Chapter 3: Community Violence Exposure and Racial Discrimination as Barriers to Treatment: Implications for African American Males in Counseling

There are many barriers to the treatment for African American males seeking psychotherapy. African American clients may have concerns about treatment seeking reflecting badly on their families (Alvidrez, Snowden, & Kaiser, 2008); have fears of being hospitalized involuntarily, being mistreated, or being used as “guinea pigs” (Ayalon & Alvidrez, 2007); and generally see psychologists as older White males who most likely do not understand their social or economic difficulties (Thompson, Bazile, & Akbar, 2004). In addition, African Americans are frequently overdiagnosed with psychosis, which may be a result of stereotypes suggesting that African Americans may have more severe psychopathology (Whaley & Hall, 2009). Furthermore, members of this ethnic group may not see as much symptom improvement when in treatment using empirically supported interventions (Pole, Gone, & Kulkarni, 2008). African Americans may also have a preference to be ethnically matched to their clinicians (Malat, Purcell, & van Ryn, 2010), which may not be possible, as African Americans only comprise about 5% of psychologists (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012).