After over a decade as a practicing psychotherapist in the United States, I am leaving the mental health field.

In 2021, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking before the U.S. COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force as a representative of a cohort of Black female health, mental health, research, biomedical, legal, substance use, behavioral and community engagement strategists focused on addressing health inequities and disparities in Black communities.

During this three-minute presentation, we highlighted many reasons mental health in the United States must be decolonized. A few key points we highlighted stated that (1) mental health in the U.S. can be used as a mirror to reflect who we are as a society and what we value; (2) the U.S. mental health system is designed from a Eurocentric value system of separateness rather than an Afrocentric system of integration, which views everything as interconnected; and (3) the current U.S. mental health model is designed to teach Black bodies to cope with systemic oppression, violence and inequity, while continuing to educate and train practitioners to believe they are incapable of harboring bias or being a tool of a white supremacist system.

There is no methodology within the mental health field to effectively cure racism or heal the effects of its violence. The reason there is no cure is because the society within which our mental health field functions has no desire to heal racism and to face certain economic destabilization. I am not simply referring to the money within the mental health and wellness machine, but more to the reality that a country built on enslavement must sustain slavery in various forms to maintain its economic advantages. In addition to Black bodies, this country continues to enslave the incarcerated, children, students, animals, land, bodies of water and more. America’s false and short-sighted myth of Manifest Destiny has fed and nurtured a beast within the culture of Americanism, creating a population of entitled and unseeded souls with no tolerance for the natural ebb and flow of life, love or nature.

In addition, the wounds caused by chronic and systemic racism far surpass the psycho-emotional focus of U.S. mental health, invading the spiritual and cultural realms of our being. Wounds of this nature will not be healed with the theory and praxis of white men. The cure is deep, ancient and within the psyche of nature herself.

Mental health at its worst is an extension of white supremacy; the nurse keeping our minds functioning long enough for us to work the next harvest for corporate interests. Mental health at its best is a mirror reflecting back to a society the values it practices in the daily mundane of its way of life, and an opportunity to bring these values into alignment with spirit and nature.

For the past six years, I have devoted my practice to decolonizing mental health; the practice of actively supporting and creating tools to reverse the adverse effects of colonization and enslavement by liberating marginalized people around the globe through joy, pleasure, creativity and spirituality. Our company founded a collective, The Blacker The Brain, a multicultural and multidisciplinary cohort of thinkers, feelers and activators committed to creating alternatives to traditional mental health for Black and marginalized bodies. We understood that the mental health system in the United States is modeled after Eurocentrism, which inherently singles out the individual for the failings of the society.

There is no “we” in the current mental health model. For example, when suicide rates rise in the U.S. (which has steadily been the case for over a decade), the response is to create more intense suicide prevention programming and measures for individuals experiencing suicidal ideation. A decolonized strategy would view the increase in suicidal risks as an indicator that something larger is occurring communally and work to bring change within the collective that will support and heal the individual. This consciousness is present in the ancestral practices of Black bodies around the world, firmly rooted in an understanding that we share with every thriving ecosystem on this planet. We belong to each other.

This year I am due to renew my license to practice mental health in the United States, and no matter which way I look at it, I cannot bring myself to pay to participate in a broken system.

Some will say my perspective is dangerous and harmful because it may deter Black people who are suffering in their psyche from getting the help they need. I am speaking out on this subject on behalf of the suffering. What I desire most is to end the suffering within Black bodies, not to sedate it or temporarily relieve it, but to eradicate it. To receive mental health treatment from a system rooted in a country actively and intentionally causing mental health distress is psychotic, gaslighting and violent. The cure for Black suffering is liberation.

My choice does not dissuade me from actively continuing to empower, support and promote decolonized mental health efforts. The Blacker The Brain will and must continue because the fight for liberation is diverse and multifaceted. Many marginalized bodies will come into contact with the U.S. mental health system, and when we do, I want a decolonized practitioner to be there to receive them with tools rooted in love, interconnectedness and spirit.

Still, I am leaving the world of mental health in the U.S. behind, taking with me a wealth of data and experience into the next evolution of soul care I will offer as a service to the world. I am breaking ties with the U.S. mental health system and trusting myself, my community, my ancestors and our collective brilliance to co-create healing modalities that truly and effectively, activate us into being the highest version of ourselves, as intended by our ancestors.

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Thea Monyeé

Writing since April 2022 · 1 story contributed