Kelly Mabin, a graduate assistant to Dr. LaShauna Dean, designed the Professional Counseling board pictured above for Black History Month. Ms. Mabin is earning a master’s degree in Counseling at a CACREP-Accredited program. CACREP stands for the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs. Today, it is known as the premier accreditation for professional counseling programs, which means standards are meant to ensure high quality training that the public can trust. Why is this description of CACREP relevant to Black History Month, Mental Health and Ms. Mabin’s board? 

The most current standards, the 2016 CACREP Standards, identify eight common core areas that cover foundational knowledge for every CACREP-accredited program. Throughout these common core areas are words such as “advocacy,” “equity,” “access,” “address institutional and social barriers,” “multicultural and pluralistic society,” “social justice,” “diverse individuals,” “ethical and culturally relevant,” and “resilience.” The second common core area, titled Social and Cultural Diversity, outlines 8 specific standards in which graduate programs must prepare counselors to work in a way that promotes an understanding of diverse world views, minimizes counselor bias when working with diverse clients and addresses culturally and socially relevant treatment. The actual standards within Social and Cultural Diversity are listed at the end of this post.

Back to Ms. Mabin’s board. According to Dr. Dean, Ms. Mabin took it upon herself to design a board with information relevant to mental health and Black History Month. Ms. Mabin, who identifies as White, proactively sought out information included on this board. In short, it captures the ways in which African American mental health is worse off than White Americans. For instance, “African Americans are 20% more likely to have serious psychological distress than Whites are.” African Americans are less likely to seek help. Ms. Mabin lists reasons why access to adequate treatment can be difficult, including that African Americans are often misdiagnosed, have cultural mistrust of mental health professionals, and have limited access to African American mental health professionals since the field consists of predominantly White professionals. She also includes ways in which we can address these shortcomings. 

Ms. Mabin’s board brings up 3 points for me. The first is CACREP standards are only the start to ensure that in practice the mental health field is addressing needs of all Americans. The second is mental health professionals-in-training like Ms. Mabin who actively practice CACREP standards are increasing in number. The third is the mental health field has a lot of work to do to meet the needs of all Americans and practitioner continuing education requirements could do more to ensure on-going learning about racism and mental health. Along these lines, I have 2 questions:

• How do we, as a profession, actively engage with knowledge and practice across generations of clinicians that promotes mental health for all Americans, which means addressing barriers and shortcomings of the system of mental health care? 

• Put another way, how can we, a field of predominantly White Americans address racism in our profession and in our work with clients?

One way is to examine ways in which you live an anti-racist lifestyle. Anti-racism simply put is a practice of opposing racism. Living anti-racism is much more complex. It entails becoming aware of ways in which you have been socially-conditioned in racism. It involves a commitment to understanding White Supremacy as something that affects all of us. An understanding that White Supremacy at it’s most vile and abhorrent manifestation is physical acts of violence against People of Color and White allies. AND that White Supremacy also lurks in the psyche of American Society in less overt ways. In addition to awareness, actions to dismantle systems of oppression are a must.

Let me share a personal example of what I mean and why it is important to my work as a mental health professional. At our local MLK celebration in January 2018, I picked up a flier for a free introductory workshop about White Privilege and Anti-Racist Leadership at a table for Whites for Racial Equity (WRE). I was intrigued about this group, and also a bit weary. Could it be that I stumbled upon a group of White Americans actively engaged in dismantling racism? Or did I stumble upon a group of well-intentioned White Americans doing lip-service to this work? Or taking it further, did I stumble upon a group of White Americans masquerading as anti-racists to recruit racists and promote racism?

Fortunately, WRE consists of a group of well-intentioned White Americans who are actively engaged in personal growth towards un-learning racist conditioning and taking action towards anti-racist living. One Saturday each month, WRE hosts a meeting for White people to grapple with racism and the effects of racism on our lives. The intention behind having a meeting for White people as opposed to a meeting for White people and People of Color is to not place undue burden on People of Color to teach us about racism, which unfortunately happens a lot of the time. My personal growth from these Saturday meetings has been extraordinary. Even with ten years of advanced education, some in a CACREP program, I have realized how deeply racist social-conditioning impacts my life. Here are some of the things I have learned about myself, racism and anti-racism:

• My cheeks felt as though they caught fire during the first real, authentic conversation I had about race with a person of color. That was in 2010. At the time, I did not understand why I blushed so deeply. I apologized to the person for my reaction and expressed my confusion about where it stemmed from. I know now- that involuntary response expressed shame that is part of racist social-conditioning. Shame helps maintain secrecy…to uphold racism, the system needs silence. 

• I recently joined a gym. It is close to our house, has a great kids club, pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, tons of classes, a variety of workout areas, friendly staff and it is clean. I had to wait about ten minutes for a membership rep, so I sat in the waiting area. I observed a diverse clientele group coming and going- large age range, different races, genders, body types. I liked this diversity and realized it was completely different from ALL other gyms I had ever joined in the last 20+ years, including college and university gyms. It highlighted how predominantly White, and therefore segregated, my life has been. Segregation is another key ingredient to maintain racism.

