Black Men, Trauma and Therapy: Revolutionising therapeutic thought and practice

Black Men, Trauma & Therapy arrives at a defining moment. At a time marked by deep racial unease, backlash and the growing normalisation of racism, this book offers a vital lens into the state of black communities by centring the lived realities of black men. It brings clarity, honesty and compassion to experiences too often misunderstood, obscured or ignored. In doing so, it illuminates how the pressures, silences and unresolved trauma experienced by many black men are closely connected to the wider wellbeing of black communities. What Dwight Turner, Helen George and an exceptional group of contributors do so powerfully is name what is too often left unspoken, including within black communities. In so doing, they offer vital insight into the intersectional realities in black men’s lives and how these experiences connect to wider social and political struggles. This book builds empathy, sharpens understanding and challenges us to respond differently. Accessible, courageous and necessary, this is a book not only for this moment but also for our emerging futures.

David Weaver, Past President of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Senior Partner at DWC Consulting and Co-founder and Chair of Operation Black Vote

As someone who has spent decades advocating for racial justice and health equity, I welcome Black Men, Trauma & Therapy as a landmark and timely contribution to both scholarship and practice. This book arrives at a critical moment, when mental health systems continue to fail black men through misdiagnosis, over-surveillance and culturally inadequate care. What is particularly powerful about this collection is that it centres the lived experience of black male therapists, who write not only with professional authority but also from the depth of their own black identities. Their ability to reflect on their practice and develop therapeutic interventions grounded in lived reality offers a richness and diversity of thought that is too often undervalued or marginalised within mainstream therapy and academia. This book directly challenges anti-blackness and Afriphobia embedded within systems and institutions, while also restoring agency, positioning black men not as subjects of analysis but also as producers of knowledge, insight and solutions. It is this shift that makes the text both radical and necessary. More than a critique, this is a call to action. It demands that the talking therapy professions listen differently, think differently, and ultimately practise differently. It is essential reading for anyone committed to equity, justice and transformation in mental health.

Professor Patrick Vernon, Pro-Chancellor for Health, University of Wolverhampton, and Patron of ACCI and Nafsiyat

Black Men, Trauma & Therapy is a first-of-its-kind UK collection that brings together narratives and clinical reflections addressing the marginalisation of black men within mental health systems. Across its chapters, the contributors foreground lived experience, relational harm, and the cumulative impact of racism, colonial legacies and structural exclusion on black men's psychological wellbeing. My own work is grounded in a more radical decolonial analytic that interrogates the ontological and epistemic foundations of the psy-disciplines themselves. From that position, this collection can be read as an important contribution within current professional conversations, particularly for therapists and trainees seeking to reflect critically on how race, power and trauma are encountered in therapeutic work with black men. This book opens space for dialogue, discomfort and reflection, and it will resonate with those committed to developing more culturally conscious and ethically responsive practice. 

Dr Derek McKenzie, psychotherapist, Africana critical race theorist and author of the doctoral thesis From Behind the Veil, on Black British male experiences in psychotherapy training