The problem of unconscious bias and racism within psychotherapy training

Many psychotherapy training institutions fail to grasp and be sufficiently concerned with what it is like for a black person to be a client, a trainee or a practitioner in psychotherapy and counselling. As a Black British person of African descent, I have lived in the UK since 1979. I have experienced racism and know its impact.

From my experience as a trainee and now a trainer myself, I hope to highlight the struggles and challenges that face people of colour due to the unconscious bias and racism within our training institutions. The impact of racism; the historic legacy of slavery and colonisation; transgenerational transmission of trauma has consequences on the black person’s learning and ability to feel liberated.

Black people continue to be viewed through a Eurocentric theoretical lens which does not support their personal development or mirror their experience. This leaves black and other minority groups voiceless and marginalised. Fanon (1986) wrote: ‘as blacks partake of the same collective unconscious as the European… the black has taken over all the archetypes belonging to the European’. This may not be a bad thing if they are accepted and treated equally in the white population, but people of colour are not. They, therefore, need to be supported to find their own voice and be provided with a forum to be heard, or the training becomes another way of recolonising the minds of the people we want to liberate.

Black people need to speak of their experience of being black in a majority white world and white people need to be open and receptive.

In my professional career, I have been a seminar leader and taught difference and diversity in a therapy and training organisation. Sometimes white participants say they would struggle to work with black clients. This is honest and courageous, but the onus is on them to get in touch with their deep-seated racist impulses, overcome the feeling of guilt and shame and accept the many dimensions of what it is to be white and challenge why whiteness remains the benchmark to which others are judged.

For the black trainee, fear, anxiety and the powerful feelings linked to racism and the historic issue of colonisation can hinder the process of exploring, understanding and learning. This ought not to be the black person’s problem but a shared concern.

I began my psychotherapy training by undertaking an MSc in the Psychodynamics of Human Development. There were few other black or ethnic minorities’ people on the training. I wanted to get my qualification, so I went with what I had been told I needed to do, and passed the Masters training well, but it took sheer grit to get through.

I then began my clinical training. I vividly remember an occasion when I raised the issue of ethnicity and was shut down by my tutor who said what we were practising was psychotherapy based on Western ideas. No one else said anything. Feelings of shame left me isolated and powerless. How do you express your own cultural perspective, when you know there is no room for it?

In my second year of training, I decided to give a talk on race and racism to my peers. It was a giant leap for me and I was nervous. I was the only black person on the training and desperately needed an ally. It didn’t matter what colour, they just needed to engage, be curious, a bonus would be that they had been working on their internalised racism. It didn’t go well. I was met with resistance and having to justify that colour was indeed a significant consideration between a white therapist and a black client. A colleague commented that they had black friends and colour wasn’t a problem for them, which I took to mean this was my problem. The status quo was reinstated.

I have found some comfort in the training, however. The body of the psychoanalytic world is often a home where one can be contained, and the fact that we’re all ‘wounded soldiers’ gives a feeling of comradeship.

I could have had such a different learning experience if my training had been able to enter into a discussion about race issues. The silence within our profession concerning racism which can also develop in the consulting room is a dangerous silence as it hampers learning and awareness.

Sixteen years after started training I undertook a supervision training and realised that the problems I had experienced in my training were still rife within our profession. We had been in what is called a Meridian group when one of my colleagues said something along the lines that it must be difficult for me being the only black group member. He may have been trying to help, but I felt he was laying the race problem firmly in me. No one else said anything and I felt singled out.

I wasn’t prepared to carry the baton so I pushed for engagement and was told I had a ‘chip on my shoulder’ and that I needed to drop the race card as I was taking up too much time. Another group member said he didn’t see my colour. When I tried to pursue the effects on me of my colleague’s statement, I was met with silence and dismissal and what Di Angelo (2011) refers to as ‘white fragility’ – a state in which a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable. This experience confirmed how much more there is to be done.

These events were the cause of significant pain for me as well as a loss of potential learning for us all. If there is this level of silence within a training group, I wonder what the silence is like in the consulting room. We cannot continue to hide behind these defences for it is detrimental to the mental health of those we wish to help.

Published in the British Psychoanalytic Council Newsletter - Nov. 2020

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