Trauma in the Black Community: The Pain of Misconnection

Professional Resource Article

The black community has experienced generational traumas that have caused some of my clients to feel they cannot connect to a therapist that is not a person of color. As a community mental health therapist, I sometimes will get referrals where the client is requesting to have a “therapist like me”. I am an uncommon sight as a black male therapist and clients that seek me, or those like me, will report that they have more hope that I will understand when they share about the struggles they face. Some people are hesitant to try therapy because of misconceptions about mental health services, but my black clients have expressed concerns about feeling that they will not be truly heard and believed. A proper therapeutic alliance cannot form without a sense of connection, and my clients that share in the experience of being black in America feel I am one who is on the same journey as themselves. I am afforded the opportunity to be a cosojourner of sorts in their quest for healing, and it is in that moment that I am able to provide a model of the connection that many feel they never had.

My observation is that many in the black community have felt that the society that they live in sees them as a threat so they pull away into exile. I am defining community as a grouping of people knit together for mutual survival and mutual benefit. In addition, communities have their own culture which I will define as set of practices, values, expressions, and expectations for those that engage in the community. In light of the events of 2020, there has been much discussion and controversy within the black community, but I, and many others in the black community, have seen much of these issues replayed over and over again well beyond that. Throughout life, many of my clients cite personal experience and the experiences of siblings, of parents, and of other first-degree relationships as reasons to feel they are seen as a threat and in turn causes them to feel unsafe in many spaces and environments. I have been told of situations where clients have had racial slurs hurled at them, harassed, or told they did not belong. In the therapist office is the last place any person wants to feel their exile status. I have found that in times of distress people seek what is familiar because that rings of what is safe so what could be more familiar than a face that is part of your community?

I have learned to conceptualize my clients’ felt sense of disconnection from the larger American culture as a type of developmental trauma and that seems to present itself as a form of insecure attachment to the larger American culture. When a person’s first impression of their therapist is that they are an outsider they would be mistrustful toward the therapist; I think that is a part of why members of the black community are not as open with therapists that are not black. Members of the black community have a history of past painful learning that resonates with other members and despite never discussing it with each other there is a sense of understanding. In contrast, some of my clients have expressed mistrust toward my white colleagues because they perceive them as an outsider. Thinking from a developmental perspective, no child connects, securely, to a threatening or inattentive caregiver. It is more typical that the child will develop an anxious or avoidant attachment style, so in this sense I would like to draw parallels between the black community and the larger framework of American society. In the black community, people sometimes feel they do not share in a secure form of attachment in relationship to the the larger framework of American culture. So I see in some of my black clients the assumption that they cannot be understood because they have not had the felt experience of being known and embraced by the larger society. The sense of feeling disconnected, or feeling rejected for some, from the larger society seems to have developed a sense of unity in exile. My assertion is that an insecure attachment to the larger American society coupled with feeling pushed into community exile results in the trauma of misconnection.

The wound of being misconnected to the larger American society has resulted in traumas in the black community. Complexed trauma is repeated and chronic exposure to traumatic events that impart a mental message that distorts perception of the self. An example of this could be a child growing up with neglectful parents, an inmate that has become institutionalized, or the victim of abuse in a long term marriage. I tell my clients that, especially with complexed trauma, an internalized negative self belief that is rooted in a distressing event can lead to chronically feeling unsafe and on edge. There have been numerous major events that have occurred throughout American history where the black community experienced complexed trauma— American slavery, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, and even the events that unfolded in 2020. In addition to these events there are other day to day issues that impact black people more regularly. Racially insensitive comments or jokes, portrayal of negative stereotypes in various forms of media, being asked to speak on behalf of all black people in an uncomfortable setting, or being ignored when expressing feelings of discomfort due to a comment someone has made regarding race. These types of encounters carry a message that makes many in the black community feel unwelcome and the emotional learning from these situations can make a person feel they are unsafe. Members of the black community share in these feelings. The experience of feeling like an exile in one’s own home town can lead to the emotional learning that “you are unwanted” and the shared traumatizing history that members of the black community share in unites generations in feeling like an outsider in their own home. If you have a community in exile that is preferable to being alone, and a community forged in exile can be difficult, though not impossible, to enter for someone that looks like an outsider.

