Hi. I'm Yael (pronounced Yuh-elle). I seem to have spent my life sticking up for myself. As Jewish children in Hobart in the 1970s, my sister and I were an oddity. One child asked me if Jews were "those people who wear leather jackets and ride motorbikes". No one I knew had met practising Jews before. On the first day of high school at PLC, Mrs Rowntree -bedecked in cloak and mortar board cap - instructed us to each in turn stand at our desk and introduce ourselves by stating what our father did for work and what our religion was. (1980 Hobart!) My heart was pounding so hard that I wasn't sure I would be able to speak when my turn came. I whispered to my neighbour, "I'm scared to say my religion. I'm Jewish!" To my utter amazement, she replied, "So was my grandma." This strengthened me and I shakily introduced myself. 

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Being Jewish hadn't mattered as much in primary school. I was teased relentlessly because I had certain unsavoury habits and because I simply never understood what the other kids meant when they made snide jokes or childish attempts at innuendo. I played with the boys and was adopted as a mascot by the school bully, so I was safe. 

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High school was different. There were no boys to run around with and my less-than-stellar academic efforts started to draw more criticism from teachers. Thus began my complicated career in stigma management; I became the kid with great school spirit who was always happy and involved. 

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My social-communication style and other AuDHD traits.

My body that defied diet-culture's dictates.

My Jewishness and post-Holocaust trauma history.

Divorced single mother in a community where divorce wouldn’t be accepted for another 2o years.

Marrying outside my faith.

My career identity.

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Yes, in many ways I have found being a psychologist to be isolating and othering, not the actual job, but the constructs that the discipline of psychology has built around itself. In an effort to be a medical science, Psychology has created artificial boundaries and hierarchies around itself. I, being Autistic, took these very literally and was very strict about ensuring professional boundaries were maintained. When I had a toddler and newborn twins, I denied myself the support of the Multiple Birth Association playgroup because there "might" be clients there. I didn't take my children to local events in case there would be clients. Then there were acquaintances who would act as if they were close friends just because they trusted my ability to listen empathically and maintain confidentiality. I fell for those overtures of friendship hook, line, and sinker. Then there was the time a neighbour saw me lose my temper at one of my kids. She later commented that she'd been surprised to see me, a psychologist, losing my temper. Maybe it was my Autistic tendency to take things seriously and literally but I avoided people who knew me when I was out with my kids. I didn't want to be held a to high standard and found wanting. 

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This is just the bare bones of my personal relationship to stigma, exclusion, and being Othered. I could write a book about the intersection of being a fat, AuDHD, Jewish, psychologist. Without a doubt, the othering of my body size is the most discriminatory and harmful whilst the invisibility of being a White-passing Jew is the most insidious of "isms", forever gaslit by those who don't know our history and don't understand generational trauma and epigenetics. 

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So it should make sense that I have fretted for three years over the vulnerable position of my Autistic colleagues and that as I moved more and more into disability spaces professionally, I began to fret over the edging out of Psychology from these spaces. 

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For three years I have supported literally thousands of psychologists to show up authentically in their personal and professional lives, as neurodivergent and/or as affirming mental health clinicians dedicated to decolonising our discipline. I have done this in closed professional spaces and am ready to bring these efforts out to the public, another step towards humanising our profession. If you think this is not necessary, consider the fact that not so long ago the president of our then-peak body instructed psychologists not to discuss our concerns about our profession publicly as it would bring the industry into "ill repute". Even nurses, the profession expected to act like nuns and suffer for their calling, even nurses eventually unionised. But we psychologists were told to stay quiet. 

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Yeah, not me. That's like a red rag to a bull. 

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So here we are. 

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AAPi has stepped into the arena and advocates for psychologists admirably. I am a proud member of Australian Association of Psychologists, Inc. (AAPi) and I am on the Steering Committee for the AAPi neurodiversity interest group. Although not affiliated in any way with AAPi,  I hope LOAPAC can compliment their efforts for this subset of the community.  LOAPAC is here for Autistic psychologists and the psychologists who want to work with us and support our neurokin.