated. So I grew up in Los Angeles. That's where my mom's side of the family was. So I grew up in Los Angeles and, coming from a Middle Eastern background where education is so kind of drilled in as a big way to move forward, you know, I moved on, got a master's, had some life events happen, changed to another master's in another field, which was mental health and psychology, went on to get a PhD and I landed in Santa Barbara as part of my internship, which is the last year of your PhD program, stayed for postdoc, met someone, got married two kids later I'm still here. You know, the work that I do is almost like it was a calling and something that found me rather than me find it.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 4:10

Growing up, especially in a Middle Eastern household, I did not think I would ever be a psychologist. I think I wanted to be a lawyer and an actress. I would flip-flop depending on what was going on in my life, but it really wasn't even like a career choice that was presented. It wasn't modeled. Everyone was a doctor, an engineer and not this kind of doctor, you know, like a medical doctor, a dentist, an engineer, a lawyer. These were kind of acceptable things.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 4:35

And it wasn't until, like I said, I was in another program. It wasn't until my mom got sick with cancer, again ended up passing away and me having my own mental health struggles and issues just kind of from my own family upbringing that came about and my own relationship issues that came, that brought up that childhood stuff. It wasn't until my own mental health was something I needed to attend to that I realized there are gaps in what I received and I want to be a part of filling in those gaps. And so the long and windy story of why I do what I do, which is specializing in working with the daughters of immigrants and with intercultural couples, is because my own life story, my own immigration story, my own story of loss, my own story of trying to understand myself, all of those things have really illuminated the gaps that exist in mental health for the children of immigrants that I want to be a part of filling in.

Christina McKelvy: 5:38

So you notice the gaps based off of your own upbringing and your own experience, and that was when you're like I need to help contribute to filling in these pieces.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 5:49

Yeah, absolutely. And I think even before I knew I wanted to help others, I just almost followed where the gaps were in my own life, in my own understanding, and I think that anytime I move forward and trying to figure out something for myself, in hindsight it was helping me develop how to serve others. But I didn't go in to serve others. I was just following my own pain, following my own confusion, following my own identity development. It was like just continuing to be in a place of self-inquiry and self-reflection and seeking to make sense of myself that ultimately has led me to serve others. But even as I was kind of asking the questions for myself, I didn't quite realize in turn that's going to help me support somebody else.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 6:41

And I think that that's probably the same for so many people with their own experience. They don't go in wanting to help people that were just like them. They kind of end up there after being in the process of trying to help themselves and figure themselves out from a pain point, a difficult experience or whatever it is, and then, as you are able to see what works, then I think there can be this excitement and this very natural altruistic quality of then being able to support those that maybe you would have to support others in the ways that you wished there was support for you when you were going through it. And so, again, I don't know if I started out. I never started out wanting to be a psychologist and I never started out from the get-go saying I'm going to help daughters of immigrants. But I've landed there because of my own life experience and because I almost never gave up on my own self-inquiry and trying to support and make sense of myself.

Christina McKelvy: 7:41

Yeah, you mentioned something I think really important. As a therapist myself, you wanted to help those in ways where you were not receiving help yourself throughout your journey. I know for myself, as I was a caregiver and now I want to help caregivers and similar trajectory, and I think I'm curious how your education, getting a doctorate in psychology may have informed your work either positively or negatively, especially working with daughters of immigrants and intercultural couples.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 8:12

Yeah, absolutely, I think that you're so right. I think when we're in an experience and we learn the nuances of it and we're just attuned to what does and doesn't help, what does and doesn't point you closer to a direction of feeling supported, validated and that's more resilient, I think that helps us to create the roadmap for how to support others through it, even if their journey may have very considerable and significant differences than ours. And I think that, while the education that I received was very useful in providing some frameworks knowing the theories, obviously understanding some of the basics of the science of psychology I really don't think it helped in, like you said, how it influenced negatively is like I don't think it helped in really figuring out how to serve my population, because the psychological theories I'm learning or was learning, they're not based in the populations and they're not normed on the populations that I work with. They're coming from white models, coming from white families, coming from white relationships and even the kind of fathers and grandfathers of psychology being white and also racism is so genetic.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 9:36

