#blm and mental health

[bringing-myself-joy]

@piakichu​ I wanted to respond to your response in a fresh post because we started to move away from the topic the op brought up.  (For anyone who wishes to read that it is here. It’s just too much to simply summarize.)

Thats definitely true as well. I myself had a big advantage because growing up I always had access to my parent’s healthcare which is pretty good especially when compared to the way other companies treat mental health. And on top of that, I live in NJ so forced conversion therapy was never really a fear for me even with the worse therapists I encountered.

Right now the practice I go to is awesome in lots of different ways. When I started paying for my own bills they were supper helpful and even gave me some pro bono sessions when I had lost my job last year. It’s also one of the more diverse practices I’ve been to, not only with their general staff but with the therapists themselves. And it is absolutely an outlier in the category of mental health care. If I did an exact headcount, the majority of the staff would still probably be white because even if this place was perfect* the overall system is fucked in a way that ends with the majority of its members being white. And when I say majority I mean almost 90%, and each year this trend continues  with the new members entering the work force.

So even if the therapist themselves is queer, a white queer person still will never have experiences the same as say a black queer person. And that makes it much harder for the therapy to give that person any benefits at all. The therapist in this example still has all the experiences and biases that come with white privilege making it hard for them to truly understand or sympathize with their client. The client will likely have a difficult time discussing most issues (even if a level of trust is eventually established) because it will always require another level of explanation than it would if their therapist was also black.

And honestly, even and explanation is not good enough. Its likely impossible for a person of color to get the same benefits of therapy that a white person does as long as PoC don’t have the option to pick a doctor who is a PoC as well.

I as a white person will never understand the fear that a black person has to experience while just existing. A few words cannot undo the imbalance of societal power, and no level of imagining will make me able to understand the effects that has on one’s mental health. So how could I possibly give a client the treatment they deserve if I can’t relate to them in that way? 

It’s not the same as a therapist treating an abuse victim when they themselves haven’t been abused. If you aren't white in this country your life is fundamentally different than the one the white therapist has had. And this isn’t something that can be taught either, because we’ve already tried that. Cultural sensitivity and general awareness are part of the schooling to become a mental health practitioner, it just doesn't make enough of a difference to be an acceptable solution. Its been shown that white counselors are less likely to actually use these practices than ethnic minority counselors, even when their personal client base is at least 20% made up of PoC.  

So what is really needed for improvement is (as with most things in the us right  now) is a redesign of the whole system, to allow PoC the same opportunities as white people in the mental healthcare field. And to do that we (white people) have to do our part to be better. Which brings me to the current BLM movement. 

I wanted to post this on my mental health blog because white people, even ones who are part of other marginalized groups, have the privilege of getting to being unaware of these kinds of things. And if they are made aware, they have the privilege of forgetting about it, which its not something a PoC gets to do. So, for my followers who are white, please do not forget about this. We can’t allow privilege to blind us to the shit happening around us. Protests have been making a huge difference, we have to keep the movement and the story going even as the news finds other topics to focus on. If you can’t protest, donate. If you can’t donate, share resources and be vocal about your support of our siblings of color. Listen to the voices of color around you. 

I know people with mental health issues have a lot of our own personal struggles, but they do not prevent us from helping. There is always something we can do. If you get overwhelmed easily, start small. Pick one thing to focus on, one charity and donate what you can or share it with those around you who can. Or pick a gofundme for a trans PoC or other lgbtq* person trying to reach a donation goal for surgery or safe housing etc.

In addition to this, check on your black friends. Remind you love them and will fight to keep them safe. Call out other white people who use being part of a marginalized community as an excuse not to care or try to help. Black lives must always matter.

Notes/Citations

*I’m sure it has its faults despite all the praise I’m giving it rn, because it doesn't exist in a bubble

**above link takes you to chart showing the diversity of the psychological work force from the American Psychology Association.

***click the above link to be taken to the 2014 article - “Therapist Ethnicity and Treatment Orientation Differences in Multicultural Counseling Competencies” - from us national library of medicine. Def worth giving a read if you have the time.