Zoom
Integrated Wellness Group CEO Maysa Akbar moderated Wednesday’s virtual discussion.
Covid-19 and racism are twin viruses affecting New Haveners’ mental health, according to three experts brought together as virtual panelists by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
Integrated Wellness Group CEO Maysa Akbar, Clifford Beers CEO Alice Forrester and Rev. Frederick J. Streets of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church all have experience dealing with such crises.
“It’s about acknowledging the stress and at the same time thinking about how you have historically dealt with stress,” Streets said.
“What are their social support systems? What is their own history of facing past challenges? Can that draw a sense of strength from that history?”
The Struggle To Breathe
Emily Hays Photo
Akbar moderated the Zoom-based discussion and started by pointing out that victims of Covid-19 and police brutality have a common need and struggle to breathe. What does that do to mental health? Akbar asked.
“That’s a good metaphor for the struggle families face. ‘I can’t catch my breath’ is a common theme we hear, or ‘I can’t catch a break,’” Forrester said.
Forrester explained that crises often pile on top of one another for the families her clinic sees: a parent is working three jobs, children are home with pandemic school closures, the family is out of food and the car has now broken down.
“When I think about healing from trauma, a lot of what we are trying to do is help kids and families create a space for breath,” Forrester said.
Facing racism adds another layer to the trauma families face. Forrester said that she has been thinking about how being a white woman protects her from these worries when she walks outside.
Streets talked about what he calls the “chronic racism stress affliction response” that pre-dated and will continue after the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent wave of protests against police brutality.
“It’s not just that the black community will need to dig deeper into their support systems and traditions of faith. They need to feel that there are corrections in the larger society,” Streets said. “You are trying to get stronger in a society that is constantly negating you.”
First Steps
Clifford Beers CEO Alice Forrester: All feelings right now are normal.
Akbar asked the panelists for a tangible first step for those working in the hospital or grocery store check-out line while worrying about their own safety and mourning the death of George Floyd.
“For some, advocacy is a form of self-care, affirming their sense of dignity and their care of self and others,” Streets said.
He added that being aware of one’s own body and how stress is affecting it is important. That awareness might mean spending less time watching television and taking in reports about crises.
“Water, sleep and acknowledging what you’re feeling,” Forrester summarized.
Forrester explained that people often get caught up in the idea that something is wrong with them for feeling a certain way.
“It reminds me of the process of grief. Anything you’re feeling right now is normal,” Forrester said. “If there’s ever a time when any feeling is okay, this is it.”
The panelists described racism as its own kind of disease that requires a “psychic surgery,” in Streets’ words.
“While the world is aware of Covid-19 and its effects, it has to become equally aware of how racism is affecting everybody. The moment you start thinking racism is only somebody else’s problem, that’s when it becomes dangerous,” Streets said.
“Many people think the current U.S. leadership is promoting a white nationalist agenda that defines who is white, male, female and Christian. A lot of white people will discover that it doesn’t include them.”
Streets said that he sees new possibilities for collective empathy in the way the pandemic touches everyone.
Rev. Frederick J. Streets: Racism also endangers everyone.
All three panelists agreed that this could be a moment of dramatic change for the better, starting with therapy itself.
The whole system of therapy needs to rely less on one-hour sessions and more on promoting attachment and learning between people where they are, Forrester said.
“We have stayed away from looking at racism as pathological — what it takes in order to operate from that level of mentality and the sociopathic arena that enters into,” Akbar said.
Meanwhile, early versions of modern therapy pathologized sexuality, Akbar said.
There was even once a medical term for a slave that wanted to run away, because who would want to leave such a supportive environment? Streets recalled, with heavy air quotes.
“This is what led the black community to be suspicious of mental health treatment,” Streets said.
He referred Forrester and others who want to reform the mental health system to Ralph Ellison’s Harlem-based clinic and other systems of self-care that have long existed within marginalized communities, including their faith, culture and traditions.
Streets said that he and other community leaders want to answer several questions about how to increase the trust, accessibility and negotiating power of African-American communities in the health care system.
“We have to take this opportunity as a chance to take care of our physical and mental health,” Akbar said. “We need to find those productive outlets, whether that is exercise, meditation or doing what feels right to change the world.”
Mental health care is important for everyone. We need to encourage black and brown people to become healthcare and mental healthcare providers. We need to examine sexism and racism and bias in the mental healthcare profession and address it. If you're a mental healthcare professional you need your training and education to address the needs of a diverse community to be able to serve that community.