Speech and Language Therapy radicalised me

-Mariam Malik

I have been a Speech and Language Therapist for nearly two years and since completing my post-graduate course I have slowly grown in confidence, enabling me to unpack the experience. Growing up as an ethnic minority in Britain meant navigating my ‘home culture’ versus the ‘dominant culture’, which was something that has been part of my experience for as far as I can remember. Code switching, culture-switching etc. was and continues to be my normal. It wasn’t until I sat in a lecture theatre on my first day of my Speech and Language Therapy course, that these differences dawned on me. I had never experienced being in a space where I couldn’t see one single person of colour in the sea of faces around me; I suddenly became hyper-aware of my inter-sections; my brownness, my muslimness, my working classness, my otherness. Experiences that I actually did not have the vocabulary, the emotional resources or frankly the confidence to fully articulate and engage with. This began to manifest in my life in different ways, my mental health certainly suffered, I experienced symptoms of anxiety frequently. In the interactions that I had with people, I recognised that the majority had probably never really socialised with people who weren’t like them, an idea that was later confirmed by some of the white females I befriended on the course. The gap that I always felt in my social and cultural capital was as such confirmed, I was at a stage where I required some sort of affirmation, in order for the experiences to feel valid.

I think navigating this whilst also being a visible Muslim (I used to wear the headscarf at the time), certainly exacerbated this experience. Experiences that peers and colleagues, from their perspective reported as being ‘supportive’. For me, it felt completely the opposite. For example, I recall leaving a supervision session with a clinical tutor at university and going to the bathroom to have a good cry, whilst shaking. What was supposed to be an opportunity for me to reflect on my clinical skills and act as an open space, quickly turned into an ‘exam like’ situation, I was questioned and interrogated about my therapy skills (this was within my first year of the course). The list of things I could ‘improve’ was as long as the page and only in the last two minutes did the tutor realise there were no ‘strengths’ and asked me to think of some, she had been a lot more forthcoming with the areas for improvement than any sort of encouragement or positive feedback. This tutor later visited me on placement and appeared completely shocked, lost for words even when was met with positive feedback from my then practice educator.

Clinical tutorials were a particularly traumatic experience, I quickly began to loathe the fact that attendance was mandatory. I felt different, saw things differently and I’m certain I was seen as different. I was always the only brown face in the room, therefore representing, whether I liked it or not. I was introduced to the understanding that there is overlap in themes around social deprivation, and vulnerabilities, which leads to communication difficulties. I could see people I knew, people I could relate to, represented in these facts and pieces of information. In clinical tutorials I would explore themes of social discrimination, poverty, of how my, and our, positionalities were impacting our practise, this was only ever met with annoyance. So, I stopped trying to have those conversations and attempted to blend in instead; no easy feat I tell you. I found the lack of socio-political knowledge and nuance among the people that taught me to be so incredibly boring, and also deeply alarming, if I’m honest. Political apathy is either for the privileged or the ignorant. Working with people with communication difficulties by its very definition, means working with some of the most vulnerable in society. I was left wondering what does advocacy for the vulnerable look and feel like in this profession?

Very quickly I became achingly aware that I simply did not fit the mould of a Speech and Language Therapist. I think for so long the profession has been represented by a very specific group, that to now comprehend and make space for a different type of therapist, is a challenge on a number of levels. We should be honest about this. It was clear that my presence made some members of staff teaching me deeply uncomfortable, it was very clear in the subtleties. My understanding is that they were triggered by my presence in this space. And it was clear to me that that they did not have the tools nor the desire to comprehend their own biases. Possibly also not the opportunities as there were very few students who were black or brown.

I think being an empath added significantly to my experiences, as there were very few people of colour on the course, we had a tendency to gravitate towards one another and share our experiences. Over the two years of study and since, I have heard from a number of peers and from colleagues who, in safe spaces, are candid in sharing their experiences. All of which I absorbed and took up as my own. I have lost track of the amount of conversations I have had regarding being comfortable in asking for help or not, or which members of staff have the potential to be more receptive to the ‘black or brown struggle’ and which were to be avoided. We questioned ourselves on everything, whether the micro-aggressions we were facing were in fact deemed racist at all? Or would it be better to call it discrimination as that’s the politer thing to do? How to manage challenging our supervisors and practice educators; or why her feedback always feels so personal? Am I imagining it? Why is it that the re-sit groups seem to be formed of so many non-white students? It’s hard when the people in question generally appear to be well-meaning and ‘nice’, whilst exhaustingly unaware.

Over the next 2 years I was set up with the challenge of working through this identity crises of sorts, whilst also trying to pass this really intense course. Whilst I dealt with all of this in my own head, my grades plummeted, passing was the goal. The only thing that stopped me from dropping out were my positive experiences on placement. Whether this was actively acknowledged or not, being able to be in a space where my diversity was my strength to own, became the saving grace. I felt empowered by the realisation that although the course was one of the most confronting experiences of my adult life thus far, I was certainly adding value to the workforce. On placement, the brown parents who couldn’t speak English would look to me for comfort and reassurance when I was the least qualified in terms of actual credentials in the room, which was a bewildering experience. What added to the challenge, was that I needed to actively realise this for myself, and champion myself through this. There was no space for exploring the impact of my differences on my clinical practice in a celebratory way, nor through supervision at university, or on placement. Although I’ve never wanted to be a diversity hire, this remains an interesting realisation for me on a personal level. I think as a profession we aren’t really sure what to do with difference. I think we probably would go with the old chestnut, ‘we don’t see colour/ difference, we’re all the same’, a point of view which frankly only those with (white and possibly class) privilege have access to.

I came from a migrant community which was beginning to find its voice with regards to political dissent. I was acutely aware of views and experiences in relation to, for example, the Prevent agenda, all of which were negative. All of these layers have a serious impact on the mental health of individuals and a macro trust within communities. As a trained health care professional, was I going to enforce a policy which I knew just enough about to understand it was harming more than helping, largely people who looked like me? What exactly was I signing up to be a part of?

Identity formation is a complex process, although there might be some commonalities, it is generally going to be a unique journey for each individual. I think on reflection I understand that parts of this experience will just be a reflection of where I was at, on my journey as a young adult in making sense of the world around me and my place in it. My experience was that I was never just representing myself, I was representing my brown-ness as well as my muslim-ness. To be mediocre was to fail, the pressure of which meant I barely passed. The dominant narratives that my peers and lecturers had access to, were frankly not particularly affirming ones, a fact of which I was acutely aware. I was taking up space in this very white world, one of the very few people of colour, did I deserve this spot? Was I good enough for it? For the first time in my adult life I realised the wider social and political narrative was having a very real and direct impact on my experience, perception of myself and how I was perceived more generally. My lecturers and people who were assigned with the task of supporting me through this experience simply did not have access to this experience. At no point through my training and study, did I feel represented by any of the people teaching or supporting me- or at least that I am able to readily re-call. I could not relate to them and I know they couldn’t relate to me and my experiences either. I remember starting my first job and when met with a brown skinned hijab wearing manager, although I had very little actual contact with her, I felt represented and safe.

These experiences by no means end with the student experience, but that’s another conversation. I write this as a cathartic exercise. But I hope to also contribute to the conversation in understanding the blind-spots in the structures within the profession, which may or may not have a very real and direct impact on diversifying the profession.

*Originally published on 13th August 2019 on authors personal blog