Black-on-Black therapy is difficult to access in NYC and nationwide

By Brian Delk Special to the AmNews

Mental health resources are a necessity for many New Yorkers. Yet access to the right therapists has proved challenging for many due to race, sex, insurance coverage, and many other factors.

One in every 5 New Yorkers experiences mental illness every year, or approximately the same number of people living in Manhattan, according to the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health.

However, white residents are more likely to use mental health resources than Black, Latinx, and Asian populations. Also, men across all races seek fewer mental health resources than women.

A study published in Counseling Psy- chology found that for every 1,002 Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC) across the nation’s 45 largest cities, there is only 1 BIPOC therapist. When compared to the ratio of white individuals to white therapists, 307:1, white therapists are three times more accessible for white patients seeking white therapists.

One of the study’s researchers, Matt Zajechowski, collected thousands of individual profiles from Psychology Today’s therapist directory to compare therapist availability with census data for different ethnicities and languages.

Mental health professionals have said speaking with a therapist with an equivalent ethnic background or shared lived experience benefits the clients’ comfort during their sessions — and can also save time.

Dr. Dana Crawford, a pediatric and clinical psychologist based in Manhattan, in her earlier experiences attending college and during her clinical practices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said many of her mentors and professors were white, and while they cared for their patients and the community — they did not understand some of the cultural nuances of Black and brown people.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.’ Or to say, ‘I can only imagine what you’ve gone through,’ It’s another thing to say, ‘I know it,’” she said. “For example, ‘I know what it means to be afraid that your Black son might be harmed, cause I have a Black son, and I know that fear in my bones.’”