THE BLACK COUCH PROJECT
White-bodied Therapists
cannot make "safe space"
for clients of color.
but you can commit to
making it safer.
If you’re going to
“meet your clients
[of color] where they are”...
you must choose to meet them in
the discomfort of being with you.
Since it is not your client's job to help you see your implicit biases or the impact they have on your work...
I will.
I will place myself in the role of your client.
I will allow my lived experience to be visible and impacted by your processes, your container, your method and by you.
I will leverage my experience and education as a fellow counseling therapist to illuminate the ways in which your work impacts me that you are not seeing and not intending.
I will do all of this so that you can be the ally that you’re trying to be.
I will do this so that people like me can engage their healing with you and be harmed less.
The Black Couch Project is both a container and a process for identifying unconscious and semi-conscious processes, patterns, and beliefs derived from white-culture supremacy that present, and are embedded, in the counseling experience.
It is a mutually-embodied psychoeducational experience that keeps the values and goals of the work where it belongs:
on improving client care, therapeutic relationship, and therefore, treatment outcomes.