#47: Race and Mental Health

Future Of Mental Health

One of the good things that came out of the past few years has been a greater reckoning with and understanding about racism. The very systems embedded in American society treat people unequally based on their race. This affects how people of different races see themselves and interact with each other, which can impact a person’s mental health.

While these ideas are becoming more widely understood, today’s guest, Dr. Janet Helms, has been studying race and mental health for over 40 years. She believes, as we do, that all people should be treated equitably. But unfortunately, that is often not the case. Therefore, Dr. Helms has dedicated her career to understanding how and why there is inequity. In her work, she has created more culturally responsive care and research to encourage mental health providers to attend to racial and cultural issues in their practices and institutions to help them improve mental health care.

Janet E. Helms, PhD, is the Augustus Long Professor Emeritus in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology and Director of the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture at Boston College. Dr. Helms’s work has been acknowledged with many awards including the national Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award for mentoring students, an engraved brick in Iowa State University’s Plaza of Heroines, and the “Distinguished Career Contributions to Research” Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, the American Psychological Association’s Awards for “Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology” (2006) and the Award for “Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy” (2008). Recently, Dr. Helms was the recipient of the 2017-2018 Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from the Society of Counseling Psychology, the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from APA's Society for the Psychological Study of Culture Ethnicity, and Race, and the APA/APF Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Public Interest.

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