The Black Psychologist and the White Client in a Racist Country

Abstract

The article is part of a Master’s thesis, completed in Brazil, 2021. The research aimed to study the intersubjective racial relations, arising from the transference relationship between Black psychologists and their White clients. The study deals with the encounter and clinical management of the mentioned dyad. This is a qualitative clinical research, using Bardin’s content analysis, with ten interviews conducted in a remote environment. This paper analyzes interpersonal relationships in the construction of bonds with patients, as well as psychic structures, considering them crossed by structural racism. From the literature on racial relations, and especially on Whiteness, it also considers the symbolic care between Blacks and Whites. As a result, the authors highlight the need to deepen the studies, training and research of psychology on the topics mentioned making possible processes of intervention for a psychology attentive to the maintenance of mental health from the diversities and their singularities in the Brazilian structural racism.