Bomb threats on historically Black colleges and universities, continued unwarranted police arrests of people of color, and further spates of violence against Asian Americans are unfortunate reminders that racism is alive and well. Living in a world that is not just, equitable, or safe has reinforced why many psychologists of color choose to think deeply and be more intentional about how they practice self-care.
What does it mean to nurture yourself and your community in the face of ongoing discrimination, internal and societal messages that say you must work extra hard to prove your worth, and social structures that continue to favor people who have more resources, higher social status, or a particular skin color?
“For those of us who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color, there are extra layers that exhaust us and that we don’t have any other choice but to navigate—racism, oppression, interlocking forms of dehumanization,” said Hector Y. Adames, PsyD, a professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and director of its Immigration, Critical Race, and Cultural Equity Lab (IC-RACE Lab). “Because of that, it’s so vital that we deeply think about how to take care of ourselves and each other.”
To illuminate what self-care might look like for people of color, Adames and other psychologists have amassed a rich set of ideas, pursuits, and messages related to this topic. Among them: Self-care should incorporate one’s community, values, and culture. It sometimes means challenging what’s considered normal. It includes a mandate to set boundaries. And it’s about claiming joy, pleasure, and rest despite a legacy of oppression.
“It’s really important for us not just to survive but also to thrive,” said Grace A. Chen, PhD, a counseling psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. “It’s not just about coping or avoiding burnout but about experiencing life more joyfully. Activism is important,” she added, “but there’s this balance of, ‘Let’s also celebrate what’s wonderful about our communities and about being connected with one another.’”
Here are ways that Chen and others are doing that.
Self-care as integrity
For Chen, it’s important to view self-care as a way of being—as something that is intimately connected to one’s values and priorities and that informs all of life’s decisions.
“It’s a whole mindset,” said Chen. “Otherwise, we are constantly trying to put Band-Aids on wounds that will just keep resurfacing.”
Her own values, for example, include intentionally resisting the mindset that success is about doing more and making more money and instead putting a premium on work-life balance and on contributing to her community. These intertwined values mean that she takes certain actions that might differ from the professional norm: For example, she doesn’t accept more patients than she can comfortably handle, and if she can’t take on a patient, she seeks a colleague who can.
This highlights another of her values: cooperation over competition. “I am connected with colleagues who all support one another,” she said, so she’s always glad when she can send a potential patient to someone who seems like a good fit. The same is true with mentoring students: “If we can connect students with others who can be there for them when we can’t,” it helps to share the responsibility while also helping students broaden their network, she noted.
Self-care as resistance
As Chen’s comments suggest, self-care for people of color can also mean bucking aspects of society that don’t align with your values or well-being—whether it’s joining in efforts to end racism or adopting a lifestyle that allows more time for relaxation.
In fact, workaholism is a Western value that many psychologists of color say they actively strive against.
Michigan State University professor NiCole Buchanan, PhD, for example, said it took her years to admit that her high-stress life as an academic was harming her health. It wasn’t until she developed heart issues and anxiety problems that she realized she wanted and needed to do something about it.
“I am intentional now that my efforts related to self-care are about systems—that some systems have been developed to create oppression, and that often the oppression they create is invisible to both the oppressed and the oppressors,” she said.
To this end, she’s become increasingly bold about telling students that academia may not necessarily be the best path for them because of issues or stressors such as “publish or perish,” teaching overload, and lack of time to sufficiently address commitments to students, administrators, and fellow faculty, among other concerns.
“I talk to them about priorities and about the challenges [of academia],” she said. She also normalizes the possibility of taking an alternative path, including having or adopting children if that is a value and priority.
“If you don’t get tenure somewhere, so what?” she tells students. “Go elsewhere, do something different. If you get to live those years in balance and in joy and doing something you love, it’s worth it.”
Self-care as community connection
For Adames, the concept of self-care feels pretty foreign. “It makes me think about ‘me, myself, and I,’ and I come from a culture where we think ‘we, us, ours,’” said Adames, who is AfroLatinx. “So, I need to reorient the idea of self-care so that it’s about ‘How do we take care of ourselves?’”
Adames prioritizes connecting with like-minded colleagues who intentionally support one another. For example, he’s part of a small group of psychologists called the Psychology of Radical Healing Collective (Chen is also a member). The group periodically checks in via text, sharing “inspiration, family photos, music, and art,” Adames said. They have also created a theory and practice of radical healing that involves acknowledging and actively resisting all forms of oppression and envisioning possibilities for freedom and wellness.
“I get so much from that connection,” Adames said. “It’s a quick but meaningful and delightful way to nourish and support each other; it makes me feel less alone.”
Similarly, as an elected board member of the Texas Psychological Association (TPA), Adriana Miu, PhD, found a supportive local and state community by joining a TPA task force dedicated to social and racial justice.
“To know that there are people on this broader scale who have the shared value of racial justice has been really helpful,” said Miu, an assistant professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “The more exposure you have to like-minded people, the more it can help to insulate you from racism or racial microaggressions.”
