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Despite years of commitment to diversifying and becoming more inclusive, the psychological professions remain dominated by white members, with ongoing problems of recruitment and retention of people of the global majority as a concern.
A long history of inequity in training, practice and psychotherapy research has shaped these problems. Concerns about racism were illuminated following the onset of the Covid 19 global pandemic, the racist murder of George Floyd on 25th May 2020 in the USA, and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. At this time, all the professional bodies recommitted to tackling racism within the profession.
In an effort to deepen understandings of whiteness and building on an initial survey, an in-depth narrative inquiry was undertaken to explore counsellors’ and psychotherapists’ experiences of whiteness within antiracist psychotherapy education, a markedly under-researched area within psychotherapy.