Week 7

Chapter 10
Counseling Persons of Black African Ancestry

Counseling Persons of Black African Ancestry: The ways of the novice counselor
• In many counseling settings, routine clinical practices and compliance standards
often diminish the quality of care for Black clients.
• Counseling strategies are not the primary problem when working with Black
clients (i.e. carpenter’s tools)
• Helpers must be self-aware and able to use themselves as agents of change
• The relative importance of a counselor’s strategy depends on the rhythmn and
context of a session
History and Nomenclature
• Persons of Black African ancestry live as citizens, foreign nationals, and
indigenous populations on every continent as a result of immigration, colonialism,
and slave trading.
• African Americans constitute the second largest non-White ethnic group in the
US (39.9 million, 13.8% of total pop.)
• Racism and oppression are forces that have shaped the experiences and
development of Black people worldwide
• The vestiges of racism and oppression survived centuries after propaganda
campaigns ended and influence all human interactions, including counseling
relationships
• Racism in the educational system
• Contemporary literature
• Historical distortions accompanying dismal statistics have resulted in many
counselors perpetually using a deficit model when working with Black clients
Psychological Development
• While many Black psychologists interpret the successive stages and components
of Black identity differently, the consensus maintains that the development of
Black people is not embedded in mental illness or self-hate but is a natural
disposition to oppose miseducation and internalize Black culture, heritage, and
folkways.
• Three forces that make up the identity of persons of Black African ancestry:
– Expressions of African consciousness
– Resistance to racism and oppression
– Adaptation to colonialism
Expressions of African Consciousness
• Archetypal and ancestry
• Worldview
• Balance or counterpart to the mind and body
• Consider affliction illness to be both spiritual and physical
• Western psychology=awareness through five senses (There is more than meets the
eye), Eurocentric perspectives=observable, material phenomena (Seeing is
believing)
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Resistance to Racism and Oppression

• Major discrimination has been associated with psychological distress (study)
• Influences of racism and oppression on the psychological development of Black
people is twofold:
– Racism and oppression contribute to behavioral responses that signal
concern about survival
– Racism and oppression directly related to postcolonial institutions
• Several African-centered theories to explain impact of racism and oppression
• Cultural trauma (slavery, lynching, and legal discrimination)
• Posttraumatic slave syndrome
• Invisibility syndrome (subtle form of racism and White privilege)
• Historical hostility
• African American patients are more frequently involuntarily committed to
hospitals and administered psychotropic drugs/receive labels
• Many conscious counselors are aware that current mental health systems are
failing Black clients
Adaptations to Colonialism
• Persons of Black African ancestry have had to adapt to the language, customs,
religious practices, educational pedagogy, economic philosophies, and
geopolitical systems of European colonial tyrants
• It is still being done today
• A Eurocentric mind-set will lead many to assert that Black people are obliged to
adapt, and adaptation should be effortless
• It is a cultural imposition
• Colonialism has implications for counseling practice and research on Black
people
Five Black Identity Operations
• Buffering
• Code Switching
• Bridging
• Bonding
• Individualism
• Cross and Strauss (1998) refer to these five operations as “the
• …everyday functions of African American identity.”
• Buffering-when aspects of an individual’s Black identity serve as a psychological
shield against the racist acts of other people and institutions or racist situations
• Organizations that evolved out of collective buffering: NAACP, Black Panther
Party, etc.
Code Switching
• Blacks find themselves often moving in and out of situations that are dominated,
controlled, or highly influenced by people who are not Black.
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• Code switching requires that the Black person learn or master the ways of the
“other” for various purposes.
• May be difficult to discern the differences between code switching and buffering
• Buffering always involve a racist threat.
• In code switching, a Black person chooses to be in that situation.
• Sometimes, a racist crisis will upset the balance of the relationship (code
switching)
• Bridging
• Intimacy is achieved through, and not despite, differences
• Bridging does not just happen-it is hard work
Bonding
• Bonding operates on both a grand scale and a small scale
• In both passive and active models (i.e. Aretha Franklin)
• Involves both solitary and collective expressiveness
• Black people with a positive Black identity like and accept themselves-it is simply
a fundamental “attachment” to Blackness
Specific Mental Health Challenges
• Prevalence of Mental Health Disorders
– Over diagnosed
– Under diagnosis of depression
• Suicide
• Exposure to Violence and Posttraumatic Stress
– African Americans are more likely to be victims of violent crimes than
any other ethnic or racial group
• Vulnerable Segments of the Population
– African Americans comprise between 40% and 44% of the homeless
population, nearly half of state and federal inmates and 45% of children in
state custody
Healing Practices and Experiences with Mental Health Treatment
• Black people are more likely to use prayer, faith, and spirituality to cope with
personal difficulties
• In the Black community, religious figures serve a prominent role in providing
counseling services for bereavement, marital problems, and personal adjustment
issues
• Naturalistic healing
• Traditional mental health systems
– hypereligiousity
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Toward Authenticity in Counseling Persons of Black African Ancestry

• Community-based treatment
• Group Therapy
• Rituals and Rites
• Social Justice and Advocacy
Conclusion
• The text noted that though their analysis has focused on Black identity, the
identity functions or identity activities approach could be applied to any number
of group experiences, such as the Jewish experience or the experience of gays and
lesbians