Join the Reckoning

Join the Reckoning (JTR) is a collective of POC and White therapists, activists, trainees invested in using direct action to eliminate racism in the mental health field and repair the harm that the mental health field has caused. 

Many of our training programs have been unapologetic in promoting Whiteness--on one hand, elevating therapy models and ways of being that utterly disregard how much race matters, and on the other hand, dismissing and failing to teach models that are racially conscious and/or hold a multicultural lens. Despite the presence of counternarratives, there has been an inadequate interrogation of who these models are designed for and by whom. 

As if that is not bad enough, our programs continuously perpetuate micro/macro aggressions against trainees of color, especially those that have the audacity to challenge the system. Trainees have limited exposure to professors of color, who are undervalued and face racism on multiple fronts themselves. Our training institutions place a low value in recruiting and retaining professors of color, and maintain the racism inherent in the tenure process.  All of these failings not only directly harm trainees of color, they have stunted all of our education.  

Furthermore, as our country begins to reckon with the pervasive pandemic of racism, and holds up mental health as part of the solution, most of us have not been trained to recognize and assess racial trauma, let alone facilitate the healing necessary for our clients (and ourselves). 

It is time for us to have real conversations about what all of our experiences have been, and what collectively we, as a field, want to do about it. 

We can no longer be bystanders and continue to watch this racial violence happen to the next generation of therapists.  We believe it is time for a reckoning in the field of mental health. Will you join us? 

We hope to begin this movement with listening sessions focused on hearing your pain and outrage about these issues and begin to build our coalition to organize our demands and take action.  

We recognize that there are folx out there that have been doing this work and that there are people who have been thinking about these issues alone or in small groups. Our hope is to find each other and do this together so we can strengthen our voices.