By Douglas Novotny, PhD
The following article appears in the second issue of “Frontiers in Mental Health,” journal of the Open Therapy Institute. Read the full issue here.
Over the past decades, the mental health field has been taken over by the concept of “cultural competency.” This term sounds like it could refer to the myriad dynamics of culture that shape people’s lives, but in practice, it’s typically code for left-leaning identity politics (particularly race, gender, and sexual orientation). This is a huge loss. When culture is reduced to race or other demographic categories, it blinds us to real human diversity and the complex processes that shape our lives.
Static Trait vs. Dynamic System
Two contrasting models of culture illustrate how each leads to very different understandings—culture as a trait and culture as a dynamic system:
Culture as a trait (e.g., race). This view dominates much of the academic discourse today. Material indicators of culture (i.e., demographic categories) render it a static and concrete trait. This model is shallow and partial in that so much of culture is left out. It can encourage labeling oneself or others in ways that deny human complexity.
Culture as a dynamic system. This view adds depth and complexity. Cultural systems carry knowledge, practices, and values through generations. Culture here is closer to a story than a label. Broader and deeper than any person or trait, it’s the context within which we live. And it extends beyond racial categories, so it could include things such as American culture or Catholic culture (Baldwin et al., 2006; Frisby, 2018; Redding & Cobb, 2023; Shweder, 1991, 1993).
Given that the dynamic system model has so much more depth and accuracy in defining culture, why is the trait model ascendent? It could be that the trait model is appealing precisely because it’s oversimplified and concretized. Society is in flux, and complex models are harder to understand. The trait model could reduce anxiety and distress about this flux and complexity, making culture feel more knowable and controllable—even as it hollows the concept of its richness.
This reductionism resembles the psychoanalytic concept of a “fetish.” Here, fetish doesn’t refer to “kink” but to a fixation, a maladaptive focus on concretized manifestations of desire. Consider the classic example of a foot fetish. Attraction for a whole person collapses into desire for a part-thing, such as a foot. Similarly, today’s trait-model of culture preoccupies itself with part-things such as skin tone or genitals—things that aren’t culture at all, but appearances that are at most partial representations of it. Fetishizing superficial traits can reduce distress and uncertainty, but doing so can erase our humanity.
The Psychosocial Toll
The trait model of culture can cause a number of problems, such as:
It’s reductionistic. Forcing people into procrustean beds of trait labels or body parts blinds us to internal nuance and paradoxical aspects of character. Therapists are now trained to impose racialized categories, even for clients who don’t view themselves or their problems that way. Tying people too strongly to these categories can prevent them from accessing individuality and depth, reduce them to superficial traits, or deny them free will.
It derails human connection. The trait model prominently uses labels such as “Asian” to categorize people, but this can redirect away from genuine human connection. For example, this model grossly oversimplifies the enormous variation in cultures and histories among—and including conflict between—societies in Asia. The label “Asian” equates a young, urban, secular, Marxist Korean woman with an elderly, religious, rural Japanese CEO man, overlooking vital aspects of culture and character that are as important, if not more important, than a shared connection to the Asian landmass.
It impoverishes language. Trait identity labels often oversimplify, confuse, or demean more than they describe or comprehend. For instance, the acronym LGBTQIA lumps together several groups (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual), but it isn’t clear how same-sex attraction (body intact and comfortable) increases comprehension of or affiliation with someone’s gender dysphoria. Thus, the fixed categorical structure of traits is poor. By contrast, dynamic systems are rich and played out in stories where character development and nuance can be fleshed out.
It divides. When identity traits define cultural categories, people get equated with those categories and traits. But this identity politics fuses the thought with the thinker. Instead of a person with an idea to consider, one becomes a mere avatar or representative of group membership, purportedly representing the group as a block. Today, people often begin statements as follows: “speaking as a … [fill-in-group-identity-trait-here].” This conflation of thought and thinker undermines efforts to disagree civilly, because once my idea is fused with my identity, then any attack on my idea feels like an attack on me or my very existence. Thus, the trait model casts group against group, and identity politics culture wars become ever-present and intractable.
Escaping the Culture Confusion Trap
True culture is fascinating and evocative, like a novel, the arts, or cinema. A person, an education, or the arc of therapy can be fruitfully understood in this way. By contrast, fetishized culture diminishes anything or anyone viewed through that lens. No one should be regarded as a mere set of concrete traits, least of all by professionals whose job it is to see beyond—and not be bound within—dehumanizing tendencies.
The recognition of culture as a dynamic system helps therapy in the following ways:
True diversity. Therapists mindful of dynamic cultural systems can more effectively embrace diversity: varied perspectives, intergenerational values, mythic tales, spiritual accounts, art and architecture, families, and other social bonds.
