Mental Health and the Black Community
Therapy! What? We Don't Do That!
As a Black woman, I’ve heard the phrase, “We don’t go to therapy” tons of times when telling others in my community about the benefits of seeing a counselor. As a child growing up in East Tennessee, I can remember overhearing difficult conversations between the adults in the room about how badly life was treating another person, yet the only advice given to them was to go pray or put their heads down and push through it. Whether the hardships were about jobs, family, depression, anxiety, or grief, the typical responses in our household stopped short of giving the next steps to getting help when life was hard.
Without truly understanding the impact of those words, countless other Black families like mine, were relaying the unconscious message that there were very few solutions to mental distress besides prayer. Yet according to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2017, 6.8 million Black Americans had a diagnosable mental illness such as depression, PTSD, anxiety or others (2017).
I’m writing this message to affirm that your faith is important. Your strength and perseverance is an asset to reaching your goals! But it’s also important to pair those prayers with actions that move you towards wellness and purpose. There are skilled people who are open to embracing your spirituality and will stand with you as you work through your hardships. Spirituality can work in conjunction with the science of mental health. It’s okay to bring your faith in the therapy room. It’s okay to pray for the right helping professionals to cross your path. It’s okay to pray for a change in your situation and believe that good things will happen. And it’s also okay to go to therapy.
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Authored by: Crystal Owens, M.S.