Implicit Bias

Implicit bias is the bias that each person has towards a group or demographic but does not consciously know that he or she has. It is often a negative bias or in other words a negative stereotype put towards a certain group of people. The podcast that I listened to reflected on the fact that it is often influenced by both nature and nurture. It is caused by a summation of our life experiences. Most people, including myself, like to think that they are fair and may not have biases but that is not possible. Everybody has biases and it is important to acknowledge that. It is especially important for OT students and practitioners to learn about implicit biases so we can acknowledge them and grow from them. It helps us to be more client centered and have a bigger and more positive impact. We more than anyone need to recognize these biases because we will treat many clients who do face inequalities and have differences than us but it is our job to overlook those differences and treat our clients with respect and the best therapy we can provide. We can start to examine and address our implicit biases by acknowledging that we do have biases. We can then attempt to learn about these biases and how we change our perspective. We can do this through things like listening to podcasts, reading articles, or going to workshops. Then we can take the new knowledge we have and put it in to our everyday life. My big take-away from this lesson is to acknowledge that I do have biases whether I know I do or not and reflect on what those are so I can become a better practitioner but also a better person.