Not White, Not Rich, and Seeking Therapy [TheAtlantic.com]

Amen.

"Providers might be reluctant “to embark on an intimate, long-term relationship with someone they feel they can’t relate to.”"  Therein lies the problem... why can providers only/mostly relate to people who look like them or remind them of themselves?  It's like being unable to relate to a movie because the cast doesn't look like your family reunion.   Or, perhaps the conversation is uncomfortably reflective.  This article reinforces the idea that professional preparation programs (across sectors) and professional socialization (including continuing education) must force us to excavate the implicit issues born of primary socialization and reinforced through institutional bias, both implicit and explicit.  It is frightening and just wrong that "If her experiment were to play out in the real world, an identifiably black, working-class man would have to call 80 therapists before he was offered a weekday evening appointment. A middle-class white woman would only have to call five."  We cannot be trauma-informed or oriented toward healing-informed if we can or will avoid the parallel process of becoming action-oriented anti-racist in all the sectors of human activity that likely encourage "an identifiably black, working-class man" to seek therapy in the first place.  It may not all be institutional but it's beyond time we get about the business of figuring out the difference while erring on the side of "it's institutions, not people."