Estimated read time: 6 minutes
There’s a narrative that gets repeated often:
“Go to therapy. It will help.”
And while therapy can be life-changing, what we don’t talk about enough is this: What happens when therapy doesn’t feel safe?
What happens when the very space that is supposed to hold you… misses you?
As a Black psychologist and someone who has sat on both sides of the therapy room, I’ve come to understand that therapy is not always experienced as neutral—especially for Black and immigrant individuals seeking therapy in Calgary and across Canada.
Therapy Is Not Culturally Neutral
Therapy doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens within cultural frameworks, biases, and systems that don’t always understand the fullness of who you are.
Research has long shown disparities in mental health care for racialized communities, including misdiagnosis, early termination of therapy, and lower satisfaction with care (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2020).
For many Black and immigrant clients, therapy can feel like another place where you have to translate yourself. Explain your family. Justify your reactions. Tone down your emotions—even in a space that is supposed to invite your whole self in.
When Harm in Therapy Is Subtle
Not all harm in therapy is loud or obvious.
Sometimes, it sounds like:
“That seems like a lot…”
“Have you considered medication?”
“Let’s focus on how you can manage this better.”
And while these responses may be clinically appropriate in some contexts, timing, context, and cultural understanding matter deeply.
My Experience: When Grief Was Minimized
I remember sitting in a therapy session after experiencing a loss. It was the same day.
The grief was fresh, raw, and overwhelming—the kind of pain that sits heavy in your chest and spills over without warning. I was crying deeply.
And instead of being met with space, attunement, or curiosity about what that loss meant for me, the focus quickly shifted to reducing the intensity of my emotions.
Medication was suggested. Not as one option among many, but as a response to how much I was crying.
And in that moment, it felt like my experience was being minimized. Like the goal wasn’t to understand me—but to stabilize me quickly.
There was no pause to consider the timing. No acknowledgment that this had just happened. No curiosity about the cultural meaning of grief. No recognition that crying, in that moment, wasn’t pathology—it was human.
As both a client and a psychologist in Calgary, I left that session feeling unseen.
Grief, Culture, and Expression
In many cultures, grief is not quiet. It is expressed, felt, and carried in the body.
Crying is not something to be immediately contained—it is something to be witnessed.
In my Jamaican culture, grief is not only expressed through tears—it is expressed through sound, movement, and community.
Funerals are not always silent or subdued. There may be bands playing, music filling the space, people wailing openly, and sometimes even professional mourners helping to set the emotional tone of collective grief.
As a teenager, I was part of one of those bands. I volunteered, dancing to music at funerals and witnessing firsthand how grief could be loud, embodied, and shared.
It wasn’t seen as excessive. It wasn’t something to be quickly contained or quieted. It was understood.
Grief, in that context, was not something to fix—it was something to move through, together.
Clinical literature also emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between normative grief and mental health disorders, especially in the early stages following a loss (World Health Organization, ICD-11; DSM-5-TR).
But when therapy prioritizes symptom reduction over understanding, it can send a harmful message:
“Your pain is too much. Let’s fix it.”
Instead of:
“Your pain makes sense. Let’s sit with it together.”
Why Many Black and Immigrant Clients Avoid Therapy
For many Black and immigrant clients in Calgary and across Canada, this disconnect is not theoretical—it is lived.
Emotions are often:
- Pathologized instead of contextualized
- Rushed instead of held
- Interpreted without cultural grounding
When people from our communities hesitate to engage in therapy, it’s often labeled as stigma.
But sometimes, it’s not stigma—it’s wisdom.
Research highlights that mistrust in mental health systems among racialized communities is often rooted in lived experiences of bias, systemic inequities, and lack of culturally responsive care (Mental Health Commission of Canada [MHCC], 2016; Williams & Mohammed, 2013; Sue et al., 2007).
Avoiding therapy isn’t always resistance. Sometimes, it’s protection.
What Safe, Culturally Responsive Therapy Should Feel Like
Safe therapy doesn’t mean perfect therapy—but it does mean:
- Your emotions are not rushed or shut down
- Your experiences are understood within cultural context
- Your therapist is curious, not assumptive
- You don’t feel like a problem to be solved
Culturally responsive therapy is not just a “nice to have”—it is essential to ethical and effective care (Canadian Psychological Association; American Psychological Association Multicultural Guidelines).
If Therapy Hasn’t Felt Safe for You
I want you to hear this clearly:
There is nothing wrong with you.
If you’ve left sessions feeling misunderstood, minimized, or like you had to perform to be acceptable, that is not a reflection of your capacity to heal.
It is a reflection of a space that may not have been built with you in mind.
A Different Kind of Therapy in Calgary
At Healing Journey Collective, a Calgary-based therapy practice, we believe therapy should feel like a place where your story is understood within the context it exists, where your emotions are not something to fix but something to explore, and where you don’t have to shrink, code-switch, or explain your humanity.
Because healing doesn’t happen when you’re being managed—it happens when you’re being met.
If you are looking for culturally responsive therapy in Calgary, support for grief and loss, or a space where your lived experience is understood, working with a psychologist who values cultural context can make a meaningful difference. Connect with us to book a complimentary 15 mins consultation to discuss fit.
You Deserve to Feel Safe in Your Healing
Therapy can be powerful—but only when it is rooted in safety, understanding, and respect for the fullness of your experience.
And you deserve nothing less than that.
References
American Psychological Association. (2017). Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity, and intersectionality.
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR).
Canadian Psychological Association. (2017). Practice guidelines for culturally competent care.
Mental Health Commission of Canada. (2016). The case for diversity: Building the case to improve mental health services for immigrant, refugee, ethno-cultural and racialized populations. https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2020). Double jeopardy: COVID-19 and behavioral health disparities for Black and Latino communities.
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271
Williams, D. R., & Mohammed, S. A. (2013). Racism and health I: Pathways and scientific evidence. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(8), 1152–1173. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213487340
World Health Organization. (2019). International classification of diseases for mortality and morbidity statistics (11th ed.; ICD-11). https://icd.who.int