But that's for another day is like a lot of the things that I learned, as this is psychology, like the canon of psychology, just like you've got the canon in English or history or whatnot, is always going to be slanted and biased, kind of based on the place that you're learning it. So I learned Western psychology and white psychology and yet it was never framed as that, it was just framed as capital P psychology. They didn't say, hey look, this is white psychology that you're learning, based on white Western norms. That was never, ever, ever stated. And so I think so much of the continuing to follow the line in my own life that I was just talking about was kind of saying here I am getting a degree in these subjects, why don't they fit for my life? I'm learning about these theories, why does it? My family look like this, talk like this, and for years there was such tremendous shame and that's part of the. Because I've experienced it, I want to help.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 10:38

I experienced so much shame because, even as I was studying in higher education to become a professional in this, I was still feeling like my own personal life didn't somehow map on to what I was learning about healthy relationships, family structure and even mechanisms for change, and I felt so. I felt kind of like a fraud. I felt like, oh my gosh, this is stuff that I can't talk about or I shouldn't bring this up or I shouldn't ask this in class. I felt a lot of shame around my own family. I felt a lot of judgment around my own family, like, oh my gosh, we didn't talk about these things in my family.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 11:17

I grew up in such an emotionally depraved environment and, yes, I think there were things that were missing, that I didn't even know were missing, and yet there were also things that were just different and they weren't framed as different. So I think that while I got some basics in psychology and okay, this is what depression could look like I didn't get. This is what depression can look like in a high functioning eldest daughter of immigrants. That I had to learn from the clinical and my own life experiences, and it was hard because it wasn't validated by the theory that was in the book. So I have this gap between what I knew in my bones, what I knew from seeing the women that I'd grown up with, and what I was told from the textbooks.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 12:00

So so much of my own journey post-graduation was critically analyzing what I got in grad school, unlearning so much of it and then allowing my own lived experience and the experience of others even without this like valid, legitimized theory. I allowed that to lead the way and I feel like now you know years out of grad school and you know 12 plus years starting the therapy journey, I feel like I'm just hitting that stride of like. Okay, I'm seeing the ways in which what I learned was kind of helpful, but I've unlearned and then learn new things from my own experience and the experience clinically and personally from my life, and I've kind of created this sort of hybrid with all of that. And, like I said, part of my own journey was the shame of it.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 12:52

And I think I felt, looking back, very shameful in my graduate programs and very alone and alienated because my own personal experiences didn't feel like they made sense with what we were learning. And funny enough, you know, looking back and then talking about it with other people in my cohort, women of color felt the same way and yet none of us were talking about that. We have like very, very much validated this unlearning that has to happen Because you know if you're brown, if you're black, if you're from immigrant families, you're not going to be learning about the psychology that feels relevant to you from the canon, from the upper capital letter P. You're not gonna be learning all the theories, all the things that you're told, the legitimate things, all the I'm gonna put in quotes here evidence-based practices, which that's useful for certain populations, but when it's as the standard, it loses the question of for whom.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 13:55

And I think my own experience of feeling like something doesn't fit. I'm learning this, I'm getting good at it. Why doesn't it make sense for my own life? How come I'm not having a haas in my own personal experience? I must, something must be wrong with me, I must be doing it wrong, I must be whatever it is fill in the blank for something negative. That's what I was doing. I was doing that internalized hatred and shame. That happens, and, I think, only when I've kind of realized, oh, what you were learning wasn't relevant to you because it wasn't built for you, and allowed myself and gave myself permission to begin building that with the other voices that are building these parallel, just as important psychologies for non-white populations. I think that's when it feels like psychology got really interesting to me, rather than another tool for self-hatred, self-confusion or internalizing an unworthiness.

