As we celebrate Black Mental Health Day today, we had a chance to catch up with one of our mental health clinicians, Kim Daniel, M.Ed., PhD, to hear about the specific mental health challenges the BIPOC community faces and how she approaches culturally-specific therapy.
Kim shared: "The BIPOC community faces a lot of racialized trauma due to the way they look and the colour of their skin, which starts at a young age. Within the BIPOC community, what happens is that we learn how to adapt and how to silence our voices and to work within what we define as a 'white privileged world.' Many mental health challenges arise from racialized trauma such as anxiety, depression, low self esteem, lack of management in self and families. It's a vicious cycle that keeps on continuing due to this - that's why mental health support is very important for the BIPOC community."
Kim considers therapy as a place to have voices heard and she makes sure to give her clients a platform to speak their truths. Here's more from her on Black Mental Health Day:
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