Preparing Student Therapists to Work With Black Mental Health: Attending to the Social and Institutional Organization of "Culture" in Canadian Counsellor Education

• Published in: Canadian psychology = Psychologie canadienne 2022-11, Vol.63 (4), p.623-636
• Main Authors: Smith, Lee-Tasha, Doyle, Emily M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adversity; Black Canadians; Black People; Counseling; Counselor Education; Counselors; Culture (Anthropological); Curricula; Education; Everyday life; Health education; Health needs; Human; Mental Health; Mental health services; Minority & ethnic groups; Oppression; Organizational culture; Psychotherapy Training; Racial discrimination; Racism; Safety; Students; Therapist Trainees; Therapists; Violence
• ISSN: 0708-5591; 1878-7304
• DOI: 10.1037/cap0000343

The current mental health needs of Black populations are significantly heightened, as more public occurrences of racial discrimination, systematic oppression, and violence have shed light on the adversities Black people experience in their everyday life. Despite this, many Canadian Black people are underutilizing psychological resources. The dominant approaches to research and practice have historically focused on identifying and addressing barriers to clients seeking care, rather than accessibility and appropriateness of the services offered. There is currently a dearth of information considering how the current focus impacts racialized students in their counselling programmes, and consequently their work as student therapists. In this article, we extend the invitation to further consider, from the standpoint of a racialized student, an example of how "culture" is both taught and performed in the fields of counsellor education, with implications for supervised student therapeutic practices and beyond. Les besoins actuels des populations noires en matière de santé mentale sont considérablement accrus, car les manifestations publiques de discrimination raciale, d'oppression systématique et de violence ont mis en lumière les difficultés que vivent les Noirs dans leur vie quotidienne. Malgré cela, de nombreux Canadiens noirs sous-utilisent les ressources psychologiques. Les approches dominantes de la recherche et de la pratique ont historiquement mis l'accent sur l'identification et l'élimination des obstacles qui empêchent les clients de rechercher des soins, plutôt que sur l'accessibilité et la pertinence des services offerts. Il y a actuellement une pénurie d'informations sur l'impact de cette approche sur les étudiants racisés dans leurs programmes de counseling, et par conséquent sur leur travail en tant qu'étudiants thérapeutes. Dans cet article, nous lançons l'invitation à considérer, du point de vue d'un étudiant racisé, un exemple de la façon dont la « culture » est à la fois enseignée et pratiquée dans les domaines de la formation des conseillers, avec des implications pour les pratiques thérapeutiques des étudiants supervisés et au-delà. Public Significance Statement This research intends to bring to academic awareness to how graduate students understand and perceive counselling curricula and how those understandings affect their personal and professional successes working with clients who are Black, Indigenous, and people of colour. It will serve