Christina McKelvy: 14:48

Internalizing an unworthiness. That's how that shame showed up.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 14:53

Yeah, yeah, something must be wrong with me.

Christina McKelvy: 14:57

Something must be wrong with my family.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 15:00

I've got to change. And then you try and fit the mold.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 15:03

That is not built for you and you don't fit it.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 15:06

And then there's even more shame because it feels like you're failing, you're not trying hard enough, and so I think that there was a lot of that going on.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 15:14

Personally, I was getting all these degrees, doing really well, and my personal relationships were suffering. I wasn't able to really make sense of myself and I hid those things. I felt like I was going through things in such an alienated and isolated way, even though, like I said, talking to other women of color from graduate programs, even if they weren't from mine, many, many, many of them feel this way. So I wasn't alone, but I felt alone, and I think that's what I do right now is so important because, if nothing else, I'm putting out there that you're not alone, and if one daughter of immigrant can hear this and say, oh my goodness, I felt like that, whether it was in business school, whether it was in this school, I felt like something about my own personal experience didn't map onto what was being taught as the standard, and if they can bypass the years of shame and internalize unworthiness and just go to oh I wonder if that's because these are from Western norms that aren't mapped onto me.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 16:12

Let me look at what exists for collectivistic cultures and let me see why I do struggle in the workplace, Like if they can ask that question rather than going into chain spiral. I mean, I think I can feel like my work has been done.

Christina McKelvy: 16:26

It's a full circle for you. Yeah, yeah, Tell me a little bit how you know what your work looks like.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 16:33

I've got so many different hats that I wear. One of the biggest hats is mama. So I've got two young, almost three year old. He'll be three here in a couple of weeks and it ain't month old. And so that is, you know, one of my.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 16:47

It's the hardest work and it's the deepest work, and I think that the more and more I'm in the world of psychology and part of the decolonizing therapy movement, I'm realizing that who you are as a person really matters. And you know, they always say the personal is political and it is. The personal is professional, in the sense that there is no real bifurcation. Yes, my daughter isn't with me when I'm doing therapy, but she is with me in the way that I think, in the way that she's transformed me and the way that my children impact me, in the way that I think about my own upbringing, the way I support other parents, and so I start my day with them, I end my day with them, and so I have kind of changed up my schedule to be really able to be present with them.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 17:29

In the mornings, the middle of the day I'm with clients and I'll tell you a little bit about the multiple ways that I work with clients and then at nighttime I'm out of here in time to do daycare, pick up, to be home, to do the whole dinner bathing kind of nighttime routine and that's really important for me. I think that quite I had kids, I was working a lot more and you know I was able to like work at home and do all of that and I'm more flexible. Sometimes they go down and I'm still working on something, especially in different seasons where you know there is more to do, but I really try and be available and present and because I own my own group practice and everything that I do is really I have a lot of say and agency in it. I'm conscious of how I don't even believe in work-life balance, but I think that you know I work and I am a parent and so they're defensive of being really present and available to them.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 18:26

So my kids are a large part of kind of my everyday and definitely on the weekends. And then I work with clients in a number of different ways.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 18:32

I have the group practice, based in Santa Barbara, providing therapy services individual, couples, group and family with my two associates all over California as well, as I'm licensed in New York and I've got a handful of New York clients as well. So we do therapy both in-person as well as telehealth and my practice is like you know, I'd say two thirds individuals and a third couples love, love working with couples. And then I also work in this kind of more non-therapy, but still focused on healing and psychopsychoeducation. I also have programs that are one-to-one as well as a group program and that is open to women globally. So through that program I get to work with lots of women from lots of different places, which is always so cool that you can be in a different continent and have a completely different ethnicity and a completely different immigration story and still have some of the universal things that I teach and guide through the programs, make sense and land.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 19:39

