Challenges for Black Young Adults
Symptoms Indicating Counseling Can Help
How Counseling Produces Thriving
Keys for Successful Counseling
Collaborating on a Plan

Challenges of Being a Black Young Adult 

With young adulthood comes transitions—in education, living arrangements, work, identity formation, and relationships. Making the transition to adulthood can be full of challenges and a new study paints a striking picture of how discrimination based on race, sex or physical appearance is related to mental and behavioral health in Black young adults amidst this transition – causing a myriad of damage to an already-struggling demographic.   

Common struggles come from living away from home for the first time, feeling alone in a new place and missing family and friends.  For many, being solely responsible for the first time for our own food, shelter, clothing, and sleep schedules may not be going so well.  It can be intimidating facing new and difficult academic challenges and job assignments. Then relationship problems or breakups can take their toll along with possible financial problems. All of these stressors can converge leaving us exhausted, frustrated, and or sad.  If these stressors that take us down or leave us feeling the  “blues” last more than a couple weeks or make it hard to manage through daily life, doing nothing or hiding how we’re feeling rarely if ever produces a desirable or healthy outcome.  Be mindful, this is only part of a bigger picture – there’s more.  

According to Mental Health America, Black young adults experience direct traumatic stressors (including being heavily policed or being the victims of physical and verbal attacks), indirect stressors (such as the effects of viewing the video of the killing of Black people, repetitive trauma), and transmitted stressors (from traumatic stress passed from one generation to the next).  In sum for Black young adults it’s a stressful world wherein they are experiencing racial based microaggressions on a daily basis (resulting in higher levels of anxiety and depression among other traumas).  

Trauma unresolved increases risk for the onset of anxiety, depression and other debilitating mental health conditions and can physically manifest in the form of cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure, stroke or heart attacks.  For many this wave of trauma started in childhood and has existed throughout their lifespan to date, remaining untreated and is firmly in place. 

Symptoms in Black Young Adults Indicating Counseling Can Help 

Be aware physical and emotional signs and symptoms can be different for each person. You may feel empty, hopeless, sad, anxious, guilty, worthless, tired, irritable, helpless, or restless. Potential physical symptoms might be: aches, pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems. 

Some note a loss of interest in activities that one used to enjoy.  Others note problems concentrating, remembering information, or making decisions. Some have problems falling or staying asleep, or swing the other way and are sleeping too much.  Some are eating too much while others not wanting to eat at all.  Some bury themselves in their work to avoid talking about their feelings and mental health, others self medicate with substances be it alcohol or drugs –  all to cope.

Commonly people feel layers of feelings, some rooted in a combination of causes, including negative thinking patterns, a family history of mental health issues, brain chemistry, hormones, and surroundings and life experiences, including trauma or abuse. 

The American Psychological Association advises considering see a therapist when something causes distress and or interferes with an aspect of your life, particularly when:

• Coping with or thinking about the issue consumes at least 1 hour each day
• The issue embarrasses you or causes you to avoid others
• The issue has reduced your quality of life  
• The issue has affected school negatively, relationships or work negatively
• You’ve developed some form or type of habit to cope with the issue

Regardless as to what precisely you are experiencing, as a mental health counselor I am a licensed professional who treats the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional aspects of mental health conditions.  In a nutshell I help you

• understand your behavior, emotions, and thoughts
• identify stressors
• teach you healthy coping and problem-solving techniques

Individual counseling (sometimes called psychotherapy, talk therapy, or treatment) is a process through which we work one-on-one in a safe, caring, and confidential environment, be it in person or online through a telehealth process. I also offer group counseling where a small group meets regularly either in person or online to discuss, interact, and explore with each other a common issue the group shares.  

