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ABSTRACT
For many white, Western European descendant-citizens of the United States who watched the horrific death of George Floyd and ensuing protests, the question of one’s racism has landed front and center in their consciousness in stark, new ways. This article offers a series of clinical and Christian theological reflections on the nature of race, racism, and anti-racism based on material gleaned from a series of clinical counseling encounters, including a verbatim from one particular session. The reflections include feedback from the Society of Pastoral Theology’s workshop I presented in June 2021. They are not intended to offer any exhaustive, definitive, proscriptive claims about race, racism, and anti-racism. Rather, the reflections are intended to be invitations to curiosity and to create avenues for future inquiry, particularly as it relates to pastoral counseling and the overall, ongoing formational work of raising consciousness around issues of race, culture, and ethnicity.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 While the case is based on an actual clinical encounter, identifying information and other identifying contextual details have been altered to protect privacy and the integrity of the counseling relationship. Demographics and details of the clinical vignette are an amalgamation of multiple clients.
2 “Featured Case Studies,” Gendered Innovations | Stanford University; Cole, “How Do Sociologists Define Race?”.
3 “Racism,” Anti-Defamation League.
4 VandenBos, “Racism.”
5 Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, 19.
6 Crossroads, May 2021.
7 Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, 19.
8 “Adjustment Disorder,” in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2017).
9 “Racism and Health,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Paradies et al., “Racism as a Determinant of Health”; Poussaint, “The Negro American,” 419.
10 Thomas, “Medicalizing Racism.”
11 Historically, the American Psychological Association (APA) has rejected numerous calls to include racism in the DSM, arguing that ‘because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is normative—a cultural problem rather than an indication of psychopathology.’ Poussaint, “Yes.” The APA considered adding ‘pathological bias’ to the 2013 DSM-5 under a rubric that would have included racism, sexism, and heterosexism, though it finally decided against doing so. Thomas, “Medicalizing Racism.”
12 Currently, the DSM-5 defines a mental disorder as ‘a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g. political, religious or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above.’ “Mental Disorder,” in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2017), 20.
13 Conrad and Angell, “Homosexuality and Remedicalization,”34.
14 Byrd and Thomas, “How Racism Came to Be Called a Mental Illness.”
15 Ibid., para 17.
16 Ibid.
17 Rebekkah Kuhns as quoted in Tamara Pridgett, “A Psychiatrist Explains Why Racism is Not a Mental Illness,” para 3.
18 Ibid., para 4.
19 Quote from clinical example.
20 Wijeyesinghe and Jackson, New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development.
21 Ibid.
22 Helms, “Toward a Model of White Racial Identity Development.”
23 Hall, “Hello, My Name is _, and I’m an Alcoholic.”
24 Pulsar Advertising, Stigma Free OC.
25 Carrie and Russell, “Externalising.”
26 Whiteet al., Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends; White, Maps of Narrative Practice.
27 Hilker, “Making Trouble for Problems.”
28 White, Maps of Narrative Practice.
29 Bennett, “Empathic Responding (or Active Listening) in Counseling,” para. 2.
30 Ibid.
31 Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist.
32 Ibid., 19.
33 Ibid., 20.
34 Ibid, 18.
35 Ibid, 9.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid, 10.
39 Ibid, 9.
40 Ibid, 10.
41 Douglas and Altman, Collected works.
42 The predominant narrative about sin in the Christian tradition is the notion of original sin, a pervasive, social reality into which all humans are born, influenced and shaped by, and for which all humans are guilty. This notion of original sin has traditionally been located in the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve. The disobedience of Adam and Eve is an act in which all humanity is somehow complicit and an act that begets the ontological reality that humanity is born without the possibility to avoid sin.
43 For a fuller explanation of systemic and institutional racism, please see Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist. For a fuller explanation and discussion about the ways in which racism pervades our bodies and souls, please see, Manakem, My Grandmother’s Hands.
44 Celano et al., “Predictors of Treatment Completion”; Weaver and Himle, “Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy”; Windsor et al., “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.”
45 Brown et al., “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.”
46 Selva, “Albert Ellis’ ABC Model.”
47 Jones, Embodying Forgiveness.
48 Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mary Elizabeth Toler
Mary Elizabeth Toler is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Associate Professor of Clinical Counseling at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, PA.