It's like, oh, this is truly universal, even if you didn't immigrate from Iran to America. So it feels really amazing that I'm able to do that. And then, you know, thrown into the little pockets of the day where I'm in with clients, either through my programs or through my therapy, I've got a bunch of social media stuff that I do, whether it's a podcast, whether it's running my own Instagram page and putting out reels and doing fun things or sharing bits and pieces Usually my musings as I'm walking to and from you know, and just sharing those little bits of those ahas that come to me as I am still discovering all the ways in which being a child of immigrants impacts your life, and so I really share that personal piece. I'm not just a professional. I think even just the way that we set up professionals is very much based in the Western model blank slate, don't tell them anything, not just honoring the full humanity. Like you said, it's like not one size fits all. You have to really think about the individual in front of you.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 20:40

I also have turned that lens in on myself. I'm not just a professional. I am the professional I am, which includes my own life experience, which includes my own struggles, and, of course, I'm not sharing beyond what you know, what would take over from clients or something that I'm working through. I respect what feels right for me in terms of sharing and I only share what I'm comfortable sharing or I've gotten to a place where I can open up about it. But I absolutely feel like my social media is a part of putting out there that you know you're not some blank slate professional. Being you and honoring the fullness of your humanity is just as important as what we give to clients, and I try and practice what I preach in that.

Christina McKelvy: 21:28

And self-disclosure was always, when I was in school, when we were in school taboo. You don't want to self-disclose, you want to be blank slate and I like you. I haven't found that to be helpful. You know clients appreciate when we're human. God forbid.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 21:43

Yeah, yeah, and I think that you know part of that also.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 21:48

It's almost like this is the metaphor that I sometimes use for it it's almost like color blindness and just saying like I don't see color, everybody is the same. It's kind of like saying I'm not a real person, I'm just a professional. And I think what that does is it actually erases bias, your actual lived experience and what you will or will not be able to relate to potentially, because if you haven't experienced it or maybe you haven't worked with it professionally, then maybe you're not the right fit. I think part of this you're a blank slate actually excuses biases. It excuses, you know, the fact that there is a history of the field of psychology not doing right in marginal, with marginalized populations, like even I like to think like even 50, 60 years ago the DSM had homosexuality as a diagnosis, right, right, so we're not 300 years away from it, but within the last 100 years that was a mental disease, that was an illness that you could be diagnosed with rather than like just a natural part of your identity.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 23:00

And so I think that when we say this blank slate piece, I'm just professional and I'm totally equipped to work with you we really you race that there are subtle ways in which racism, misogyny, all sorts of isms get get into the field of psychology and we erase the history of how the field of psychology has not always worked well with, and still isn't working well with, marginalized populations, disenfranchising them, pathologizing them, judging them, not serving them well. And so I think part of the movement to decolonize therapy is also a greater accountability is like, if I know who you are as a person and how you live, what your values are, how you're working on your biases, whether you've had professional training and working with people like me, that's going to actually allow me to have a little bit more safety as a person of color.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 23:50

And so you come in, and especially because coming in means I'm taking a huge act of making a huge step of courage, because your field has hurt me greatly and said a lot of negative things about me greatly and historically hasn't served me. And you showing up as a person, you having your identity be a part of the conversation, is actually part of safety, accountability building and taking responsibility for the history of our fields. So I actually think it's not just like nice. I think it's actually essential for moving forward that we begin to position the therapist as a human. That's actually increasing accountability, making us look at the past, making us look at the history and making us have to call out whether we are or are not, are not equipped to work with people Like I say. I am not equipped Like I'll give an example, I am not to work with substance abuse. I'm not.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 24:47

I grew up in a family that was really religious. I haven't had my own experiences. I don't really know a lot of people that have their amazing clinicians out there, where this is what they know. Maybe they've lived in it, maybe they're in recovery, maybe they've supported people through recovery. Maybe this is part of their pain points for their family. That's not me, and so I know that I even if I could probably provide some space for it learn about it a little bit. I wouldn't be the absolute yes to that, and I like to take on clients that are my absolute yes, because that's when I'm going to serve them best and that's where I'm going to feel like I'm operating in the place where I am optimized and this is like in line with and in flow with what I consider my strengths and talents, and so it's one of those things where I have no shame in saying, oh, that's not, that's not my absolute yes, and so I refer out If someone came in.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 25:40

