(1) The document discusses incorporating contextual, sociopolitical, and culture-based cues into mindfulness and acceptance-based therapies. It proposes a framework called "psychoecocultural flexibility" which emphasizes understanding the person in the context of their environment and culture. (2) The framework focuses on the ongoing transactions between a person's psychological processes, their socioecological environment, and their sociocultural patterns. It also outlines six processes for applying this framework, such as "Staying Woke" to contact the present moment with full awareness of one's experience in context. (3) The document argues that acceptance-based therapies need to engage more directly with issues like social injustice, oppression, and

1. Incorporating Contextual,
Sociopolitical, and Culture-
Based Cues in Mindfulness
and Acceptance-Based
Therapies

2. Shelly P. Harrell, Ph.D.
Pepperdine University
Psychoecocultural Flexibility:
A More Explicit Culture- and Context-
Consciousness for Acceptance-Based
Therapies

3.  Psycho: Biopsychorelational Processes
◦ Multiple interacting person processes (e.g., cognitive,
affective, somatic, etc.)
 Eco: Socioecological Contexts
◦ Multiple environmental levels of analysis (e.g.,
organizational, social networks, institutional,
sociohistorical, geopolitical)
 Cultural: Patterns of Knowledge, Meaning, Behavior
◦ Multiple, intersecting dimensions of sociocultural
diversity
My Lens: “Psychoecocultural”
(Harrell, 2014; 2015)

4. The multiple organizing systems of knowledge, meaning
and daily living shared among a group of people that
consists of patterns of:
◦ Being (understanding of “self”, experiential processes, identity, “rhythms”)
◦ Believing (values, meanings, and worldview)
◦ Bonding (attachment, interpersonal, and relational processes)
◦ Belonging (community and group processes)
◦ Behaving (actions, customs, daily living)
◦ Becoming (transformation and change, healing)
which result in ways of interpreting reality, acting in the
world, relating to others, and are embedded in the
ideological and institutional structures of the group
Understanding Culture

5.  Basic Principle of Multicultural and Community
Psychologies:
◦ The person cannot be understood outside of culture and
context
 The three systems are ALWAYS in ongoing transaction
◦ PERSON
◦ ENVIRONMENT
◦ CULTURE
Person-in-Culture-in-Context Transactions
(Harrell, 2015; 2017)

6. Kashdan and Rotterburg (2010): “definitions of
psychological flexibility have to incorporate
repeated transactions between people and their
environmental contexts” (p. 866)
Congruent with ACT and functional contextualism:
focus is on the “act-in-context” and the notion of
attending to the behavior of the whole person in
historical and situational context.
Intersections of Multicultural Psychology
and Acceptance-Based Therapies

7. “The process of contacting the present moment fully
as a conscious human being and persisting or
changing behavior in the service of chosen values”.
 Acceptance and Mindfulness Processes
◦ Contact with the present moment
◦ Become more fully conscious and open to experience
◦ Non-avoidance of internal experience
◦ “Unhook” from conceptualized self
 Commitment and Behavior Change Processes
◦ Change/Persist in committed actions
◦ In the service of chosen values and a meaningful life
PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY

8. PSYCHOECOCULTURAL FLEXIBILITY
The ability to contact the contextualized present
moment with full and open consciousness, and
engage intentionally in actions informed by
experience-in-culture-in-context in the service of
guiding values and wisdom toward optimal
functioning and transformation at individual,
relational, and collective levels of analysis.
Revisioning Psychological Flexibility

9. (1) Stay Woke
(2) Keepin’ it Real
(3) Free Your Mind
(4) Remember Who You Are
(5) Walk Your Talk
(6) Make a Way (out of no way)
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Processes
(labeled to resonate within an African American cultural context)

10. (1) Contacting the present moment with open awareness towards becoming
fully conscious of the wholeness of experience-in-culture-in-context (i.e.,
Stay Woke)
(2) Non-avoidance of the ‘what is’ of unpleasant, unwanted, uncontrollable, or
unjust experience and conditions (i.e., Keepin’ it Real)
(3) Connecting with the transcendent-observing “self” to deconstruct and
emancipate from oppressive labels, constructions, and processes (i.e., Free
Your Mind)
(4) Identification, exploration and clarification of resonant cultural wisdom and
context-informed values that illuminate life directions in personally and
contextually responsive ways(i.e., Remember Who You Are),
(5) Engaging in meaningful, congruent culture- and context- conscious creative
committed action emerging from guiding values/wisdom (i.e., Walk Your
Talk)
(6) Active empowerment and intentionality to maintain, persist, shift, change, or
cease behaviors in the service of personal values and/or collective well-being
(i.e., Make A Way)
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Processes

11. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains.
Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn
come before changes in society. –Gloria Anzaldua
Psychoecocultural Flexiblity Process #1
aka: “Stay Woke”
Draws from the core process of Contact with the Present
Moment emphasizing the inseparability of person and
environment in human experience.
Contacting the present moment with open awareness
towards becoming fully conscious of the wholeness of
experience-in-culture-in-context
Experience-in-Culture-in-Context

12. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it
is faced. ~James Baldwin
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.“
-Holy Bible, John 8:32
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Process #2
aka: Keepin’ it Real
Draws from the core process of Acceptance emphasizing
the importance of facing the realities of social injustices.
Non-avoidance of the ‘what is’ of unpleasant,
unwanted, uncontrollable, or unjust experience and
conditions
Unjust Experience and Conditions

13. “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our
minds.” -Bob Marley, Redemption Songs
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the
oppressed” –Steven Biko (South African Activist)
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Process #3
aka “Free Your Mind”
Draws from the core processes of Defusion and Self-as-Context
emphasizing the process of internalized oppression.
Connecting with transcendent-observing “self” to deconstruct
and emancipate from oppressive labels, constructions, and
processes
Oppressive Labels and Processes

14. “Don’t let nobody turn you around.” –African American Spiritual
Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
~Victor Hugo
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Process #4
aka: “Remember who you are”
Draws upon the core process of Values emphasizing the
inclusion of cultural wisdom (accessed experientially through
songs, poetry, proverbs, quotations, etc.)
Identification, exploration and clarification of resonant
cultural wisdom and context-informed values that illuminate
life directions in personally and contextually responsive ways
Cultural Wisdom and Context-Informed Values

15. “The time is always right to do what is right.” -Martin Luther King, Jr
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. John F.
Kennedy
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Process #5
aka Walk Your Talk
Draws upon the core process of Committed Action
emphasizing the role of cultural context in activating values.
Engaging in meaningful, congruent culture- and context-
conscious creative committed action that moves in the
direction of guiding values/wisdom
Culture- and Context- Conscious
Committed Action

16. “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but
whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in
any direction you choose. –Dr. Seuss
Psychoecocultural Flexibility Process #6
aka- “Make a Way” (…Out of No Way)
Draws upon the core process of Committed Action
emphasizing the importance of activating empowered and
empowering movement, as well as consideration of the
greater good.
Active empowerment and intentionality to maintain, persist,
shift, change, or cease behaviors in the service of personal
values and/or collective well-being
Empowerment

17.  Acceptance-based therapies meet “the world”
◦ Lillis & Hayes (2007) pilot of utilizing ACT in prejudice reduction in a
classroom context
◦ Masuda et al (2009) study of an ACT workshop targeting mental
health stigma
◦ Studies by Roemer, West, and Graham looking at the role of values,
mindfulness, and acceptance processes in the experience of racism
◦ Biglan (2015) discusses application of CBS within a public health
perspective that is concerned with reducing toxic environments and
promoting nurturing environments
 Example: interpersonal coercion as producing psychological inflexibility
through avoidance
Some bridges

18.  Our diversity is one of the most intractable challenges to
humankind with seemingly unending examples of how it goes
wrong
 Avoidance is at the core
◦ Avoidance of our differences
◦ Avoidance of facing injustice
◦ Avoidance of our collusion and participation
◦ Avoidance of inferiority feelings
◦ Avoidance of our avoidance!
 True inclusion and improvement of intergroup relations requires
sustained engagement with anxiety and uncomfortable emotions
◦ Willingness to get out of comfort zone
 So much potential for applying Acceptance-based Approaches!
Cultural Diversity & Experiential Avoidance

19. Contact:
Shelly Harrell, Ph.D.
shelly.harrell@pepperdine.edu