Therapy Is Political
Source: https://www.thehealthy.com/mental-health/tips-black-therapists-anxiety-covid-19-racial-trauma/
Due to the recent racist BS, I feel like Black America has felt every emotion. From rage to overwhelm, stress, sadness, and confusion. Almost everything but void of any form of joy. Of course when you feel you need help navigating these feelings and learning how to deal with them, a therapist will always be my recommendation. But, when choosing a therapist, please remember that politics should not be left at the door.
As long as the Black body is political, your therapy should include some politics. I say this specifically in light of everything that has been going on recently, and unfortunately seems to be on a never ending loop. There are actually therapists out in these streets who will tell you that therapy and politics don't go together. They believe that they are and should remain as separate entities. While that might sound about right to you, what I hear is that they don't see you. When they make statements like that, all I hear from them is that they are okay with willfully ignoring everyday occurrences that impact your mental health for their own comfort. They would prefer not to discuss racial injustice, the history of Black people, and certain viewpoints simply because they don’t like to or have failed to do their own work. If this is the case for the therapist you are looking at or the therapist you are seeing, you might have the wrong therapist. Why? Because everything that they want you to leave at the door, are the very things you need to address and are part of the reason you scheduled your appointment in the first place.
All the shit we deal with, racial injustices, COVID, etc. are VERY political, especially now. It's so political with a goal to make it commonplace and mundane that it barely gets recognized as a mental health need.Therapy and therapists are only barely considered essential! Save the body, lose the mind. Although our purpose and our goal is to help you live your best life and become the best version of yourself, we are hardly considered essential, even as racism kills us at breakneck speeds.
Racism and mental health are political. They are such political issues that when a white man decides that he's going to go on a rampage and kill Black people, the media will tell us he was a lone wolf with mental health issues, in an attempt to justify his actions.
It's used as political warfare because you know what can really help move people's mental health? Therapy.
Having good mental health makes you feel you can do anything. Having your mental faculties about you allows you to assess things differently and not from a place of hurt and trauma. It helps prevent you from living life trying to prove yourself, the same way you did when you were 4, 5 and 6 to your mommies and daddies who loved you only the best that they knew how. Mental health frees you from the clutches of the world around you, being able to recognize how racism, colorism, sexism, ageism, abel-ism, and the other ism's of the world coalesce around you. You’ll be able to recognize how they inform your decisions and how they influence/impact your experiences. Being able to recognize all of that shit, to feel the hurt from it, to heal from it, gives you power that they don't want you to have. They don’t want you to realize, embrace, and live life knowing you have power. So despite what some therapists try to say, therapy is fucking political. As long as the Black body remains political so too will Black bodies in therapy.
Therapy without politics sounds a lot like polite conversation, as my friend Dr. Lexx would say. You don’t go to therapy to just feel good for a moment, you go to therapy to heal from a lifetime of hurts with skills to continue on with. Therapists must do better, yes, but don’t you pick someone who refuses to see you either. And if your therapist does not understand how it can be political, they might be the wrong damn therapist.