Black mental health professionals are critical in addressing challenges related to mental and behavioral health care in African American communities, including accessibility, relatability, cultural competency and more. However, while they are treasured resources, studies show African American mental health care professionals face particular challenges related to burnout.
As World Mental Health Day, on Oct. 10, raises awareness about mental health around the globe, Black mental health workers are also making their voices heard.
“They say Black social workers do better for patients of the community because they are a part of the community, so it fares better to have a caretaker or social worker who understands you but who you also feel comfortable with,” Lourdine Jean-Francois, a holistic therapist and coach at Better Days Counseling LLC, told the Informer.
While Black mental health professionals are critical, recent data shows they are significantly more likely to experience burnout than other helping professions, putting both an underrepresented group of practitioners and the people they serve at risk.
A National survey conducted by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, found a concurrence of feedback from mental health practitioners concerned that they may not be able to meet increasing demands for mental health or substance use treatment and care without the help of much needed public policy changes.
Among 750 behavioral health workers and over 2,000 adults across the U.S., “nearly two in three (65%) reported increased client caseload, and more than seven in 10 (72%) reported increased client severity since the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Likewise, “More than nine in 10 behavioral health workers (93%) said they have experienced burnout, and a majority report suffering from moderate or severe levels of burnout (62%).
While these sentiments affect all working therapists and the communities they serve, the impact of therapist burnout may have an even larger impact on Black or African American individuals.
The mental health workforce is predominantly White and female, and there is a lack of representation of clinicians of color, especially Black male clinicians. This lack of diversity can make it difficult for Black Americans to find a practitioner they feel comfortable sharing race-related trauma with.
“Racism always makes you think, ‘I don’t want anybody to see me as lesser than.’ So if you are a provider, you want to be culturally intelligent, which means that you understand where that person is coming from in their experience,” Jean-Francois explained.
Collective data shows that Black or African American people make up a small percentage of the mental health workforce in the United States, accounting for 4% of psychologists, 2% of psychiatrists, 22% of social workers, 7% of marriage and family counselors, and 11% of professional counselors.
Jean-Francois explained the feelings associated with handling consistent client needs.
“Sometimes, when you’re hearing so many people’s stories of pain, suffering, and heartache, you can feel kind of helpless and even unsure about your ability to support the individuals that you’re working with.”
Managing Burnout
Shara Cyrus, a social worker with the Department of Behavioral Health and mental health clinician at Richard Wright Public Charter School (PCS), has worked in various disciplines of mental health as a certified therapist for over 13 years.
While she has found a hard balance in providing care and preserving her personal mental health as she serves both teenage youth and adults across the city, she emphasized the importance of having sufficient resources and support to prevent burnout.
“I feel perfectly wonderful and supported now, but for me, my biggests points of burnout have been when I didn’t feel completely supported in the network of my previous employers,” Cyrus told The Informer. “I felt the pressure to try and do everything, but also, we did not have, on a systemic level, everything that we needed.”
Cyrus deems a lack of systemic resources as a significant contributor to therapist burnout, a feeling she knows from working with patients battling Substance Use Disorder.
“If I have a patient looking for a detox, or looking for a resource but is unable to have it because of limited resources. I see them trying, but I can also do [but] so much,” said Cyrus. “For me, that is what leads to burnout, as well as compassion fatigue, knowing that people are trying, and knowing that I can’t do it all, but still trying to do as much as I can. No one can do it all by themselves.”
Seasoned careers in the mental health space have taught both Cyrus and Jean-Francois ways to recognize the onset of burnout, and enforce specific boundaries to retain their energy and well-being.
Cyrus said she schedules vacations when feasible and sets a hard work boundary, strictly honoring her time to unplug from the demands of her clients.
Similarly to the work she does with her clients, Jean-Francois takes a holistic approach when examining her personal mental health as well.
“Burnout can have so many signs and symptoms, and some of those are physical, emotional, and even behavioral. So, for me personally, I begin to feel burnout in my body and that can look like exhaustion, frequent illness, issues with sleep, [or] headaches, especially after a long day for those of us who are doing telehealth, sitting in front of a computer all day,” Jean Francois said.
While the work remains challenging, both Jean-Francois and Cyrus also fight burnout by knowing they are helping others.
“The fact is, people are just trying to get by, and that’s what I’ve had to learn,” Cyrus said. “So, while I may not understand how someone got to this place, no one woke up today and said, ‘You know what? Today, I’m going to be addicted [to drugs] or other issues.’ When you come from that standpoint, that helps you to have another piece of compassion for people who are just trying to make it.”
