Outside race, inside gender: A good enough “holding environment” in counselling and psychotherapy

Abstract

While there is general agreement that race, culture and ethnicity are critical variables in counselling and psychotherapy, very little is known about how they are psychologically constructed. Race, for example, in its current usage is far too broad and indefinite to be clinically useful. However, race and racism does enter the therapy room, and if left unexplored or disavowed can, in a pervasive way, dislocate and alienate clients and create much anxiety in therapists. Although there appears to be no consensus theoretically, scientifically or clinically on its meaning, race is still an important issue to explore in therapy. Yet, to engage with race and racism in therapy is theoretically and practically difficult, and could be made impossible by some counselling approaches. This paper examines how race can be explored in the therapy room. For clients who are afraid of talking about race and racism gender appears to be a safe place to communicate unwanted and split off feelings. Race then becomes more acceptable because the discourse of gender provides it with a particular set of vocabularies, epistemologies and linguistic resonance that can provide a good enough holding environment, offering both client and therapist with an opportunity to explore through the gendering of race other complex interpersonal issues.

Keywords:

• absent presence of race
• gender
• holding environment
• diversity

Notes

Notes

¹ Race is sometimes presented within single or double inverted commas – ‘race’ or “race” – to strongly suggest that race is not a biological or natural category but a socio-historical concept (Appiah, 1986, 1989; Du Bois, 1897; Mason, 1996). Encapsulating ‘race’ in inverted commas, may appear to have allowed for a more socio-political conceptualization without the biological attachments but has in fact drawn attention to it, in such a way that the single or double inverted commas has created a double bind, on the one hand, freeing it but also at the same time legitimizing it, thus giving it a reality and a theoretical background that does not exist.

² Culture and ethnicity, just like race, have been problematized by their ambiguous usage in various spaces and in different times. Social construction theorists claim that these concepts are products of specific histories and geopolitical experiences. Sometimes they are used as “empty signifiers” covered in ideological meanings that promote particular self interests but do nothing for black and ethnic minority groups (Moodley, 1998; Gates, Jr., 1986).