African American Patients in Psychotherapy: Understanding the Psychological Effects of Racism and Oppression

African American Patients in Psychotherapy integrates history, current events, arts, psychoanalytic thinking, and case studies to provide a model for understanding the social and historical dimensions of psychological development across African American communities. Among the topics included are psychological consequences of slavery and Jim Crow, the black patient and the white therapist, the toll of even “small” racist enactments, the black patient’s uneasy relationship with health care providers, and a revisiting of the idea of “black rage.” Author Ruth Fallenbaum also examines the psychological potential of reparation for centuries of slave labor and legalized wage and property theft.