The revised guidelines for working with sexual minority populations encourage psychologists to recognize and intentionally consider the personal, interpersonal, and institutional stressors and resiliencies in queer individuals and communities (American Psychological Association [APA], 2021). Yet without an understanding of how queer folx describe the experience and impact of identity-based oppression and hate, as well as justice and liberation, psychologists may struggle to apply the guidelines. The qualitative research studies conducted in the decade since the last guidelines (APA, 2012) were released provide a wealth of information about how Black queer people describe oppression and liberation. Thus, the current qualitative metasynthesis provides an analysis of the qualitative studies that focus on Black queer people and their experiences of oppression and hate, as well as justice and liberation (N = 106). Thematic analysis was utilized within the metasynthesis. Four major themes were uncovered: (a) the omnipresence of oppression and hate at the collective level, (b) absence of safety at the relational level, (c) pain and possibilities in the cycle of HIV stigma for Black queer men, and (d) self-acceptance and social support. The findings are discussed in light of extant scholarship, and a discussion and table of implications are provided for psychologists seeking to be accountable to the thematic findings in their practice.

Anti-Black racism (ABR) contributes to racial trauma and to the disproportionate negative mental, physical, and social outcomes faced by Black populations (Hargons et al., 2017;Wun, 2016a). The previous literature demonstrates that storytelling and other narrative interventions are often used to promote collective healing among Black people (Banks-Wallace, 2002;Moors, 2019). Storying survival (i.e., the utilization of stories to promote liberation from racial trauma) is one such narrative intervention (Mosley et al., 2021); however, little is known about the processes by which Black people utilize storying survival to promote radical healing. Using an intersectional framework and thematic analysis from a phenomenological perspective (Braun & Clarke, 2006), the present study analyzed interviews from 12 racial justice activists in order to understand how these activists engage in storying survival to foster Black survival and healing. Results show that storying survival includes five interconnected components: storying influences, mechanisms of storying survival, content of storying survival, context of storying survival, and impact of storying survival. Each of these categories and subcategories are detailed herein and are supported with quotations. The findings and related discussion explore the concept of storying survival and its contributions to critical consciousness, radical hope, strength and resistance, cultural self-knowledge, and collectivism among participants and their communities. This study therefore provides important and practical information about how Black people and the counseling psychologists who aim to serve them can utilize storying survival to resist and heal from ABR. Public Significance StatementThe present study explicates the concept of storying survival, an intervention that facilitates radical healing and liberation for Black people. We delineate the interconnected processes of storying survival, providing insight for Black people seeking to use this strategy to resist and heal from anti-Black racism as well as for counseling psychologists interested in facilitating and supporting such healing through their professional practice.