Therapy can be helpful at any point in life for any person.
Licensed marriage and family therapist Eliza Boquin says it's so important for every individual to prioritize their mental health.
"You don't have to be in crisis to go to therapy," Boquin said. "You can go because you're your boss is stressing you out and you haven't got that promotion and you're working ten times as hard."
Both Boquin and relationship therapist Eboni Harris are connected through Melanin and Mental Health. It's a directory of Black and Brown therapists.
"While going through normal life stressors and the experiences that everyone has, we also have to worry about racism, discrimination, biases, police brutality, and racial inequality in all these different ways," Harris said. "And so that also impacts your mental health in a in a negative way."
Both therapists say having a Black or Brown therapist who understand cultural nuances can make a huge difference.
"Every Black or Latinx person has not had the same experience, obviously," Harris said. "But there are some commonalities that we often have, or even if we haven't had them, we have some knowledge of them, right?"
However, there is still a lack of representation.
"I think the percentage right now of Black psychologists is around 4 or 5%," Boquin said. "When you're talking about Latinx therapists, which again, within that you have Black Latinx or you have white Latinx, indigenous Latinx, but that's only around 7%."
In addition to encouraging more people of color to enter the field of psychology, Boquin and Harris are working on more immediate solutions to connect communities of color with resources.
Beyond Melanin and Mental Health, other resources for people of color include Therapy for Black Girls, La Vida es Preciosa, and Inclusive Therapists.
