An Audience with Dr Isha - No. 3

Therapists, clients and caregivers exposed either directly or vicariously to the trauma of racism experience a range of powerful related feelings. I named these powerful feelings recognition trauma. This can feel like emerging from sinking sand and disbelief that we have it in us to approach this theme with confidence.

This chapter encourages trust in personal ability to transform a one-dimensional approach to empathy into something more specifically related to the context and concept of a Black Empathic Approach and healing anti-Black racism. This means not taking empathy for granted and not relying on the assumption that, as humans, we are naturally empathic, or that the use of empathy is essentially generic. A willingness to transform responses to racism for the benefit of anti- racist work is required. The concept of a black empathic approach to psychotherapy offers a framework for working with black issues in therapeutic process that cannot be matched with a taken-for-granted stance about empathy.