Black Mental Health

The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

An interview with Patrice Douglas, LMFT, talking about mental health stigma in the Black Community. Curt and Katie talk with Patrice about how she is working to decrease stigma and increase access to competent treatment for African Americans.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.

To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

Interview with Patrice N. Douglas, LMFT, CAMS-I

Patrice N. Douglas is a licensed therapist, Certified Anger Management Specialist, and Certified Parent Child Interaction Therapist in California and Texas. She is currently a doctoral candidate at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles. She is the owner of Empire Counseling & Consultation located in CA, NY, and TX where she specializes in anger management, men’s issues, minority mental health, as well as parenting. Patrice is passionate about decreasing stigmas in minority communities by curating initiatives such a t-shirt campaign that spreads awareness about mental health as well as uses the profits to pay for therapy for those who can’t afford it as well as low cost workshops. She has been featured in Bustle, HelloGiggles, Therapy For Black Girls, and other platforms discussing the various topics surrounding mental health.

In this episode we talk about:

• Mental Health Advocacy within the Black Community
• Reducing Mental Health Stigma
• How awesome Patrice’s Instagram is
• The pros and cons about social media and how you can use it to decrease mental health stigma
• Patrice’s Infographics and how she has used them (and the response that she has gotten)
• The way Patrice has used social media to provide education and has gotten a lot of visibility
• Culturally specific impacts of mental health concerns – historical context, religion, lack of trust
• Barriers to Mental Health Treatment for African American Clients including cultural mistrust
• The impact of slavery, experimentation, institutionalization on access and perspective
• The importance of understanding cultural differences, stereotypes, privilege, bias
• Advice for Allies – hold space, consultation, understand required competence
• Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome – intergenerational trauma from slavery impacting the current generation of Black people
• The movement that Patrice is starting to increase awareness and decrease stigma – through t-shirts, infographics
• The importance of consultation, cultural humility, historical context