Here’s what they had to say.
I also see how family and friends who are Black and queer, fat, etc.
are treated negatively, which has increased my ability to empathize with any client who comes into my office.
Lydia X.Z.
Disability justice advocate, organizer, educator, attorney, strategist, and writer,Lydia X.Z.
We care so we are empathetic and validating, but they also need a marginalized therapist."
Lydia X.Z.
They highlighted how even an adjunct faculty role at a university comes with substantial class privilege.
“That experience was harrowing.
“This changes things at a molecular level and allows for witnessing to happen on a cosmic level.
We cannot talk about our emotional bodies without contextualizing the identities that inform them,” they say.
Any person that has to reconcile this moral injury will have their mental health burdened.
In my professional life, I have worked in controls where I felt like an outsider.
However, this is what oppression often looks likeespecially for professionals of color.”
Unfortunately, its common for marginalized identities to experience microaggressions in in-person therapy.
McClendon emphasizes that mental health provider pipelines need to be considered to create a more equitable system of care.
