Reality Test

Psychologists talk RealiTV!
Two licensed psychologists look at what we can learn about culture, societal oppression, social privilege, and ourselves from reality television. Within the context of feminist, relational, and anti-racist identities, Dr.s Kay & Ray address the power dynamics; social (in)justice; intersecting oppressions, marginalizations, and privileges; and sociohistorical context present in numerous, popular reality television shows, while also celebrating the hope and empowerment that can be found. At the end of each episode, a “Mental Health Check-Up” segment offers a brief mental health intervention, self-help tip, or psychology concept for us all to further noodle on. We will include a survey link here in the coming weeks for listeners to offer feedback on other segments we may test out in future episodes. We hope to inspire further discussion about psychological and sociocultural aspects of our favorite reality tv shows, offering rough draft thoughts and ideas for us all to continue thinking about. After all, reality television ultimately provides an engaging format for learning about human behavior, mental health, and oppression—let’s learn together!
DISCLAIMER: In the context of this podcast, we are not acting as therapists, neither for you nor the reality castmates we discuss, in the context of this podcast. We are, instead, bringing in our whole human selves, supplemented by mental health and psychology knowledge. We both adhere to social constructionism, such that we believe all knowledge is co-constructed in the context of relationships and we all have our own reality, informed by our own biased memories and subjectivities. Although realiTV makes us all feel like we know those individuals therein, we do not actually know them. Thus, although we will have opinions, they are merely (easily erroneous) opinions, informed by our biased perspectives, and while we may discuss various diagnoses, we will not be assigning them to those we watch on our televisions, as we are only able to ethically do so in the context of formal psychological assessment. While we’ve developed, over years, our psychotherapist, professor, supervisor, and consultant roles, we are new to podcasting. Thank you in advance for your patience and feedback (e.g., help identifying how our blindspots show up in this context), while we develop our roles as podcasters! Similar to how we see our anti-racist and feminist identities as developing over our lifetimes, we see our podcasting journey as requiring a long road of development and growth ahead. As such, we will value your feedback as we fumble through the beginning of this journey, and beyond! Last, relatedly, we also want to acknowledge that the institution of academia, and therefore the setting within which we were formally trained and currently work, was developed in a white, patriarchal, colonizing context within which it remains embedded; so, we’re constantly working to challenge the biases underlying the knowledge we’ve gained, through ongoing dedication to critical consciousness and reflexivity. This will be an imperfect, but growth-fostering process, and we appreciate your engagement with it and with us! Thanks, y’all.