Who are you?
My name is Amanda Muñoz-Martínez. I’m currently doing my clinical internship in the Counseling and Mental Health Center at The University of Texas at Austin. I’m also a last year student in the doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Nevada-Reno.
I identify as a Latina woman from Colombia. My identity as woman has been particularly important over my life. I have had extraordinary women mentors, starting with mom. To honor her, I decided keeping her last name (Martínez). So, when people ask me about my two last names, I always have the opportunity of describing the role of my mom in my life and other important women.
What got you started in the field?
I have been always fascinated by people’s behavior. I remember myself reflecting on why people make decisions even though these might lead them to a negative end. Coming from Colombia, a developing country, where social problems abound, I remember discussing in our family reunions the social inequalities with which we had to deal, and during out reunions we would end up saying “that is what we have and it is never going to change.” However, I never could accept that our situation couldn’t change because I witnessed how my parents were able to change the course of their life by working hard pursuing their goals. They both came from rural areas where the violence and the political corruption took the wealth of their families away, requiring that they migrate with their hands empty to the big city to start a new life. I remember seeing the effort they put to make our life conditions better. I remember thinking to myself, if my parents were able to change their lives, maybe I could help to change another people’s life for better.
My parents’ example also fostered in me a unique sense of responsibility. They always encouraged me to observe the circumstances that led me to behave in different ways and take responsibility for the consequences of my actions without blaming myself or others. They cultivated in me a sense of mutual responsibility by identifying the relation between individuals’ behaviors and their contexts.
Growing up in this environment planted the initial seeds for my interest in understanding individuals’ behavior and helping others to achieve a meaningful life, which inevitably led me to study psychology. During my undergraduate years, I was attracted to behavioral psychology because the core assumptions of this perspective fit nicely with the values I was taught at home and provided me with a rationale that strengthens my belief that people can change under the appropriate circumstances. Later, on my master’s in clinical psychology, I got in touch with verbal behavior and relational frame theory. I was encouraged by my mentors to analyze and explain the behavior of typically developed individuals based on contextual behavioral approaches. This process was open-eyed, I discovered the role of rules and poor socio-verbal communities in the acquisition and maintenance of psychological problems while learn to implement process-based interventions such as FAP, ACT, and behavioral activation to aid clients’ functioning better in their world.
How did you get connected to the ACBS community?
I’m coming from a master’s program with a strong emphasis on the relationship between philosophical principles and clinical practice. While I was in my master’s at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Colombia), my mentors Monica Novoa-Gómez Ph.D and Blanca P. Ballesteros, M.S. invited me to a study group in contextual behavioral science. At my first year, I studied the basic principles of relational frame theory and their relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In my second year, Monica recommended me to read the first published book of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP). She believed I would feel fascinated by their approach to the therapeutic relationship and its emphasis in the present moment. She was right! After reading the first three chapters of this book, I was in love with FAP. I wanted to know everything about its principles and applications. This led me to contact Mavis Tsai Ph.D., who was my first contact with the English-speaking community in the ACBS. Mavis was strongly supportive and encouraging. She recommended me to contact Jonathan Kanter Ph.D. for conducting a training in FAP and Behavioral Activation in Bogota. Jonathan’s visit to Bogota was enlightened; he provided me with tons of information on FAP and other contextual behavioral science. He also recommended me to participate in the ACBS so that I would connect with other contextual scientists. All of them have supported me in a way or another to be a member of the ACBS community.
How has the ACBS community supported you as a student?
The ACBS community has allowed be to build strong connection with other colleges that are interested in the same areas than me. ACBS has provided an intellectually supportive environment. I have had the opportunity to think and design projects with other members as well as move construct a reliable source of knowledge.
What would you like to see from ACBS as we move forward in working to reduce suffering in the world?
One of the biggest factors associated with suffering is loneliness. I think that underrepresented communities within the ACBS get to feel lonely sometimes. Non-English speakers lack access to training and intervention materials or struggle with translating them with fidelity. Implementation and dissemination of contextual therapies have been limited by language and cultural validity, and as a consequence, they have not been fully utilized in these contexts. Promotion of conferences, seminars, and webinars in a foreign language could be food alternatives to overcoming the barriers of language while enhancing equity, multiculturalism, and accessibility in the ACBS. In addition, providing funding for full researchers and students that work with Non-English speaker’s population, it’s an important step to generate a global impact on psychological suffering.
Another area that requires more support to reduce suffering is translational research. Changes on criteria for validating interventions require a more in-depth analysis of the explanatory process of therapy. Improving knowledge on the mechanisms of change of treatment would aid effectiveness and efficiency by providing information on why, to whom, and under what conditions interventions work. Developing personalized interventions based on clinical science is the opportunity to start including clients underserved and underrepresent who have been ignored by the science of “normality.”
What are the most important values that you bring to your work?
“Connection” is one of my more critical values that permeates my life. Having a strong interpersonal connection has helped me to grow and flourish in my professional life. My dissertation would not be possible without my research team; we all support and learned together. Our connection allowed us to thrive, finding meaning and fun on difficult times. I have learned that good company makes your life better. In this path, I found that understanding, explaining, and providing opportunities to nurture connection is one of my passions. I want to explore this area in my work as a researcher and develop clinical tools for clinicians pursuing a similar path with their clients.
“Balance” is another principal value for me. I try the best as I can to be fair with myself and others. I have an incredible sense of justice. I believe that hard work requires a high dose of self-care. For years, I tended to put a lot of attention on my work and often found myself burnout. By the time I learned to place some weighs in the self-care side, I had become aware of other areas in my life that I wanted to pay attention and care such as family and friends. I discovered that productive work is the result of investing time on my job while taking care of other meaningful domains in my life. Often, I find myself thinking about how to satisfy I am with the way I’m distributing my daily activities. This ongoing self-reflection allowed me to redistribute my activities and even my balance.
What's next for you?
I will graduate from my program in May 2019. I will start a one-year position as a postdoc that will transition to an assistant professorship on the Fall, 2020 in the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. I will start a research lab to study social competence and connection as well as process-based interventions. This lab will be based on CBS and will extend the knowledge in explanatory processes of interpersonal functioning while developing process-based interventions for enhancing people social competence.