The Black Psychologist and the White Client in a Racist Country

Introduction

Brazil is a very mixed country (around 56% of the population declares themselves to be Black or Mixed Race) and it is also a very racist country. The local kind of racism operates with the colorism: the darker the skin color, the worse the racism. The more darker somebody is, more difficult is the life; differences and inequalities are naturalized, by their own denial. Racism is a subject that is rarely touched upon, which reinforces the myth of racial equality, while producing daily victims of violence [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

The colorist racism interferes in the way the persons see and present themselves (racial identity), how they choose their friends and romantic relationships; and it is crucial to determinate the social opportunities. Historically, Afro- Brazilians were-and still are-pressured to be or look like White people and it is possible to identify as White despite having Black parents.

Considering these facts, psychologists must be attentive of the ways racism appears in their practice, reflecting upon the power dynamics that sustain the race based hierarchy of Brazilian society, and sustain inequalities [7, 8, 9]. This article presents some results of a research that deals with the encounters and clinical maintenance of Black psychologists with their White customers, in the creation of both of their racial identities.

Psychology has pointed to the need for psychologists to deal with racial issues, a serious social and psychological matter [10, 11, 12]. This important issue has been addressed by the American Psychological Association [13] and by several scholars [14, 15, 16]. Although this, in Brazil, there is a lack of specific training in racial issues which is coherent with the denied racism.

The members within the dyad Black psychologists and White customers may have several transferences or counter transferences processes and responds to each other based on their racial identity and socialization experiences; all of which certainly may affect the therapeutic process. As Gouveia, et al. [17] pointed, the therapeutic relationship is treated as universal phenomena, which reflects one essentialist, abstract conception of the psychotherapy, as an encounter between two “human beings”, maybe not affected for the injuries caused by social problems and diseases like racism. Although this idealization, the therapeutic relationship has the presence of pre-existing transferences that are racialized and that have important consequences in the psychotherapeutic process.

The present research aimed to study the intersubjective racial relations, arising from the transference relationship between Black psychologists and their White clients. The work also aims to propose a reflection about Whiteness - a system of privileges inherent in whiteness - from the clinical relationship between Black therapists and their White customers. It can be a thorny task, as White patients do not tend to be targets for research into racial themes [8, 18, 19, 20] or to have negative experiences with the so called “racial stress” [21].

Methodology

The research was done in 2021 through a technological platform, working remotely, given the pandemic context. Bardin’s Content Analysis [22] was used with ten semi- structured interviews with Black psychologists, men and women, in six Brazilian cities, considering two categories: Clinical Encounters and Clinical Maintenance.

Results

The bond of the clinical encounter brings the possibility that ambivalent feelings might arise, via destructive and positive behaviors. However, taking a patient in is not an unconditional act by the professional; it is usually a paid activity. Because racism is so often denied even in a racist country such as Brazil, research has shown that for the creation of a bond during the clinical encounter, the Black psychologist occupies a place that in the imaginary of the White client is a place of Whiteness. For this reason, there might be a denial of the race of the clinical professional or a strong idealization of this psychologist [23].

The research also showed that Black psychologists many times have no means to attempt clinical maintenance, since the beginning of their work as therapists, due to racist projections of the clinical encounter. This is shown in a more marked way in seven reports about White customers, with strong rejections to their Black psychologists:

I remember a patient that realized I was Black as I opened the door, and she immediately went: sorry, I don’t need the service, I’m going to deal with intimate issues and I wanted a White psychologist (CO).

Eight reports from Black psychologists about their White clients reported unconscious mechanisms related to racism, understood as manifested behaviors such as: changing the subject, omitting things and distorting answers, silences and uncomfortableness when patients become aware of their racism.

Still on the clinical encounter, some of the interviewed brought up the matter of racialization as something that does not reach White patients, who do not see themselves as part of a race or part of an oppressive racial group, and do not make a careful observation of their bond with a Black therapist, in their conscious and unconscious mechanisms as observed in therapy.

All the interviewed, in some way, spoke of some experience of racism in their lives, and eight of them declared themselves as having racial awareness as Black. The possibility to speak about White customers was a way to face the experiences of racism experienced in their personal relationships, in their family lives, and of course, in their practices. Some psychologists signaled that they took these reflections to their own therapists. They sought to deal with these issues, considering racism not only in their practices but to understand their self-esteem and self-knowledge.

Discussion

According to Cardoso [20] and Schucman [5] there is in Brazil a certain awkwardness around the fact that research might focus on Whiteness, removing Blackness as part of the problem. This is made even more complicated when the researchers are Black themselves [10, 20].

Academic knowledge needs to assume that Black subjects, in their process joining universities, face difficulties that usually remain there through the whole way. The same author emphasizes democratic education, from an engaged pedagogy, instigating critical consciousness and reflection about dominating structures and overcoming them, focusing on social justice and considering gender, race and class.

The psychologist or psychoanalyst has a fundamental role presenting to their clients what is shown in manifestations or latency in their verbal and non-verbal contents, presenting a truth that they still do not know about themselves. It is the unsaid that will become the material about racism. If racism is present there, it will arise, and it is up to the therapist to point it out when it comes up, helping the patient to talk about it, to name and understand that which is silent in racist society.

Although race is a biological fiction, racialization is real and in Brazil it takes place due to appearance [2, 5]. Darker skin color means less chances there will be for social mobility and the more difficulties faced; as well as more associations to danger, exclusion, rejection and violence attributed to their character [24]. The Black phenotype will open or close doors, according to the perception to the discriminating perception, in considring Black physical traits, gestures, accent, the way they dress, culture and other elements.

In Brazil, according to Nogueira [25], relationships, although built by admiration and affection, are cut through by prejudice which was called by the author as a “brand” and that Gonzalez [26] called “disguised racism or denial”, as White subjects keep their alleged position of superiority and discrimination. The marked prejudice will determine a dismissal, in which Black people’s social class, as well as the tone of their skin might bring them more access, as a benefit or an exclusion, according to the situation and the gaze of others in endless judgment. The White gaze to the Black body involves the imaginary attributed to their color, as said by Franz F [27]: “For Black people there is a myth to be faced. A deeply rooted myth. Black people ignore it as their existence goes on among themselves, but at the first white gaze they feel the weight of their melanin” (pp: 125).

Faustino, et al. [28] define Whiteness as a result of colonialism, where the subject place is that of Whiteness, and Black people cannot also claim subjectivity. “Whiteness structures both the power dynamics, at their best and worst moments, but more than that, Whiteness structures the struggle spaces against those power relations” (p. 89). A comfortable place [1, 23, 29], from where one does not attribute to themselves that which they attribute to others. It proposes narcissistic pacts and the maintenance of material and symbolic privileges between White people, in their reproduction of a certain order, to obtain and ensure gains [10, 30, 31, 32].