ABSTRACT
What does it mean to be the beneficiary of racial privilege as a therapist and to find ways of acknowledging that position to patients whose lives may have been marked by inequality and racial prejudice? In this chapter we explore how being ‘white’ affects a person materially and in terms of positioning and entitlement. Remaining silent in the face of this becomes a form of collusion, but speaking out risks breaking a fragile truce that is often based on a tacit agreement not to raise unpleasantness or to confront unfairness.
Working as a white therapist requires an honesty about the advantages that are attached to being from an ‘unmarked/dominant’ group because otherwise it can seem as if the therapist is occupying a one-up position to those whose communities have been scarred by disadvantage, forced migration, poverty and hatred. If we are to own this, we need to bring race and culture into the consulting room in an explicit way and make it something that can be talked about. White therapists who are not able to notice or effectively speak about the impact of this racial disadvantage cannot hope to be effective or to validate the experiences that have brought their patients to therapy.
