Therapy With Black Couples

Therapy With Black Couples addresses the often overlooked challenges Black couples face as they navigate their relationships within the context of ongoing racialized stress and systemic inequality. Led by Katherine Helm, PhD, this demonstration illustrates how therapy can serve as a supportive and culturally responsive space for addressing these pressures rather than pathologizing the couple.

Through carefully guided therapeutic work, the video shows how clinicians attend to the broader social, historical, and relational forces impacting the couple, including experiences of racism, economic and health disparities, gender role expectations, spirituality, kinship networks, and the intergenerational legacy of slavery. Rather than focusing on isolated symptoms, this demonstration emphasizes understanding how these contextual factors shape emotional connection, conflict, and intimacy.

Hosted by Byron Waller, PhD, Therapy With Black Couples offers clearer understanding of culturally responsive couples therapy and gain insight into therapeutic techniques that honor Black couples’ lived experiences while fostering connection, resilience, and healing.

This therapeutic approach recognizes that Black couples' relationships are shaped by a range of cultural, historical, and systemic influences that extend beyond the couple itself. Integrating psychodynamic, interpersonal process, and emotion-focused therapies, it helps clinicians explore how factors such as systemic racism, racialized stress, economic and health disparities, spirituality, family networks, gender roles, and historical oppression can impact intimacy and relationship functioning. Grounded in a strengths-based, culturally responsive framework, the approach supports couples in building deeper emotional connections, improving communication, and fostering resilience while honoring their lived experiences and cultural values. Developed by Katherine Helm, PhD, a recognized expert in multicultural counseling and couples therapy, this model reflects her commitment to advancing culturally sensitive mental health care and strengthening relationship well-being within Black communities.

Katherine Helm, PhD, is a professor of Psychology and director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at Lewis University, Romeoville, IL. She is a sought-after author, public speaker, professional trainer, and clinical supervisor. Her passion is demystifying therapy and empowering people to have healthy romantic relationships and strong mental health. Katherine is a couples' therapist who also sees individuals in counseling. She has authored several publications about racial and cultural issues in mental health, couples' issues, and has an extensive background facilitating counselor trainings. Katherine has had several on air and on-screen media appearances, including a TEDx Talk focused on romantic relationships. 

APA videos

Therapy With Diverse Couples
Shalonda Kelly, PhD

Integrative Family Therapy With Couples
Patricia J. Pitta, PhD, ABPP

Integrative Systemic Therapy With Couples
William M. Pinsof, PhD, ABPP, LMFT

Couples Experiencing Commitment Uncertainty
Jesse Owen, PhD, and Johanna Strokoff, PhD

Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy
Rhonda N. Goldman, PhD

Reflections on Race and Ethnicity in the Therapeutic Setting
Rita Chi-Ying Chung, PhD, Fred Bemak, PhD, Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD, and Joseph M. Cervantes, PhD

APA books

Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy: The Dynamics of Emotion, Love, and Power
Leslie S. Greenberg and Rhonda N. Goldman

Enhanced Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Couples: A Contextual Approach
Norman B. Epstein, PhD, and Donald H. Baucom, PhD

Integrative Systemic Therapy: Metaframeworks for Problem Solving With Individuals, Couples, and Families
William M. Pinsof, Douglas Breunlin, William Russell, Jay L. Lebow, Anthony L. Chambers, and Cheryl Rampage

Deliberate Practice in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy
Hanna Levenson, Sam Jinich, Alexandre Vaz, and Tony Rousmaniere

Integrative Couple and Family Therapies: Treatment Models for Complex Clinical Issues
Edited by Patricia J. Pitta

Cultural Humility: Engaging Diverse Identities in Therapy, Second Edition
Joshua N. Hook, Don Davis, Jesse Owen, and Cirleen DeBlaere

Other suggested resources

Helm, K., & Carlson, J. (2013). Love, intimacy, and the African American couple. Routledge Press.

Guillory, P. (2022). Emotionally focused therapy with African American couples: Love heals. Routledge Press.

Gottman, J. M., & Gottman, J. S. (2007). The new marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Johnson, S. M. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. Little, Brown and Company.