I just had someone just a couple of days ago in and out of recovery and I support around him and his wife. I'm like I've got a few really great referrals to you. That wouldn't be me, and I think that if you're this blank slate, it's almost like again, you are the all knowing, you've got no biases, you can work with anybody, and it's like on are those days. I think we're working with people that are so much more informed, and culture is a part of that conversation. What do you think about this politically? Have you worked with people that look like me? What are your own experiences with blah, blah blah? Those are questions that are coming up on my intake and I'm so here for that because, again, it's not just important for the client's safety, it's important for the therapist's accountability and owning.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 26:25

What is for? Yes, what are the clients and the populations you are equipped to work with and what are the ones that you're not? And either you go and you get training and you work with it, or you just say that's not for me and you refer out, and that I think needs to happen for the field to be accountable and responsible as well.

Christina McKelvy: 26:45

Sounds like when you are telling your clients like I, really I understand you're increasing that to met with your clients and they can set safety.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 26:53

Absolutely, and I think you can do it in a way that is not all about you, I think you can do it in a way that and that's the thing with grad school like you were saying, self-disposure is taboo.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 27:04

I think so many of the things that I learned in grad school and now realizing they're part of white supremacy culture things like black and white thinking or having an expert on something, having a yes or no, it's either allowed or it's not allowed Whereas I think part of moving away from that is recognizing the grade, recognizing that it depends, recognizing when would it be helpful, when would it not be helpful. It's much messier, but it's so much more applicable to life. So is there a place where you talk about your own struggles, especially ones that you're still working through? Absolutely not. That wouldn't be useful to the client in front of you. Is it useful for me, as somebody who's struggling and feeling like they're the only one that I tell them look, you're in your 20s, you're figuring out your identity development. You're figuring. You know your parents are figuring out how to treat you differently. You're not really seen as a full fledged adult in your culture. I've been there, I know I had my own flight and I know we've got a lot of differences. What are the hardest parts for you? Something like that as a self-disclosure that says this happens to us, and again, you'd have to be in the us, have self-disclosed that you also are a child of immigrants to then begin that conversation. And so I think that there is a way to do self-disclosure in a way that is useful, increasing that attunement, helping people feel less alone, while still, you know it, honoring and acknowledging that we've got very critical differences.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 28:33

I say Middle Eastern, that's a huge population, so many different ethnicities, so many different nationalities, so many different religions. So I can only speak to my experience. And yet I think that when we learn this, like, yes, you do this, no, you don't do that, you're really missing all of the gray. And you're missing most times in those very black and white ways of thinking. You're missing people that don't look like that white norm and come into therapy for this very particular kind of therapy. And so I really, yeah, I really appreciate where things are going now with people saying no, I learned that as a rule. And for whom, for whom is that a rule? And let's ask when would this be useful? For what populations? And those are the questions that I'm really loving. That literally gives me hope about where we're headed.

Christina McKelvy: 29:25

It gives you hope. Yeah.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 29:31

I mean for humans. I think in general we heal in community. We're social beings, we're designed for that and yet anytime we feel that we're different, it's always that we're bad, we're worse than.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 29:42

And there can be such shame in that, especially in shame-based cultures like collectivistic cultures, where you kind of separate from the herd when you're not up to whatever it is, because you don't want to harm your reputation.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 29:56

You want to save face, and so I think that part of not just decolonizing therapy but reducing the stigma for mental health is putting some of these things out there and allowing us to come back together in a community where the greatest amount of healing happens.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 30:14