Self-care as boundary management
Many psychologists of color say they are regularly tapped to go beyond what’s expected of White peers because they’re one of the few people of color in their professional settings—what Miu and others refer to as a “diversity tax.” That’s not always a bad thing: For example, Miu is happy to take on diversity-related projects that she’s passionate about. “But at the same time, I have very little protected time, and I’m doing a lot of this outside of my regular responsibilities,” she said.
Addressing this situation requires good time-management skills, Miu said. To this end, she sometimes says no to projects. She also thinks about how she can maximize the utility of different aspects of her work. For instance, when she gives workshops on developing multicultural skills in mental health care, “I’m also thinking, ‘Can I collect some data so I can publish the outcomes of these workshops?’” she said. “So I’m not just serving people in a particular educational setting; I’m also sharing these ideas with a wider audience and helping my career.”
As her thinking on self-care has evolved, Buchanan now teaches all of her patients assertiveness skills—how to articulate their needs and wants while simultaneously honoring others’ rights and preferences. These techniques are particularly salient for professionals of color who are taking on too much, she said.
“When people really come to understand assertiveness and practice it in a lot of different contexts—when they get to the point where it’s natural for them to be assertive—then self-care starts to happen automatically,” she said.
Self-care as a cultural fit
Embracing cultural traditions and realities is another important aspect of self-care for people of color, said clinical psychologist Robyn L. Gobin, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In a virtual continuing education workshop on self-care for people of color that she hosted in 2021, participants shared the cultural healing methods they practice, including taking part in healing circles, enjoying African or other forms of Indigenous dance, gardening, and reclaiming old family recipes.
“It’s not that we don’t know what we need,” Gobin said, “it’s that sometimes we get disconnected from those things because of the oppression we face.”
During the 2022 Lunar New Year, Miu, who is Chinese American, took to wrapping dumplings, something she enjoyed doing with her mom when she was a kid. “Connecting to my roots and culture helps me embrace my cultural identity when other people might be putting it down,” she said.
Self-care for psychologists of color can also mean navigating family expectations that differ from those of the White mainstream culture. Jenjee Sengkhammee, PhD, a counseling psychologist in Portland, Oregon, who is Hmong American, said that because of the interdependent nature of her culture, “the idea of going out to get my hair or nails done is not necessarily experienced as self-care but as ‘I’m doing something away from my family or away from people I love.’”
She’s learning to set compassionate boundaries with family members who seek her help in navigating various life challenges by letting them know she is there for them but that she also encourages them to work on maintaining their own wellness. “I kind of lean in and lean out,” she said. She also makes time for her own forms of self-care, which include exercising regularly, enjoying time in nature, and going to therapy, which helps her work on any issues she is struggling with.
Self-care as creative expression, balance, and joy
Creative self-expression is another great way to recharge batteries that may be run down from overwork or issues involving racism, psychologists of color noted. To take a break from the stresses of training students to be school psychologists in the understaffed, overly challenged public schools of Miami-Dade County, Florida International University associate professor Andy Pham, PhD, pulls out his easel and paints. “Creating through art helps me de-stress, problem-solve, and manage any negativity that’s going on in my life or work,” he said.
For Portland, Oregon-based psychologist Eleanor Gil-Kashiwabara, PsyD, acting became an integral part of her self-care when she observed how participating in theater stoked her young daughters’ creativity and self-expression. She began taking acting classes, and that led to lead roles in community theater productions with social justice themes, including Living Out, by LatinX playwright Lisa Loomer, where she played a Salvadoran nanny who works for an Anglo lawyer. This spring, she costarred in In the Name of Forgotten Women, by Cindy Williams Gutiérrez, playing one of several main female characters who represent a range of cultures and countries. The play addresses atrocities that have been leveled against women over the past four centuries, including forced sterilization, female genital mutilation, and forced child marriage.
This creative work is very much in her wheelhouse as a psychologist who also has a deep interest in fostering equity and justice. “I love the idea of bringing humanity to stories that people would not otherwise be connected to,” Gil-Kashiwabara said. “I think the intersection of art and psychology is so critical, and it’s also good for us as professionals.”
Self-care for psychologists of color is also about allowing room for joy, Buchanan emphasized.
Coming to that realization was a long process for her, she admitted. A main obstacle was internalized messages about the importance of not letting her ancestors down and about being a strong Black woman. Whenever she noticed herself getting tired from efforts to fight for social justice, for example, she would “automatically hear these internal narratives of ‘How can you give up? You have it so much better than your ancestors had it,’” she said. A related narrative: “How can you give up on this position when your grandmother worked for decades in a factory so that you could go to school?”
A breakthrough came when she realized that her ancestors underwent such hardships so that she and future generations could live in ways that allow for joy, happiness, and love. She also believes that over time, living in these expanded ways can have powerful effects on the body. She cited research suggesting that intergenerational trauma can be passed on in the body—for example, in altered immune functioning—but the same research also suggests that such genetic patterning can be changed for the better (Huber-Lang, M., et al., Nature Immunology, Vol. 19, 2018opens in new window).
“I realized that transformation begins by healing that damaged piece of me and actively teaching my children how to work on those inherited parts of themselves as well,” Buchanan said.
“By leading a life that embraces joy and other forms of self-care,” she added, “I’m passing on reparative DNA; I’m passing on a mechanism for wellness.”
