What White Mental Health Professionals Need to Understand About Whiteness: A Delphi Study

J Marital Fam Ther. 2020 Jan;46(1):62-80. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12385. Epub 2019 May 20.

Abstract

This Delphi study surveyed an interdisciplinary panel of diversity expert trainers (N=20) about what white mental health professionals need to understand about whiteness. The panel endorsed 162 items that included what white mental health professionals need to understand about historical and contemporary whiteness within the mental health fields and larger social systems, self of the therapist work for white therapists, as well as challenges to understanding whiteness in clinical training and practice. More specifically, the panel provided guidance on the cognitive and emotional transformations necessary for white mental health professionals to address whiteness, as well as the challenges to those transformations. The researchers provide clinical training implications for marriage and family therapists (MFTs) and other clinicians based on the results.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attitude of Health Personnel*
  • Cultural Diversity*
  • Delphi Technique
  • Family Therapy
  • Health Personnel*
  • Humans
  • Marital Therapy
  • Mental Health Services*
  • White People*