Derald Wing Sue

Derald Wing Sue is a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University.^[1] He has authored several books, including Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, Overcoming our Racism, and Understanding Abnormal Behavior.^[2]

Personal life

Sue was born in Portland, Oregon to a Chinese American family. He lived in a predominantly white neighborhood, with his parents, four brothers, and one sister^[3] where was reportedly bullied and teased on a regular basis, due to his race^[4] which later influenced his studies in cross cultural counseling.^[5] Two individuals who influenced Sue's path of study were Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.^[3]

Family

He married his wife Paulina in the 1960s. They have two children. ^[6]

Professional life

Sue obtained his bachelor's degree from Oregon State University, and then a MS and PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Oregon.^[3] After completing his degree, he became a counselor at the University of California, Berkeley counseling center, and was known as the counselor who supported Asian American students. During his time at Berkeley, he conducted mental health studies on Asian Americans, which then led him to coauthor two books: A Theory of Multicultural Counseling and Therapy and Understanding Abnormal Behavior.^[3]

In 1981, Sue published Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice.^[2] In addition to being a professor of psychology at Teachers College, he served on Bill Clinton's President's Advisory Board on Race in 1996.^[7] He served as a past president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, a co-founder and first president of the Asian American Psychological Association, and the president of the Society of Counseling Psychology of the American Psychological Association.^[1]

He has written over 150 publications on various topics such as multicultural counseling and psychotherapy, psychology of racism and antiracism, cultural diversity, cultural competence, and multicultural organizational development,^[3] but more specifically, multicultural competencies and racial microaggressions.^[1]

Influences

As an ethnic minority, Sue quickly learned that the field of counseling psychology was limited in its ability to help individuals of minority populations. Sue's ethnic minority status was his biggest influence in pushing for multiculturalism in psychology. During his education in the 1960s, ethnic identity movements were developing in the United States. He and his brothers were motivated to parallel the ethnic movements of the era within the psychological and counseling fields. His work has focused on creating a psychological field that was aware of the variability of culture.^[5]

References