An Audience with Dr Isha - Session 7

This is an open meeting and an opportunity for individuals in the helping professions to discuss chapters of my book. A Black Empathic Approach to Psychotherapy: Growing from Rage to Compassion.

In this chapter, I make the case that an appropriate gaze is essential for the use of a black Empathic Approach. An appropriate gaze is a reflective process that accurately responds to and reflects the situation at hand. In the case of the BPOC group, or anyone, describing an experience of antiblack racism. This means reflection and appropriate modelling in the relational process.  An appropriate gaze is one that positively reflects connection with an individual’s true identity and ways of being. Attention to internalised racism and its impact on BPOC individuals and the ways that anti-black racism distorts the perception of white individuals, is an essential part of the therapist’s contribution to building an appropriate gaze.