“The first thing you do
is to forget that i’m Black.
Second, you must never forget that i’m Black.”
—Pat Parker
As a white psychotherapist, it is my responsibility to recognize the complexity of my clients’ life experiences and to acknowledge the societal forces that have affected them (and me). One of those societal forces affecting people of color is racism.
Not only do people of color experience racism in the rest of their lives, they also experience racism in psychotherapy. Like any other white people, white therapists like me have our own biases that have been shaped by racism in our culture and those biases affect our work with clients (especially if we are not aware of that possibility). Therapists are less likely to take people of color as clients. The field of psychology is dominated by white people, even more so than the rest of the workforce. So racism makes it extremely difficult for people of color to either get the support they need from white therapists or to find a therapist who is a person of color. Research demonstrates that racism is significantly related to poorer health, particularly poorer mental health. Racism likely contributes to — perhaps even causes — many mental health problems and racism also makes it less likely that people of color can get the help they need.
To sum up, racism may cause people of color to have more need for supportive psychotherapy and to have less opportunity to get it.
Many people of color, including therapists, have been doing anti-racism work for a long time. I have learned from them what it means to be an ally to people of color. People of color deserve the credit for anything I know about how to be anti-racist. Sadly, because of racism, my ideas as a white therapist may be more heard and respected than the ideas of people of color. But these ideas are not my own; they have been taught to me over decades by people of color doing anti-racism work.
All therapists have the responsibility to provide appropriate support for people of any race. Therefore, all therapists have the responsibility to understand racism and help clients who have experienced racism.
To that end, here are my commitments:
- I will continue to examine how my thinking has been shaped by racism and confront my own biases.
- I will recognize that my clients who are people of color understand racism in a way that I cannot.
- I will acknowledge when I do not know or understand something and take responsibility for learning what I need to know without burdening my clients with the job of teaching me.
- I will have the humility to admit when I have made a mistake and I will apologize for it.
- I will remember that being a good ally and therapist for people of color is a lifelong process of learning and self-examination and not something I will ever finish.
- I will discuss how racism affects power dynamics in the therapy relationship and work to decrease the power imbalance to the best of my ability.
- I will remember that my clients’ mental health problems may have been caused by racism.
- I will remind myself regularly that human beings of all races have a lot in common and that clients’ mental health problems may not be about race at all.
- I will understand that there are good reasons that people of color might distrust white therapists like me and I will work to earn clients’ trust.
- I will remember that people of color are a diverse and varied group and that racism does not affect everyone in the same way.
- I will recognize that clients who are people of color may be affected by oppression other than racism and I will pay attention to how all of those oppressive experiences intersect for my clients.
- I will be aware of how most of what I have learned about psychotherapy has been created by white people and is, therefore, inherently biased.
- I will avoid the temptation to center my own needs as a white therapist to get validation or approval for being a good ally.
Most of all, I will keep trying to get it right and learn what I can do better as a therapist. It is my job.