Bridging ideological pitfalls. A focus on controversies such as policing and race can impair treatment if a hot topic detracts from psychological awareness or if there is a perceived incompatibility between the client and the therapist. Such topics are often seen exclusively through a trait-culture lens (e.g., presuming trait discrimination is the one and only explanation for bad events). Therapists can more fully comprehend ideological preoccupations and navigate disagreements by familiarizing themselves with cultural accounts (e.g., Hughes, 2018; Riley, 2015) that acknowledge discrimination while moving beyond superficial trait-level thinking.
Depth of experience. The trait model emphasizes competitive group status (e.g., “privilege”), whereas deeper comprehension is invited in the dynamic system model. A therapist’s duty is to help improve one’s meaningfulness in life, whatever one’s group or status is. Grief stings no less—sometimes more—if one has had good luck in other ways. And the delights of life should be honored, even—especially, perhaps—among those who’ve had too few of them.
Clinical utility. Culturally rich concepts such as “disgust” and “soul” have immense therapeutic value. For example, they can predict suicidality (Rottman et al., 2013). Therapists aware of true culture can more readily explore the concepts of disgust and soul with the many patients who would benefit from a deeper understanding of them. Superficial cultural trait labels lack such depth.
None of this suggests that trait-related cultural labels should be dismissed out of hand. When traits embody deep, enduring meanings, those should be honored. The point instead is that therapists should look for deeper resonances rather than accepting superficial labels or identities as the sole determinant of a client’s cultural experience.
Conclusion
Our society is now gripped by a harmful fixation. It mistakenly views culture as a set of traits rather than the dynamic system it properly is. Thus, psychology has fallen into an identity-politics trap that concretizes and demeans people instead of elevating them and engaging in their complexities. By shifting toward a more dynamic and accurate view of culture, we can avoid these traps, improve mental health care, and help people access their uniqueness, humanity, and depth.
References
Baldwin, J. R., Faulkner, S. L., & Hecht, M. L. (2006). A moving target: The illusive definition of culture. In J. R. Baldwin, S. L. Faulkner, M. L. Hecht, & S. L. Lindsley (Eds.), Redefining culture: Perspectives across the disciplines (pp. 3–26). Routledge.
Dogruyol, B., Alper, S., & Yilmaz, O. (2019). The five-factor model of the moral foundations theory is stable across WEIRD and non-WEIRD cultures. Personality and Individual Differences, 151(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109547
Frisby, C. L. (2018). Viewpoint bias and cultural competency advocacy within applied psychology. In C. L. Frisby & W.T. O’Donohue (Eds.), Cultural competencies in applied psychology (pp. 169–207). Springer.
Hughes, C. (2018, May 14). The racism treadmill. Quillette. https://quillette.com/2018/05/14/the-racism-treadmill/
Paresky, P. (2019, December 21). The tribal morality of identity politics. American Mind. https://americanmind.org/features/you-gotta-serve-somebody/the-tribal-morality-of-identity-politics/
Redding, R. E., & Cobb, C. (2023). Sociopolitical values as the deep culture in culturally-competent psychotherapy. Clinical Psychological Science, 11(4), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221126688
Riley, J. (2015). Race relations and law enforcement. Imprimis, 44(1). https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/race-relations-and-law-enforcement/
Rottman, J., Kelemen, D., & Young, L. (2013). Tainting the soul: Purity concerns predict moral judgments about suicide. Cognition, 130, 217–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.007
Shweder, R. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Harvard University Press.
Shweder, R. (1993). “Why do men barbecue?” and other postmodern ironies of growing up in the decade of ethnicity. Daedalus, 122(1), 279–308. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027159
I love this article! I have not seen any writing previously that focuses on the topic of culture and how it has been dumbed down by social justice fundamentalists. I have a longstanding interest in culture and how it is transmitted through families.
One of the things that the article does not mention is that the "trait model," as it is applied by the SJF's, actually shuts down any discussion of cultural traits. I think John McWhorter has presented the image of "zero resolution categories" to describe what the activists insist upon in discussions of their preferred demographics. Their need to idealize or demonize specific categories of people results in suppression of any facts or details that might introduce unwanted details into the images the SJF's prefer to see. In addition, they prohibit people from commenting on any other group other than their own, while at the same time, insisting that commentary by members of preferred groups are the only valid ones. I imagine that the SJF's experience a lot of dissonance when there are differences among an idealized group's members in how they describe themselves and their culture. A glaring example is the assumption by SJF's that black communities in the U.S. are politically liberal or radically left, despite the fact that many black Americans say they are moderate or conservative relative to the affluent white liberals in the SJF movement.
Hi, I hope all is well. I found this to be a really interesting perspective. Thank you for putting this out there.