I definitely did my healing behind closed doors, by myself, alienated, and it's longer and it's harder, and I'm just so happy that people are able to have a sense of community, whether it's physical community or whether it's an online community, social media. I think, whatever the perils, it's a tool and it can be amazing for creating that community for the children of immigrants, and I see the ways in which healing is accelerated when we allow ourselves to be a part of these groups and speak about our collective experiences, even while, like I said, honoring the individual things that might be very unique to you. So I'm really excited to be just kind of a small voice in the many voices that are saying, yeah, this makes sense for me and I want to provide this and joining arms with other sisters, other daughters of immigrants to do this work. We don't have to do it alone. Which, again, is very white and Remembrancey culture is like you have to build it.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 31:18

You have to build it alone. It's only you. It's competition rather than its collaboration, its community, it's healing, it's lifting each other up. That's what collectivistic culture the positives, that's what they offer is us together, us in this healthy kind of dependence on one another.

Christina McKelvy: 31:41

I'm sitting with that for a moment. It's been a theme probably every podcast episode I've been recording and I think I say this in every episode as well. But it's been a theme that community is so important and uniting together, moving forward. And when I ask people, you know, what gave them resilience, what brings them hope, how do they heal? I very rarely have a hurting one to say well, I did it all on my own, pulled up my bootstraps. Have you had to hear that?

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 32:15

Yeah, yeah, we need each other.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 32:18

And we need people who can particularly relate to certain experiences. You know I have a free book club that I run called Cultured, and it's all things mental health, identity for the children of immigrants. And you know we read a few months back every month. The pick that we have gives me so much. But a few months back we read the Good Immigrant 26 stories of different immigrants about their experiences and again, so many differences between me and every single writer that the resonance was there. I think finding the right community is important because if you're going to an all white group, whatever the topic, let's say you're recovering from whatever it is right.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 33:04

It's a group for support for the survivors of sexual abuse. If there's no mention of culture and you're culturally different than everybody else everybody else is white, you're from a brown family there's going to be certain parts of it that are not going to be as useful. Like in Farsi, there's this phrase called mi chaspid, and mi chaspid like I guess the young people today would say, like it hits you know, Okay, like it's technically translated, it sticks, mi chaspid.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 33:35

It sticks and it fixed means like it's hitting the spot, so you can be fed, fed community people, great. Or you can have it like bedchasp. It can be that level of it hits, because the experiences that you're reading in that book, talking about in one of the group programs, talking about with me and individual therapy, you know these feel like they are speaking to the nuances of your particular experience, things that you maybe never even thought somebody else could relate to. I'll give a personal experience. Just a few weeks back on Friday, on my social media page, I always I put out Friday favorite rits which are just like things from the week that made me cry, laugh, think it's like across the board, just things that I saved and I put them out there.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 34:27

And there was one from, I think, the account Persian, and it was like you know, shout out to anybody else whose parent made them do this and it was somebody walking on their parents' backs. So the parent flat on the ground, like face down on the ground, and the kid like walking on the parents' back to crack their back and it just like I almost dropped my phone. My mom would do that would be like come walk on my back and it was something that I literally thought nobody else would do and, honestly, like I've never even talked about it. I never mentioned to a friend and there was probably some part of it that the word that always comes up is like it was weird. It was weird. I never talked about it because it was this weird thing my mom wanted. And here it is.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 35:07

As a 39 year old, I'm seeing this on the page for Persian and the other thing that I follow, saying like shout out to the night. Put on my page. Who else can relate? That's the mother. Women were like me too. I had them do that too. It's like those are the kinds of moments I am still having as an almost 40 year old woman who's been here since she was four.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 35:30

So, you know, if that happens to me, I'm not going to get that from another page. That's a Euro. You know? European American person talking about their family experience.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 35:42

