Should your therapist share in your identity?

Let's break it down.

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I recently did an interview with Harvard Public Health Magazine on the lack of diversity in mental health field, and issues we may encounter — as clients of color but also as therapist of color. I even did an interview with WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio, on why we need more therapists of color.

Here, I want to break down some of the questions and issues I think you should consider when working with a therapist. This will include:

• Whether or not your therapist should share in your identity

• Questions to ask prospective therapists

• Tools every culturally sensitive therapist should use

Because I believe in this knowledge being accessible, I am opening up today’s newsletter for all subscribers!

Before I get started, a question for you:

Should your therapist should share in your identity?

Your therapist doesn’t have to share in your identity. While this may be conducive to your own comfort and levels of safety in the room, don’t assume that your therapist will be more effective because they come from the same background as you. Every therapist should be unassuming, nonjudgmental, and curious about how your identities affect you—regardless of whether they’re shared.

Even when I work with clients of the same backgrounds, I will make sure not to assume that their experiences impact them, or their relationships with their cultural identities, in the same way it does for me. I always start with curiosity because that ensures that I am not centering my own experiences in the room. Even with other children of immigrants, I will ask: What can I read or watch that may help me understand you and your family/culture better?

You deserve to spend more time sharing rather than explaining in the room with a therapist. For some of you, that may mean identity matters. For others, you may realize that it’s not that important because your therapist creates a safe, comfortable space for you. After all, the no. 1 indicator of success in therapy is a client’s comfort with the therapist. You get to decide what that means.

Questions to ask prospective therapists

Most therapists will offer a free 10-20 minute consultation call where you can get to know them and they will ask you a few questions to make sure they also feel like it’s a good fit. This is your chance to ask questions to get more clarity on how they operate and if/how they would incorporate or integrate your identities into the work. These are taken from my book (end of chapter 7!)

• Can you tell me more about your professional background? What are your specializations?

• What does a typical therapy session look like with you? What role do you believe you should play?

• I don’t understand what X therapy is. Can you explain it to me?

• How does multiculturalism inform your practice?

• How do you incorporate your client’s culture into therapy or treatment planning?

• Would I be able to use this space to discuss world affairs and their impact on me?

• Do you have experience working with individuals of color or who is X identity? With someone struggling with X? With someone who is Y?

• In what ways have you done your own identity work?

• I am nervous that we both share X identity / don’t share X identity. How will this inform your work with me?

• In the past, I have had X experience with a therapist, and I feel Y about it. What are your thoughts on this?

Three tools your therapist should use to be culturally sensitive

As a practicing mental health therapist, here are three tools I use to make sure clients of diverse backgrounds feel supported: humility, curiosity, and investigation. (You can use these in your day to day life at work, even if you aren't a therapist!)

1. Humility: I approach my work with diverse clients with an attitude of openness, being engaged in a dynamic process, and owning my limitations. I accept that I don't know everything and that the client is the expert on their own life and lived experiences. This requires me to be flexible and acknowledge limitations of my own expertise.
   
   I don’t believe that we can be fully competent on others’ cultures or diverse backgrounds and intersection of identities. There is only humility and continued openness and growth.
   

2. Curiosity: I approach my work with diverse clients always leading with curiosity. Curiosity of what is important to them, the systems they exist within that impact their lived experiences, how we can integrate culture or their diverse backgrounds into our work, and the strengths and supports they do have. This also allows me to try to understand their models of wellness, and recognize their healing beliefs and practices.
   

3. Investigation: As a former journalist, I believe in investigating where I am getting my information, what I have been taught, and what tools, assessments and metrics I am using (and who they were created and normed by and for).
   
   This allows me to continuously interrogate how I am showing up, what my clients’ goals are and how I can support that, while also pushing me to deconstruct any biases and assumptions I may have along the way.