I was being myself but being an actor too: the experience of a Black male in interracial psychotherapy.

Abstract

In recent years, investigators have indicated that the psychotherapy process is of considerable importance in the context of interracial psychotherapy. Despite the interest in the area, minimal research has examined how racial difference impacts the psychotherapy process. This study examines the lived experience of interracial psychodynamic psychotherapy via an in-depth interview with an African-American man who had been in therapy with a European American therapist. This qualitative study utilizes a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, which accepts that understanding is contingent on both sociohistorical situatedness and relational dynamics. The study participant was chosen because of his interest in the area and willingness to explore it in detail with the interviewer. A number of themes emerged, the most salient of which are the multidimensionality of the experience and the 'absent presence' of race in the therapy process. This client's experience was both positive and negative, and in many cases, the same process-related variables contributed both positively and negatively to the client's therapeutic experience. Issues of trust, perceived cultural issues and therapy focus contributed to and detracted from the therapy experience. The depth of the therapy experience was limited by the therapist not explicitly addressing race.