We Got You BRUH? An Anti-Oppressive and Anti-Racist Clinical Approach for Working with African American Men Experiencing Grief, Loss and Trauma

Abstract

We Got You BRUH? An Anti-Oppressive and Anti-Racist Clinical Approach for Working with African American Men Experiencing Grief, Loss and Trauma Allen Eugene Lipscomb, Psy.D, LCSW Abstract This article introduces a culturally congruent, anti-oppressive and antiracist therapeutic approach for promoting healing among African American/Black men who are receiving psychotherapy and other related counseling services. Specifically, African American/Black men who have experienced racialized traumatic grief and loss. Racialized traumatic grief for African American/Black men can come as a result of witnessing the traumatic unjust death/murder of another Black man regardless of proximity and kinship. In addition, grief can come from racialized experiences and encounters in society and the blatant disregard of Black bodies in America. Due to white supremacy, institutional racism and oppression these experiences often go ignored, dismissed, discounted or even denied by clinicians when African American/Black men present for mental health services within various practice settings. Thus, it is vital that clinicians utilize a culturally congruent clinical approach when engaging, assessing and providing trauma treatment to African American/Black men. Bonding through recognition to promote understanding and healing (a.k.a. BRuH Approach to Therapy or BAT) can be utilized as an auxiliary approach in conjunction with other therapeutic models, protocols and interventions. The BRuH approach to therapy has been gleaned from (n = 50) clinical case studies and surveys (n = 200) of African American/Black men who have experienced racialized traumatic grief and loss in the United States. This article briefly summarizes the conceptual underpinnings of BAT and explores the promising practice of this approach, and presents three clinical case studies of African American/Black man who received mental health services that utilized the BAT approach protocol. The article concludes with implications for clinical practice and future recommendations for the ongoing study of the BAT approach protocol. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jssw.v8n2a3