Black Lives Matter: Thoughts & Commitments
Among the many violent outcomes of structural and systemic racism is the barrier to mental health care for Black human beings. Beyond there being an obstacle to care, when a member of the Black community does access mental health services, therapists simply fail to create a healing space for Black people to honor the totality of their lived experiences. This is due to the lack of acceptable training for therapists (of whom are mostly White) regarding racial politics, White supremacy, White fragility, and race-based trauma. This is the case for all under the BIPOC umbrella. Competent (anti-racist) therapy is just one other right being viciously denied.
Everyday, in therapy, therapists fail to recognize how the structural pillars of American society continue to dehumanize Black individuals. Just like all parts of American society, the psychological community is not immune to White supremacy. Due to an old psychological model, one rooted in White supremacy & individualism, human beings receiving mental health care are reduced to the results of psychometric testing and diagnoses (which are based on a cluster of symptoms created and decided on by White cis men).
The consequences of this injustice are undoubtedly exacerbated for BIPOC folx in therapy, who, in search for support, healing, and guidance, end up having the very trauma they perhaps sought out therapy for in the first place be invalidated, erased, perpetuated, and eventually worsened. Given the inherent unequal power dynamic within a therapist-client relationship, People of Color are essentially gaslit by a “professional” who they are told will protect and hold space for them. This leaves them re-traumatized and feeling more powerless than they felt beforehand. There are countless stories of this racial trauma occurring within the therapeutic relationship. It MUST end.
The truth is, so much of what BIPOC individuals experience as mental illness, or are told is mental illness, is plain OPPRESSION. Withstanding racism & the insidiousness of intergenerational trauma—rather than something they brought upon themselves— is something past and current White generations have CONTINUALLY forced upon them with effectively dehumanizing results, creating an environment that is unsafe and dangerous.
Therapists, myself included, must place these immeasurable challenges faced at the hands of White supremacy and racism into context. It is our duty to do so. When we don't, we reaffirm the racist message that THEY are broken and THEY need fixing. But, it’s White INSTITUTIONS and the people that benefit from them that need to change. It’s the racist systems that define our society that need to be upended and fixed.
As a White therapist, I stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. For me, this means continuing to educate myself on how to be anti-racist, listen to BIPOC voices, and reflect on the ways—both past and present—I’ve perpetuated and been complicit in the very systems that lead to dehumanization. Additionally, I accept the responsibility to create an anti-racist and socially just space for my clients. I will dedicate my work toward cultivating best practices to uplift those who have been, and are still being, held down.
—Matthew Spector, AMFT