​​​            During my third year at UC and within the University Honors Program, I experienced significant growth, reaching towards my goals in ways I hadn’t before. My academic writing and research skills were particularly honed this year, as I gained a research assistantship position in a clinical psychology setting. This experience allowed me to see the real-world impact of psychological research and how such work is conducted and analyzed. Having known for several years that I wanted to enter this field, I initially believed that it involved honest and ethical business for all people involved. However, I realized that the truth was a bit more complicated than this.​

            The most significant complex problem I encountered this year was the manifestation of injustice within clinical settings, specifically concerning individuals with disabilities, which are supposedly buttressed with ethical standards and practices. My Critical Contextual Analysis (CCA) project in the Honors seminar, Disability and Social Change, brought this into view for me. The core issue I looked at was the over-prioritization of research protocol in psychological practices, so much so that the well-being of the participant is compromised as a result, which I witnessed firsthand.

​            Seeing how systemic biases could lead to ethical concerns and a loss of humanity, even within a research context aimed at understanding neurodevelopmental disabilities, was greatly unsettling to me. It forced me to reconsider my own position in regard to disability and see how deeply ingrained norms can perpetuate such inequality. My observation was that there is a dominant perspective that is rooted in strict adherence to protocol and an implicit bias valuing the purity of a set of methods over participant needs. This experience was an example of how ethical principles could be compromised in practice, which mirrors how historical scientific “rigor” often disregarded human concerns in its pursuit of biased “truths”, something we learned in the seminar.

            Learning more about this issue was difficult because I was simultaneously in a psychological research setting that perpetuated this injustice while also in a course that was looking at disability from a social justice standpoint. The dissonance for me to witness situations where research protocol seemed to overlook the participant’s sensory needs and then study disability through a critical lens was really interesting for me. The main way I leaned into this problem and learned more was simply through writing our final paper, the CCA. It gave me a framework with which to fully investigate the situation and apply our readings and analyses accordingly, fully understanding why it was an injustice and how it came about.

            Intrinsic to our CCA was a change plan, in which we outlined actionable change that we could do as soon as possible in order to take a stand against the injustice. My plan focused on changes in practices and policies within these institutional settings, such as the university psychology department and clinical research office. I outlined goals to promote equity and change practices that were originally rooted in ableism and the historical construction of disability as a deficit. I also outline an aim to advance the valued roles of these participants, directly confronting the negative representations of individuals with autism (with whom I primarily work with in my research experience) as passive subjects. This includes leadership roles by those with disabilities and advocates, because centering these voices and lived experiences is needed if long-term change and challenge of historical power imbalances is to be made.

            Overall, this year was marked by the incredibly impactful and eye-opening Honors seminar that I took, DS 2100. The main social justice issue was identified as I was taking this class within a setting I wanted to go into for my career. The process of analyzing the problem and being able to talk about it while understanding the history and context of disability studies has not only made me a stronger academic, but a more empathetic person as well. It made me rethink my purpose as a future provider and advocate for those with disability, where instead of simply acquiring clinical skills, my focus is now more on actively challenging the systems and dominant perspectives that perpetuate injustice.

​​