Mental health clinicians may encounter racist beliefs, stereotypes, racialized assumptions, or other expressions of the inherited system of racism during psychotherapy, yet many clinicians have received limited formal training in how to respond therapeutically. Beyond Silence provides an evidence-informed framework for recognizing racism as clinically relevant material, understanding the influence of therapist racial socialization and professional history, and selecting interventions that address harmful beliefs while attending to the therapeutic relationship.

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The workshop integrates didactic instruction, reflective racial-socialization narrative work, clinical discussion, and case-based application. Participants examine how racism and white supremacy have been embedded within psychology and mental health systems; consider racism and racialized beliefs as relevant to mental health and interpersonal functioning; develop greater intellectual and emotional racial literacy; and practice interventions for addressing white client racism in session.

The final portion of the workshop uses theoretical clinical vignettes and small-group exercises so participants can translate the conceptual material into concrete clinical responses.

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The workshop addresses a clinical training gap: therapists are expected to practice with cultural responsiveness and competence, yet many have had little direct skills training in responding when racism is expressed by a client. Avoidance or conversational silence may leave clinically meaningful beliefs, relational patterns, affective responses, and harmful behavior unexplored. This course is designed to increase clinician confidence, self-awareness, case conceptualization, and intervention skill in these moments.