How I Help Black Young Adults Thrive Through Counseling

I focus on the experiences and needs of Black young adults, a demographic of many different communities with varying needs, experiences, histories, and perspectives,  with culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate professional counseling support.  I facilitate Black young adults’ successful transition to adulthood bringing forward their full and complete picture of strengths, talents, and sources of innate resiliency. Using a culturally affirming, trauma-informed lens enables me to blend the unique experiences of Black young adults with evidence-based interventions (interventions that are proven to be efficacious in research and practice).  

For many young adults what are considered executive-function skills develops through trial and error over many years, with coaching from mentors or parents.   Some of the executive functioning skill set includes: 

• setting along with planning how to achieve goals
• effective time management
• focusing sufficiently to complete the tasks connected with the goals
• effectively managing distractions
• knowing what to do when obstacles and barriers arise 

Once adopted and practiced daily, these skills (and more) evolve naturally, enabling young adults to succeed at the next level (such as in their job, career or in college).  However, when these skills have not taken root and Black young adults find themselves struggling, coupled with the layers of cultural stressors and traumas they’re faced with in their daily lives, this is where I can be helpful.

Launching refers to the ability of young adults to successfully and independently meet their own social, emotional, and physical needs and in a “failure to launch”, a young adult experiences difficulty adapting to the demands of the next phase of life, becoming  “stuck.”  

A failure to launch can be the result of insufficient developmental readiness for independence, a lack of emotional resilience, unwillingness to try and potentially fail (fear), lack of self-confidence in problem solving skills and about the future, or mental health diagnoses such as social anxiety disorder or another from and anxiety. 

Coupled with all this can be life events, such as a devastating injury, the loss of a loved one, or the end of a significant relationship also adversely impacting a young adult’s ability to launch.  When in this ‘stuck’ circumstance,  Black young adults may experience problems with self-esteem, withdrawing from social connections, an unwillingness to try at anything (work, school, etc.), depression, anxiety,  and even total isolation can set in.   If this sounds familiar, know that it is possible to change these patterns, things can get better, and together I work with young adults to achieve the goal of a successful launch.  

Keys for Successful Counseling 

1). Commitment. Even though counseling will make your life better, it will have its moments of challenge, perhaps discomfort, and parts of you may want to resist the process.  In those moments, stick  with it — your breakthrough will arrive, often when you least expect it.  Instead of quitting on the process, bring up any such feelings in our sessions and you might be surprised where they lead.

2). Willingness to take risk.  The process of counseling may cause you to feel and or undergo uncomfortable or painful feelings, such as guilt, sadness, anger, anxiety,  frustration and other emotions. You might discover and or realize for the first time of the role you played in a problem, which could be personally upsetting.   Counseling might disrupt current relationships. For example, if your goal is to improve your boundaries, this might upset people who are used to and want to continue ignoring your boundaries.  There’s simply no telling wherein you might face engaging in ‘risk’, but for counseling to be effective, it’s a bridge many ultimately cross.  

3). Supportive environment. Change is hard, support is helpful and everyone does better when they get words of encouragement.  While this support can come from me and the young adult (client/patient) in our therapeutic alliance with each other, things are better if the young adult has a strong and responsive support system – away from our sessions. This can be a friend or family member, someone to talk to on those bad days and things moving forward. 

4). Hope. It’s helpful to have a sense that things can and ultimately will improve, and we need a firm grasp of that hope. Hope can be like a lighthouse, guiding us through a storm of emotions as we press on, persevering until things move in a more positive direction.  There’s actually a modality called, “Hope Therapy” which is designed to help clients conceptualize clearer goals, produce multiple pathways to goal attainment, and reframe barriers as challenges to be overcome by a revitalized self (Lopez, Floyd, Ulven, & Snyder, 2000).    

Steps of a Successful Counseling Plan for Black Young Adults

Together in a collaborative effort, the client and I will document presenting problems, a series of treatment goals and objectives, along with the interventions to be used in sessions.  We’ll define what success looks like and spell out how to get there. This helps the client stay organized providing an objective, easy-to-follow method of tracking progress.  

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