Like they're going to have their own thing. I'm not putting that down. They're going to have their own thing. But there's something different when me, chaspé, and it just hits you differently. It makes sense to you, it's completely tailored to you. That's what I mean by it is designed for you. Those are, I think, the most healing moments, where it's not just a person, because sometimes we can feel lonely even when we're not alone. You can be in quote unquote community, aka around other people, but if they're not resonating with some of the depths of your experience, it's not a everything has to line up. That doesn't even happen in a marriage, you know, it doesn't happen with your own siblings that grew up in the same household as you. But if there aren't those critical, nuanced, subtle, deep connecting points, it's not going to be very healing. You might actually feel even more alienated, even though you're in a group of people trying to heal and that's why it is so important that we have these collective spaces for BIPOC folk and then breaking that down into even further identifications.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 36:47

So that people feel like their particular experiences are really, really seen and validated. That's the kind of healing, the depth of healing that I think has been missing from this. Like we all need people to heal, like, yes, what kinds of people and what is the mechanism of healing. It's like when you are deeply, deeply seen and the parts of you you thought weird, you recognize are just cultural differences from the norms and the standards that you saw I do. That's when the healing happens and you realize it's just different. It's not worse than, less than, and then there's less shame. There's less shame and lesson shame is part of it Because, look, I was in communities, gradual communities, doing.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 37:34

I felt so much shame. I kept feeling like my experience was that weird experience and I wasn't talking about it, because that's what happens with shame. And then, all of a sudden, it was through. I like to say it was through the daughters of immigrants coming to therapy and telling me the things they were ashamed about. That I was like I mean too, and I wasn't saying it to them. I was not saying it to them because I was having my own aha moment as I was doing therapy for them. I was like, oh, my God, that's exactly my. So those things I think that becoming a psychologist, even the process of becoming a psychologist, is really what saved me, because I got to hear people's secrets, the things they thought weird, the things they were ashamed about, and then realizing that's what I'm holding shame about.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 38:19

I've taken those things and I am broadcasting them, as these are just cultural differences, and this is because what we see modeled even in mental health, it's not built for you. So there's nothing wrong with you. You're just culturally different. So you need different theories, you need different ways of thinking about your family.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 38:37

I've got a course on setting boundaries with your immigrant parents, because it is a whole different ball game than just walking up to your mom and saying I have asked you to respect my boundaries, please don't talk to me like that. It's like no, that's not going to fly. Or you're not going to say that to grandma and 78 cultural norms. You're not going to do that because that would be harmful to you, that's not an effective way of doing it. So everything that I got to hear in this sacred, sacred space of therapy, I realized I had those internal things that I was holding so shamefully onto. And in letting go of that shame and creating a space where we can talk about those things. That's where my own healing has continued and that's where I am hopefully part of catalyzing and accelerating the healing for other people.

Christina McKelvy: 39:28

You didn't start off by saying I'm going to start healing others, I'm going to be a psychologist. But now, here you are.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 39:35

I am. It's like I almost feel like I didn't try to run from destiny. But what I truly believe in what's meant for you is meant for you and if you continue being honest with yourself, you continue checking in with yourself. It's like full circle, kind of. At the end of this is like again chasing, listening into, tuning into, following that self-inquiry, that deep connection to self, the questions that you keep asking and trying to answer them. It's not answering that that gives you all the answers, because answering them just hopefully is going to bring up new questions. It's following the questions that are being asked why doesn't this fit? Following the pain points for you, what's happening here?

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 40:20

The more we can be curious in our own lives, we will map out onto where we're meant to be. I didn't have to, and I say that to people who are like where am I meant to be? Where am I supposed to go? What's the right career choice? It's like I don't know.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 40:34

But let's start with developing that voice of introspection, because if you keep asking yourself, I promise you you will end up where you are meant to be and it's not a destination, by the way where you're meant to be. And end up is just the starting point for continuing to go, go, go, go. Life is continuous evolution, but if you keep asking yourself, you're going to end up doing the work that will be most healing to self and other. The ultimate thing is that even though we're so different, we're also deeply the same. So through difference we get to sameness and through self-pealing I get to helping and supporting others. It's like it's all one in the same and that's, I think, finally where I feel like I am in my career, in my life. Oh my gosh, I'm speaking like a middle-aged person, and I guess I am. I'm like in my middle age, 35 to 55.

