The following is an extract from a larger piece of writing inspired by experiences and reflections shared throughout my work with Black clients who had previously worked with white practitioners.
What if?
What does it mean if my white counsellor has absolutely no clue about the extent to which that brief and unexpected outburst about flags at the end of our session highlighted to me something that I, and perhaps they, knew all along but felt powerless, or too indifferent, to address? That I have always been sitting in the wrong room, with the wrong person. That there has always been a limit to how useful this work could possibly be. That the circles I feel like I鈥檝e been going around in for months are not my fault and not a reflection of my incapability to utilise therapy.
What if my counsellor has also been aware of the inadequacy and superficiality of our work and, regardless of a growing sense of futility, has chosen to persist with their modality and passively render me solely responsible for my so-called 鈥榬别蝉颈蝉迟补苍肠别鈥�?
What if I have been complicit? Complicit in playing my role as the Black and stubbornly unwell client with too much of a brand of trauma that鈥檚 too Black, too foreign, too complicated and incomprehensible for any psychotherapeutic approach to truly get a grasp of?
What if, in the combination of the implicit suggestion of my 鈥�cultural environment鈥� being an unsolvable traumatic reality and the avoidance (or perhaps refusal) of suggesting that I might be better off seeing a Black psychotherapist (who perhaps suffers from the same unsolvable cultural reality), we have acted in accord with the belief that if I cannot be helped by a white counsellor, deeply committed to their therapeutic approach and unhindered by any contradictory cultural realities, then I cannot be helped at all.
What if, silently, consistently and faithfully, we have colluded in upholding the notion that the language and culture of whiteness is the same as that of human mental wellness and that white practitioners, by virtue of being in closest proximity to whiteness, are inherently better than anyone else?
What if this was something we, my white counsellor and I, subconsciously, without question, believed? That psychotherapy delivered by a white professional is premium psychotherapy. Psychotherapy in its original and correct language, untainted and in its most reliable form.
What if, instead of replying 鈥榶eah it鈥檚 crazy鈥�, I had expressed my sense of terror and betrayal when my white counsellor casually lamented 鈥榳e can鈥檛 even put our flags up now!鈥�?
What if I had been able to articulate that pressing and suddenly agonising pain low down in my gut? The compulsion to vomit the heavy emptiness that had filled my body. The panic. The shame. The sweat.
What if, instead of smiling, I screamed? What if she, as she looked into my eyes, actually saw my soul spiralling downwards into a horrifying darkness? Did she see?
What if she felt, for even a moment, what I felt for that brief eternity? What if she felt the desperate survival instinct to leave that room? What if she knew that I was terrified of both her and myself for putting me in such a position that would produce this feeling of hopeless, embarrassing nakedness.
What if my white counsellor knew that I didn鈥檛 want to come back next week? Despite agreeing on the usual time.
