What White Mental Health Professionals Need to Understand About Whiteness: A Delphi Study

Abstract

This Delphi study surveyed an interdisciplinary panel of diversity expert trainers (N=20) about what white mental health professionals need to understand about whiteness. The panel endorsed 162 items that included what white mental health professionals need to understand about historical and contemporary whiteness within the mental health fields and larger social systems, self of the therapist work for white therapists, as well as challenges to understanding whiteness in clinical training and practice. More specifically, the panel provided guidance on the cognitive and emotional transformations necessary for white mental health professionals to address whiteness, as well as the challenges to those transformations. The researchers provide clinical training implications for marriage and family therapists (MFTs) and other clinicians based on the results.

Strategies Used by Whites to Address Their Racism: Implications for Autonomous White Racial Identities

“…The findings of this study suggest ways that Whites can work to reduce the impact of their racism and add detail to one of the principles endorsed by various antiracist experts, which entails the need for Whites to maintain a continual sense of vigilance (Baima & Sude, 2020; Sue et al, 2019). Our findings regarding the experience of personal racism (Eichstedt, 2001; Warren, 2001)—and the emotional reactions of shame and guilt (Eichstedt, 2001; Linder, 2015)—are consistent with previous studies, suggesting possible common experiences for this population.…”

“…This would also allow mental health professionals, medical professionals, teachers, and educators to approach cross‐racial interactions with an assumption that their own racism may be an issue, which in turn may reduce biased actions or decision‐making. Educators can normalize the ongoing presence of learned personal racism for Whites (Baima & Sude, 2020). The emotional reactions and cognitive and behavioral strategies described by our participants could be presented to helping professionals as strategies for growth.…”

“…Gender differences in guilt or shame reactions could also be acknowledged and explored. Consequently, it is essential that educators acknowledge and normalize emotions and their possible link to racism and antiracist actions (Bamia & Sude, 2020). Educators may also want to encourage learners to develop IPSs that honor their individual cultural norms, preferences, and intersecting identities (Warner et al, 2020).…”

Gender and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Undergraduate and Graduate Students’ Mental Health and Treatment Use amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Asian and Black individuals are also more likely to believe that mental problems are a matter of willpower (Leong & Lau, 2001) or would improve on their own (Anglin et al, 2008) compared to White individuals. In addition to cultural factors, institutional racism, including culturally insensitive diagnostic criteria and treatment approaches (Baima & Sude, 2020;Halvorsrud et al, 2019;Rathod et al, 2018), erroneous assumptions regarding race and history (Burr, 2002;Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000), minimal diversity and cultural competence training in the mental health workplace (Wood & Patel, 2017), may serve as a barrier to mental health treatment use in Asian and Blacks students. Although there could be more factors contributing to the negative interaction between internalizing problem severity and Asian or Black identity, it does not change the alarming level of a mismatch between treatment use and needs indicated by internalizing problem severity in Asian and Black students.…”

Honoring Our Ancestors

“…Within the context of reconciliatory relationships, social work programs can begin to scan and assess all levels of their institution to understand the vortex of unwritten, unearned, and at times the unconscious power and privileges contained within monolithic systems designed for white bodies (Almeida et al, 2019;Baima & Sude, 2020;Gregory, 2020;Seawright, 2014;Tamburro, 2013). Decolonized social work paradigms must address social justice issues in ways that are meaningful to Indigenous peoples (Sinclair, 2019).…”