Christina McKelvy: 41:29

I just found out the other day is middle-aged, so here we are.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 41:33

Oh, here we are. But I'm feeling that I'm like, oh, I'm surrendering to that. I don't have to have all the questions. I think I just have to be curious about and committed to finding the answers for myself, and that will lead me to where I am meant to be. That's part of destiny.

Christina McKelvy: 41:51

Now, that's part of destiny. You had so many really good tidbits that I just like in our differences we find sameness and really just following the questions, I love that. Pauline, my podcast is called Hopology and we are getting to time. I would like to ask this to everybody that I interview, and you have answered a little bit of the question earlier but what gives you?

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 42:20

hope. What gives me hope is this moment we're in where the field of mental health is changing. It's honoring the full humanity of the client at the same time as we're allowing and inviting in the full humanity of the therapist. And in that we are realizing that all personal healing is collective healing, regardless of which side of I say the metaphorical couch, because now even telehealth is changing how we do therapy. But I think it's the honoring of humanity both ways For the person getting therapy and asking how are we serving your particular identities and your particular struggles, as well as allowing the fullness of the therapist to be in the room and not to be shameful, unethical or unprofessional, but actually essential to the work of helping somebody else heal. And I think it is so healing to the client as well as healing to the therapist. And there's that collective healing that I think is sparking something very, very new, because I think that the root of so much trauma and mental illness is deep, deep loneliness.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 43:40

And we are not just lonely when we're not in community with others. We are lonely when parts of ourselves are not validated and supported. So when we are disconnected, when I am not supposed to be this Pauline the Pauline has thoughts, that has experiences, that's had pain when I have to disconnect and disown parts of myself, that's an existential loneliness that breeds shame, that breeds dis-ease, and I think we're in.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 44:13

What gives me hope is we're in this moment of huge potential that I'm already seeing but that has not been fully realized of bringing back those disowned parts and allowing for our fullness of our humanity to lead to that collective healing that we are so, so incredibly desperate for and in need of. So that's what gives me the hope every day, and if I could be one small voice doing it and speaking into it and creating spaces for others to jump into this, that will have been a life well lived.

Christina McKelvy: 44:52

Yes, well, thank you for being a part of this movement, this realization of what therapy really needs to be moving forward, and thank you so much for being here. Really appreciated this conversation and you are so welcome. Can I throw in one other thing?

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 45:10

Of course, another piece of it that I will add is we are not just healing ourselves. We are healing the jet. We are healing ourselves, we are healing the generations past so that we can pass on healing to generations future.

Christina McKelvy: 45:28

We are healing the generations past so we can pass on healing to the generations future.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 45:34

Absolutely, because all the work I do around intergenerational trauma. We hold generations of trauma in ourselves, so our personal healing is not just collective healing, it's also historical healing. It is historical healing because historical healing or historical trauma lives in you today. So healing yourself is collective healing because it connects you, but it's also healing the past and allowing for a healing for the future. And that gives me hope, not just as a therapist but as a mother. So it's just multiple layers of healing that are occurring. Is the work that I'm doing within myself is allowing the healing that my mother, my grandmother and my great grandmother didn't do and the ancestors in my line from the Armenians who were experienced genocide?

Christina McKelvy: 46:22

and so many different atrocities.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 46:24

That's all passed down and to know that that's gonna change and that my daughter, my son and their children and their grandchildren they're not gonna experience that, that really gives me hope. So it's not just a selfish we're having this moment now, it's the look at what the potential is for this generation of people, and I think not just age-wise, but people like you said. With this realization, look what is possible for the future.

Christina McKelvy: 46:54

How it changes the future. Well, thank you so much for that and again, I appreciate you being here.

Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, MA, MMFT, PhD: 47:00

So thank you so much, thank you for having me and letting me just pour out my heart here. Thanks a lot.

Christina McKelvy: 47:07

You're very welcome, thank you.