“White Clinicians Really Don’t Do It for Me”: What Black Women Are Saying About Therapy Referrals

The cultural knowing missing from the therapy room and why clinical training alone is not enough.

My Black therapist told me that she believes Black women need DBT, and when I tell you she ate that up, she ate it up.

She was not saying Black women are naturally unstable, irrational, or emotionally dysregulated. She was recognizing how many dialectical truths Black women are expected to hold without ever being given the language, skills, space, or sup…