As a therapist that is part of the black community, my role is to help my client process their past painful learning and provide an understanding face to the clinical aspects of therapy. The basis of therapy is that we build positive rapport with our clients so that they will trust us as we impart coping skills. I believe finding emotional healing for the trauma of misconnection requires the therapist to provide a version of a healthy relationship to help our client develop a new relational paradigm. This rapport will provide a safe emotional setting for the therapist to utilize clinical skills to aid that client find personalized meaning for the pain they see in their community, but emotional learning that is born in trauma is not accessible due to shame and negative self appraisal. When trauma can be healed, the past painful learning ceases to be a source of negative self reflection and instead can lead to new insights and growth. When a person achieves post traumatic growth the once overwhelmingly negative experience becomes both emotionally and intellectually accessible to the client. They can then begin the work of assigning meaning to that experience that is not based in shame. I am able to work with my clients to help them find ways to engage in the larger society as they wish, learn skills to manage distressing thought content born from past painful learning, redefine the role they play in the larger American society, and the role they play in the black community. I have found that as a black therapist, I am seen as a familiar face that can be trusted, so I am invited into their experiences and traumas to act in a helping role. I think it is important for therapists to be aware of how black clients may struggle with feeling alienated by the larger American culture and that can lead to mistrust in a therapist that is not black. Therapists that are not members of the black community can still act as effective helpers as long as they remember to approach their clients with a sense of curiosity and to remain open to their experience in exile.

I believe a therapist that is not black can still be invited into the experience of exile that members of the black community face. All that is required is to be trustworthy and I believe much of the work is found in some basic counseling skills. Therapists must be attentive to what their black clients are saying about their struggles and it can be helpful to ask probing questions to show you are listening. In addition to being attentive and being curious it is important to be honest about not having earned the client’s trust if that is what you are sensing. To be honest with your client about what you are seeing and to ask tentatively if you are correctly sensing apprehension will gain respect and possibly an invitation into their more tightly held painful learning. Many of my clients feel no one cares about their pain or they feel no one is willing to hear them out when they speak on it. Some have shared with me that they have had this pain dismissed or that some try to explain it away. A few accuse therapists in the past of, unintentionally I assume, reinforcing the thought that they will not be heard or affirmed. We, as therapists, must remember we have to earn the client’s invitation into past painful learning. Attempting to immediately help the client reframe negative self talk without having the context about where they came from or how they came to that conclusion comes off as dismissive. Being a member of this community affords me some benefit of the doubt but that is not enough. I take on the role of co-pilgrim on the journey to heal but I also provide clinical skills that I can impart to my client, at the right time, to help my client heal and live past painful learning. It is my opinion that in order for a therapist, black or otherwise, to be able to offer effective services they must be curious about their client’s experience and emotional learning in their exile.

Clients can sense counter transference in a therapist and if that therapist is responding to feeling uncomfortable with the client’s feelings is not discussed it can harm the therapeutic alliance. The sense of being disconnected to a culture that the therapist identifies with strongly can cause the client to give up on trying to build a therapeutic relationship and in the best case they ask to be transferred to a black therapist. In order to help clients heal from this trauma the therapist must develop a sense of comfort with discussing this openly. If a therapist becomes uncomfortable but is pretending they are not, then the client will likely see this incongruence and therapy will stall. I would suggest asking the client, assertively, what they feel you are missing or to ask the client for feedback on how they think the therapeutic process is unfolding. Being able to receive that feedback with humility can be a groundbreaking moment in the therapeutic relationship. Honest communication is a necessary part of any relationship and in the therapist office this is important to meet the treatment goals and modeling this type of honest communication and humility to listen to feedback create an emotionally safe therapeutic environment. The emotional learning that lead to exile could possibly be put on a pause in order to make an exception for the therapist that is not black but is still willing to listen. A therapist that is not black may not be able to be seen as being on the same journey but they can be a person that is seen as a restful presence to share with.

As a therapist that is part of the black community, I am hopeful that the trauma of misconnection can find healing in therapy. I have had clients verbalize relief at finding a black therapist and because we are part of the same community they have the feeling of seeing me as a person on the same journey that they are on. I also think therapist that are not black can still be a supportive presence if they build enough rapport. A therapist does not need to be black in order to help those of the black community they only need to be open to learning of the client’s experience and be a trustworthy presence.

Written By: Eric Chatman, LMHC

Eric is a LMHC working in a community mental health agency in central Florida. He has experience working with a variety of clients but specializes in treating traumatic stress. He has training in EMDR, Combined Parent-Child CBT, and other evidence-based tools for treating trauma. He hopes to be of service to his clients and colleagues in an effort to spread awareness about the impact of traumatic stress disorders.