Black mental health professionals are more susceptible to burnout and race-based traumatic stress

At the height of COVID-19, more people died in the Black community than in the white community: 441.9 per 100,000 Black people, compared to 268.5 per 100,000 white people in the US. The damaging effects of COVID-19 were compounded for many Black people by the highly publicized police killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, which went viral on social media during the pandemic.

Both the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association reported that the pandemic, economic crisis and increased visibility of racial injustice have led to a significant increase in mental health problems among millions of people in the US.

A new study from researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine finds that Black mental health professionals (BMHPs) have significantly higher rates of burnout and racial trauma across a range of 15 helping professions (social workers, physicians, nurses) and across ethnic groups.

The study is published in the diary Psychological trauma: theory, research, practice and policy.

“Distress and distrust of White mental health professionals within the Black community has led to many Black therapists experiencing increased demand for counseling. Black counselors and psychologists are increasingly having to process not only their clients’ racial traumatic stress, but also their own emotional responses to personal racial experiences, as well as the recent Black murders and the loss of Black lives during the COVID pandemic,” said corresponding author Eric Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the school.

The researchers surveyed 182 Black psychologists and counselors to assess their rates of racial trauma, burnout, and levels of social support. They were also asked whether they had mentors, how often they met with them, and to what extent they felt a sense of calling to work with people in the Black community.

The researchers found that higher levels of social support and the understanding that things outside one’s control have a major impact on one’s life predicted lower levels of burnout and racial trauma among BMHPs. Additionally, higher levels of resilient coping were significant predictors of lower levels of burnout. Finally, more frequent mentor encounters significantly predicted lower levels of racial trauma in this group.

According to the researchers, Black mental health professionals play an important role in community recovery, even as the focus on Black patients’ mental health may make them more vulnerable to racial trauma and burnout.

“One way to advocate for racial equity in mental health care and build trust within the Black community is to recruit and support more Black individuals in mental health care. High levels of social support can serve to mitigate some of the negative consequences of burnout and racial trauma.”