Abstract
The interplay of societal structures, interpersonal interactions, personality, and temperament greatly affect the dynamics that occur between therapists and clients. Unfortunately, most of the literature assumes that therapists are members of the dominant culture; therefore, there is very little literature on therapists from marginalized groups (Kelly & Greene, 2010). However, to borrow from Robert Guthrie’s (Even the rate was White: an historical view of psychology. Harper & Row, New York, 1976) classic title, “Even the rat was White,” not all of the therapists are White. In order to explore how therapists and clients from racially ethnically diverse backgrounds may experience same-race relationship dynamics, this chapter will address itself to the systemic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal factors that contribute to and influence therapists, clients, and the therapy process within these unique relationships. As a means of providing sufficient depth and coverage of these highly complex issues, we have elected to focus on factors relevant to African-American therapists and clients in particular, and, we briefly address the relevance of these issues to members of other racial–ethnic groups in our concluding remarks.
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Goode-Cross, D.T., Speight, S.L. (2014). But Some of the Therapists Are Black. In: Miville, M., Ferguson, A. (eds) Handbook of Race-Ethnicity and Gender in Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8860-6_15
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