What is your therapist's race/ethnicity?

I put other. I am unsure of what race my therapist is. I don't believe he is white, but do not know if he is native or middle eastern. He was raised in the same state I am in, but don't know what ethnicity he identifies with.

wow. lotta white folks on PC! lol

Yeah, I expected there would probably be more white people than any other category, but I didn't expect 70% white people. lol.

if we were all in a room together i would stand out like a sore thumb. I would hold tight to AsiaBlue's hand and whisper "I think I'm the only one."

I think there are multiple factors at work here that can make personal experience misleading. In the US, the majority of practitioners have traditionally been white. This has changed, and continues to change as the population demographic changes. But just as in nearly every other field, access is determined by education and the highest levels were dominated by white applicants. So there's more extensive diversity at the BA/MA level than the PhD level of practitioners. This continues to change as the profession makes diversity an increasing priority.

There are also differences in the cultural acceptance of therapy as a pursuit. Cultures of European descent have a more accepting tradition of therapy than some Latin or Asian cultures. So you have to not just look at the demographic of practitioners, but also that of potential clients. It's a bit of a chicken and egg question: do those of some cultures not traditionally look to therapy as a benefit and so that influences fewer from those cultures to become Ts? Or does the lack of diversity in practitioners influence those from non-white cultures to not become clients?

There's also a regional distinction, with practitioners in the rural mid-west and south being more often white with more diversity on the coasts and within urban areas throughout the country. There also tends to be more diversity in agency/university/hospital settings than in private practice.

I don't think racial preferences in choosing a practitioner are necessarily discriminatory, nor without merit. It needn't be about qualifications or personal attributes, but rather cultural understanding. We are all to some degree products of our social and cultural environments, and that kind of affiliation is strongly connected to areas of beliefs and values. Since research does show that the therapeutic alliance is the factor most predictive of success, mutuality of basic values and life perspectives can be beneficial.

In here, Central Europe, it's nearly impossible to find a T that's anything but white...:/

Why does it matter? I mean, I know there are cultural differences, but aren't we all humans, and surely a compassionate person will see the person underneath all the constructs of their society?

What happened to the Jewish chose? Or were we suppose to consider that as white? I love that he is Jewish. He is more open and is not tightly wind up. I am a short white Italian girl.

I am sorry. I couldn't include every possibility ever because I already had so many choices. I probably should have just included a list of ethnicities rather than asking what race/ethnicity each user is too. I thought it might be interesting to see if there were any trends there too, though.

I do tend to see Jewish people as white, anyway.

One would hope so. But everyone is subject to unconscious bias, and I don't only mean discrimination, but simply ways of perceiving life struggles, problems, communication patterns, gender roles, etc. I think it very much depends upon the issues that someone brings to therapy. You could make the same argument about gender, but posters generally seem pretty firm about their preferences about that. Others are equally adamant in their preferences concerning age.

This is very interesting. I never really thought about the fact that some cultures aren't very accepting of the entire concept of therapy. That could certainly account for some of the apparent lack of Asians and hispanics in therapy and as therapists.

The lack of Asians, in particular, was confusing to me because one could always say, well of course there are less blacks and hispanics in therapy...they're much less likely to have the means to either get the education to become a therapist or to pay for therapy. Asians aren't usually considered a group likely to live in poverty, however. I could definitely see how mindsets among a lot of Asian families might discourage the idea of therapy, though.

I knew someone while I was in college who was very adament that a lot of her problems were caused by her being black. Personally, I always felt like at least some of the problems she perceived were related to her race actually weren't. For example, she once received a poor grade on a paper and told me it was because the professor didn't like her because she was black. I'm sure people could argue for hours over how much truth there really was behind her perceived discrimination and oppression, but regardless, I could see how someone like her might feel more comfortable with someone of her own race. And that's fine by me.

Perceptions are central to all therapy, and the experience of them is at least as important, maybe more so, than any relative truth or merit of them. Perceptions about everything, not just race.

The Asian culture I have lived and worked in for a long time is still fairly early in the widespread adoption of therapy as a benefit. There are big gov't subsidies beyond health insurance to support people getting therapy, posters in the trains, that sort of effort to de-stigmatize therapy. And a true crisis in the secondary school population that they're trying to address by putting professional counselors in the schools. A colleague's retired husband has just finished his training for a second career in school counseling.

But in the US, there's also a shift generationally as each generation typically adopts more dominant cultural values in addition to their native family/community values. That experience of transition can be a pretty confusing time, and often begins at college, so Univ counseling centers have generally been ahead of the game in pursuing diversity.

It can sometimes be hard for a member of the racial/ethnic majority to appreciate some of the discrimination and prejudice that affects minorities, no matter how compassionate and well-intentioned they are. When something isn't affecting you or anyone you know on a daily basis it can easily be invisible to you. That's not about people not being compassionate, it's just human nature not to notice - we all see the world through our own lens.