Is Therapy Racist? "Counseling the Culturally Diverse"

Despite its obsession with race, therapy drops the ball on this conversation

Ryan Rogers is currently a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a work background in addiction treatment. For obvious reasons, he is not naming the program he is currently training in. The views expressed below are his own reflections on the education and training he is currently receiving. This is his second installment detailing the fanatical social justice influence in counselor training. His first piece outlined political bias and lack of academic rigor in counseling graduate programs.

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If there is one thing the therapy profession stands for, surely it must be an opposition to racism. After all, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Association of Social Workers loudly tout their commitment to fighting racism. Graduate programs for these disciplines focus heavily on social justice and anti-racism training. But reality tells a different story.

My Counseling the Culturally Diverse textbook for a class I took in my first semester of a graduate program in clinical mental health counseling offers some insights into what “anti-racism” actually means. There are two troubling aspects of this diversity training: (1) the demonization of White people; and (2) the harmful infantilization of people of color.

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The authors make it clear early in the book that nothing short of complete agreement is acceptable. Having a different opinion is rooted in denial, resistance, and “White fragility.” Keeping silent only benefits the status quo, which is also unacceptable. They present the information as though complete agreement is the only way to be a good and effective therapist.

While the book tells us that White people are not the enemy, it seems to go out of its way to contradict that at every turn. The authors chide White people for using silence as a tactic to deny “that they are responsible for the oppression of others.” They tell us that “White racial guilt” is necessary for White students to understand “one’s potential culpability over past deeds.”

They spend a section applying Robin DiAngelo’s ideas of White Fragility to counseling, including challenging the need for White “racial comfort.” Such White entitlements must be challenged to attack “colonialist relations.” We must also issue a “challenge to White liberalism” and a “challenge to individualism,” as well as a “challenge to meritocracy” and “White authority” and a “challenge to White centrality.”

The authors declare, “All of us were taught to hate and fear others who are different in some way.” We were? They state, “White racism is a sickness in society and White people are also victims who are in need of help.” They tell us, “Whiteness is associated with unearned privilege” which leads White people to deny White privilege. In short, all White people have been brainwashed into the ideology of white supremacy, which gives us unearned benefits, but also oppresses us. We are unaware of this, yet we still fight for the belief system. None of these claims are testable or falsifiable, yet I am required to believe them in order to become a counselor.