Three Things I Have Learned as a Black Male Therapist

Working as a Black male therapist has challenged some of the ways I used to think about mental health, healing and our communities. There are ideas I once repeated easily that I now question much more carefully.

These are three things I have learned.

1. I have stopped saying that the Black community has a stigma around mental health

I have become uncomfortable with how easily we use the word stigma to explain Black people's relationship with mental health.

Black people have always expressed how we feel. Listen to our music. Rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop and gospel have always told stories about pain, love, grief, heartbreak, survival and joy. Look at our art, our films, Nollywood, our churches and our communities.

We have also always had people who helped us make sense of suffering. Traditional healers, elders, religious leaders, family members and community members have occupied these roles for generations. Healing may not always have looked like psychotherapy as we understand it today, but that does not mean we were silent about emotional pain.

Sometimes what we call stigma is cultural difference. Sometimes it is distrust. Sometimes it is access. Sometimes people simply prefer another way of healing.

And sometimes, painfully, it comes down to choice.

With love, I have learned to say that healing is a choice. Not everyone wants to make that choice. Some people would rather avoid their wounds than examine them. Some become comfortable bleeding onto everyone around them instead of confronting what hurts.

As a therapist, that has been painful for me to accept.

You cannot choose healing for somebody else.

2. Black mental health conversations can erase identities within our own communities

When we talk about Black mental health, I think we need to ask another question.

Which communities within our communities are still being silenced?

Take ableism, for example. Disability is something that we can be uncomfortable naming, discussing or even acknowledging, while at the same time being very comfortable speaking about racism.

We can amplify race while hiding disability.

We can speak passionately about discrimination coming from outside of our communities while overlooking the ways people experience exclusion within them.

Black people are not one experience. Disability, gender, sexuality, class, immigration, religion and many other identities shape how we move through the world and how we experience mental health.

If our conversations about Black mental health only make room for race, then some Black people are still being left out.

3. Sometimes it is not just masculinity. Sometimes it is pride.

Masculinity comes up often when we talk about Black men and healthcare, and it should. Many men have been taught to be strong, self sufficient and emotionally guarded.

But I also think we need to move beyond gender as the explanation for everything.

Sometimes we are proud.

I say that from experience.

Sometimes people need encouragement to let go of pride, admit something isn't working, and accept help. Sometimes we know we are hurting and still resist the very things that might help us heal.

Masculinity can shape that resistance, but I do not think we should use masculinity as a shield or an excuse.

At some point, we still have to make choices about what we do with our pain.

These are only three things I have learned, and I am sure there will be many more.

Being a therapist continues to remind me that healing requires compassion, but compassion does not have to mean avoiding difficult truths. Sometimes loving ourselves and our communities means being willing to challenge the stories we have become comfortable telling about ourselves.