Psychology/ Development discussion group

I recently joined a discussion group that talked about psychology and development. I joined it not because I had any concept of the psychology department involved, but because I was intrinsically curious as to what they would be discussing. The topics involve trying to take a step back from culturally dominating conversations and trying to involve oneself on the ground in a manner that works with the culture at hand. We discuss how difficult it is to involve ourselves with topics in the third world where we don’t really have the rubric to involve ourselves in the first place. For example, how do you psychologically evaluate, with our standards, children that have been in refugee camps their entire lives? How do you get the children of war, young soldiers that have been drugged or mentally manipulated, to understand that they can change if they have the chance? How do you help people that have suffered immense hardships to come to terms with themselves and move on with their lives? We just don’t have the resources here, in our comfortable lives, to assert ourselves in that new situation. I guess you can adapt to the environment, learn from your surroundings, and work a new psychology curriculum. But its not so easy to do.

A fellow student of mine also highlighted how the international program at McGill tends to reinforce the idea of “the first world” and “the third world” and how they are separate. Notice that a class in European history does not count towards the IDS program because you aren’t talking about the developing world. How do you expect students to grasp what is wrong with the current system if you perpetuate it in the curriculum and program requirements? Things have to change. Its not “us” against “them”. We are all working in this together… man it makes me angry sometimes.