• I attended an aqua Zumba class at that same gym a few days after I joined. I was one of two participants who appeared to be White. Several People of Color were also in the hot tub. I was surprised when my heart started racing and the following thoughts came to my mind rapidly one after another: I’m not safe. The water is dirty. This gym must not be as good as the ones I’ve belonged to in the past. I paused and literally shook my head. There it is again—racist social-conditioning deeply lodged in my psyche. None of those thoughts express my conscious beliefs about People of Color and the water was definitely not dirty, yet there they were. I wondered how often I’ve had those unconscious thoughts in the past and have actually listened to them without consideration of their racist-roots, which perpetuates a segregated lifestyle. 

• I’m raising a daughter. She is almost 2 years old. Recently, we were shopping at our local grocery store. She is one of those chatty toddlers who waves and says hi a lot of the time. I was finishing the transaction and the groceries were being bagged, so she was walking/running around and singing her favorite song of the day…probably Wheels on the Bus or “Pinkle Pinkle” Little Star. She’d waved to the few shoppers who walked by, until a Black man with gray hair walked by and waved to her. She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes grew wide and she starred at him. I could tell she was scared. He was not scary. His pace, smile and wave were the same as the others who walked by moments before. All but one person who walked by were People of Color. The difference was this kind looking older man’s skin was dark. I thought to myself: Shit! The racist conditioning is starting with her already, despite intentional efforts on my and her father’s part to raise her in an anti-racist environment. Another ingredient to maintaining racism is to indoctrinate children with the notion that different is bad, different is scary. 

Let me connect back to my question about how our mental health field can work to better serve all people living in and visiting the U.S. For 20+ years, I’ve taken action to dismantle racism and other systems of oppression. As a mental health professional, I’ve researched, published and presented about advocacy, multiculturalism and social justice. I’ve worked in settings that serve traditionally underserved, disadvantaged and marginalized populations. I’ve co-drafted policies and designed programs aimed at removing barriers to mental health care for communities of color and low-income communities. More times than not, staff in departments led by me were more diverse than other departments in the organization. I believe that is because I insisted on a hiring process that brought in diverse candidate pools and selected candidates with diverse search committees. I’ve consumed resources related to racism, dismantling systems of oppression and social justice (see below a list that you may find interesting). When designing social-emotional learning curriculum, I insisted on inviting feedback from diverse student groups. I’ve attended marches and protests. I have friends of color. I’ve dated People of Color. I’ve attended a Black church service. More recently, I put together an Advisory Council for Mental Health Education Press that attempts to represent America’s diversity to guide projects about ways in which systems of oppression impact mental health. 

These continued actions underscore my commitment to anti-racism. Like the CACREP standards, they demonstrate standards of living that are important to dismantling systems of oppression. Yet, my growing awareness of racist social-conditioning and taking steps to dislodge this conditioning are on-going efforts that circle back to Ms. Mabin’s board. When I am the only counselor in a room with a client or clients of color, how will I know that my innate fear doesn’t enter diagnosis? Or that the deep-rooted belief that connect People of Color with dirtiness doesn’t skew they way I treat a client? No one else is in the room besides me and a client. Like in greater society, I hold the power as the counselor in that relationship. Ms. Mabin’s board pointed out cultural mistrust is a barrier to seeking treatment, as well as misdiagnosis. Examining ways in which I’ve been conditioned to racism, taking steps to dislodge that conditioning and continuing to advocate are necessary and equally important ingredients to anti-racism. 

If you are a mental health practitioner, what are you doing to become aware of ways racism lives in you and minimize the impact it has on your client work?

If you are a consumer of mental health, how can our profession better address ways in which racism affects you?

A Few Anti-Racism Resources

Whites for Racial Equity: The group is in the Monterey Bay area and regularly hosts and co-sponsors events. The website also houses a fantastic library of books, podcasts and other resources to engage in learning about anti-racism.

Seeing White: A podcast series by Scene on Radio that explores historical, political and contemporary racism and white privilege.

Combined Destinies: An award-winning book by Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell that compiles stories about racism written by White Americans. 

The New Republic December Issue: The Racist Brain: An article written by Erika Hayasaki scratches the surface on neuroscience and hatred.

Counseling for Multiculturalism and Social Justice:  Integration, Theory and Application:  A textbook by Manivong J. Ratts and Paul B. Peterson for mental health students and practitioners.

CACREP 2016 Standards excerpt from page 11 

(http://www.cacrep.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2016-Standards-with-Glossary-5.3.2018.pdf): 

2. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY a. multicultural and pluralistic characteristics within and among diverse groups nationally and internationally b. theories and models of multicultural counseling, cultural identity development, and social justice and advocacy c. multicultural counseling competencies d. the impact of heritage, attitudes, beliefs, understandings, and acculturative experiences on an individual’s views of others e. the effects of power and privilege for counselors and clients f. help-seeking behaviors of diverse clients g. the impact of spiritual beliefs on clients’ and counselors’ worldviews h. strategies for identifying and eliminating barriers, prejudices, and processes of intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination