White Clinicians’ Way of Being with Their Black Clients

<p>Within the context of pervasive racial social inequality in mental healthcare (Lund, 2020), this dissertation sought to explore how white people who inherently hold racial bias according to critical whiteness theory (Olcon, Gilbert, & Pulliam, 2019), navigate this within their therapeutic work and relationships as clinicians with Black clients. Using the framework of clinician way of being, the conscious attitudes and beliefs that clinicians hold towards clients (Fife, Whiting, Bradford, & Davis, 2014), this phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews with key informants, practicing white clinicians (N=19). Content analysis of verbatim transcripts suggests that whiteness and conscious navigations of emotions and pre-judgements about race influenced clinicians’ ways of being, therapeutic relationships, and techniques with Black clients oriented on a continuum from ignoring to reckoning with race. Findings suggest further research on how whiteness is implicated in interracial clinical dyads and offer insights into white clinicians’ need to interrogate their own whiteness.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Social Work and Social Research

Year

2021

Author dc:creator

• Bogue, Briana

• Social Work

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.brynmawr.edu/dissertations/237

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.brynmawr.edu:dissertations-1229