Construing Non-White and White Clients: Mental Health Practitioners’ Superordinate Constructs Related to Whiteness and Non-Whiteness in Australia

Abstract

Acceptance and inclusion of diversity is challenged by the prevailing sociopolitical and ethnocultural framework of Whiteness in Australia. To examine the impact of Whiteness on practitioner construct systems, mental health practitioners’ constructions and preference for non-White and White people, as well as frameworks of Whiteness and non-Whiteness, were explored. Twenty White and non-White mental health practitioners and trainees were purposively sampled and interviewed using an adapted version of the laddering interview technique. Data was analyzed thematically and interpreted using Personal Construct Theory—the theoretical framework that informed the study. The findings reiterate those found in research literature which highlights the persistent role of Whiteness on constructs of non-Whiteness, as well as on White and non-White people. The results suggest that a potential shift has occurred in the discourse on constructions of White and non-White people amongst mental health practitioners. This shift may be the movement away from being blind to difference and acknowledgement of the inequities and inequalities experienced by diverse groups. The implications of such a shift allow both White and non-White people increased opportunities for access to and engagement with supports aimed at improving psychological wellbeing.

Notes

1 The capitalisation of the ‘W’ in White and non-White is one of contentious scholarly debate. A capital W is used in this paper in line with The Diversity Style Guide (2019). White, white. Retrieved 6 December from https://www.diversitystyleguide.com/glossary/white-white/ to acknowledge the racialisation and concomitant characterisation of ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic affiliation in terms of proper nouns used to construct identities and not simply to inaccurately describe phenotypical traits.

2 Importantly, participants were not asked which pole of the White/non‐White construct they related to. Some participants queried the interviewers on the basis they were making that choice, to which the interviewer responded, “there are no guidelines for how or on what basis to make your choice, only that a choice must be made”.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.