Influential Global Majority Pioneers in the Psychological Therapies

Standing Firm in Power and Pride – Black History Month

By Dr Peter Pearce, Director of Clinical Training, and Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Metanoia Institute

Each year, Black History Month invites us all to reflect not only on history but also on the troubled present and its impact in our training and practice as psychotherapists and counsellors. For me, this year’s Black History Month theme – Standing Firm in Power and Pride – carries resonance and reverence. It speaks to the courage of black communities to resist, to create, to lead, and to inspire, and for me, also brings a chastening reminder that the struggle for equity, recognition and inclusion is not a chapter that has been closed, but is very much a continuing responsibility for us all.

In the psychological therapies, Eurocentric frameworks too often continue to be treated as the default. The scholarship and practice of Black pioneers and other racially or ethnically minoritised thinkers, in many cases remains to be re-centred as primary knowledge, rather than added as an optional extra. Much of this work challenges, expands, and re-imagines the field, inviting a reshaping of how race, identity, power, and belonging are considered in therapeutic spaces, all issues that should be foundation within contemporary practice.

I want to acknowledge that our own curricula and systems do not yet fully reflect this reality. This is work in progress  –  for us and across the wider professions  –  and we want to take this opportunity to recommit to embedding this knowledge across core modules, reading lists, learning outcomes, assessment, and supervision; practising citation justice; investing in staff development; and co-creating change with students, alumni, and community partners. Our aim is not a sidebar of inclusion, but a reconfigured centre in which Black pioneers’ contributions are integral to how we teach, research, and practise.

To honour these pioneers is not to suggest that their achievements have resolved inequalities or lack of presence, but rather to acknowledge the foundation they have laid and the work that remains to be carried forward from it.

Some pioneers and contemporary voices

Professor Gail Lewis
Psychotherapist, researcher, and activist whose career has bridged psychoanalysis, feminism, and anti-racist struggle. Lewis co-founded the Organisation for Women of African and Asian Descent and was a member of the Brixton Black Women’s Group. Her scholarship on intersectionality, racialised subjectivity, and organisational psychodynamics continues to influence contemporary psychoanalytic and feminist thought.

Jafar Kareem
Founder of the Nafsiyat Inter-Cultural Therapy Centre in London, Kareem pioneered transcultural and intercultural approaches to mental health. He emphasised trust and authentic contact as essential to working with minoritised clients and created a model of intercultural therapy that respected the lived realities of migration, inequality, and cultural difference.

Frantz Fanon
A psychiatrist and revolutionary philosopher, Fanon remains one of the most influential anticolonial thinkers of the 20th century. His works Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth exposed the psychological violence of colonialism and continue to shape how we can understand   identity, community, and liberation in psychotherapy.

bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins)
Scholar, writer, and activist whose work on race, gender, love, and liberation transformed feminist thought. Her insights into the intersections of oppression, and her challenge to reimagine therapy and education through the lens of love and justice, remain urgent for practitioners today.

Andrew Curry
Among the earliest Black psychotherapists to publish on race and transference, Curry introduced the concept of “pre-transference” – unconscious projections and assumptions tied to race that shape the therapeutic relationship. His pioneering contributions anticipated the field’s current focus on racial dynamics in therapy.

Derald Wing Sue
Counselling psychologist and leading scholar of multicultural counselling, Sue developed the framework of microaggressions and advanced multicultural competencies in therapy. His work continues to challenge us as practitioners to deepen our cultural awareness, sensitivity and attunement and address systemic racism within therapeutic practice.

Suman Fernando
Psychiatrist and author whose work called for the reshaping of mental health services in the UK by exposing Eurocentric bias. His books Mental Health, Race and Culture and Institutional Racism in Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology remain foundational texts for understanding race and mental health.

Norma L. Day-Vines
Counselling psychologist whose, research derived, concept of broaching encourages therapists to directly and sensitively address race and culture within therapy. Her work highlights the power and importance of explicitly naming difference and discrimination, rather than leaving them unspoken in the therapeutic room.

Contemporary voices

• Dr Dwight Turner: Psychotherapist, academic, and writer exploring privilege, intersectionality, and the ‘Other’ in therapy.
• Professor Divine Charura: Counselling psychologist whose work on love, spirituality, and diversity has opened new pathways in therapy.
• Eugene Ellis: Founder of the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN) and author of The Race Conversation, Ellis has been a leading figure in centring racial trauma and Black therapeutic experience in the UK.

Contributions from Metanoia Alumni

We are proud to acknowledge pioneering doctoral research undertaken at Metanoia Institute, which continues to influence the profession.

• Dr Isha McKenzie-Mavinga: Author of Black Issues in the Therapeutic Process (2009) and The Challenge of Racism in Therapeutic Practice (2016), her doctoral research at Metanoia (2005) broke new ground in recognising Black issues in counsellor training. She has gone on to train facilitators to continue her workshops supporting therapists in addressing racism in practice.
  
  
• Dr Aileen Alleyne: Psychodynamic psychotherapist whose doctoral research at Metanoia (2006) explored Black identity trauma in workplace contexts. Her concept of the internal oppressor – the internalised experience of racism – has been widely cited and remains a crucial contribution to understanding race and trauma in psychotherapy.
  
  
• Susan (Sharon) Baker: In her 2018 doctorate, Baker examined how Black women therapists navigate the intersections of race and gender within the therapeutic process, foregrounding voices too often overlooked in mainstream discourse.
  
  
• Dr Anthony Newton: In his 2021 DCPsych, Newton conducted an autoethnographic study of Black student experiences on psychological therapies training, highlighting systemic inequities within training institutions.
  
  
• Saira Bains: Her doctoral research took an autoethnographic approach to exploring the wounds of racism, contributing to understanding of how racial trauma can be transformed within the therapeutic space.
  
  
• Charanjot K. Jheeta: In her 2023 doctoral work, Jheeta explored the experiences of South Asian women navigating cultural difference within psychological therapy, offering vital insight into intercultural dynamics.
  
  
• Sarah I-Ching Krantz: Their 2016 research explored the role of hope in personal therapy for trainees of mixed-race heritage, interrogating how identity and belonging intersect in the therapeutic journey.
  
  
• Rachel-Rose Burrell: Her doctoral research focused on the role of Black Majority Churches in supporting mental health and wellbeing – an important contribution to community-based understandings of faith, culture, and psychological resilience.
  
  
•  Govinduth Sharma Ramkissoon: Research into cultural differences in therapists’ interpretations of PTSD symptoms highlighted the risks of bias and underscored the need for culturally attuned approaches in trauma therapy.
  
  
• Beverley Costa: Her doctoral work drew on her leadership of Mothertongue, a multi-ethnic counselling service, offering practical models for multilingual, culturally responsive therapeutic care.

This selection, alongside the many other past and present Metanoia theses addressing black issues, intercultural practice, and racialised microaggressions in therapy and training, help to contribute to a growing body of scholarship that informs our professions.

Looking ahead

Each of these pioneers, past and present, remind us that the work of decolonising and diversifying psychotherapy is far from complete. It is ongoing – in our training rooms, our research, our practice, and in our professional relationships.

This Black History Month, Metanoia Institute recommits to:

• Recentring Global Majority voices in therapy and counselling
• Challenging systemic inequities in training and practice
• Continuing to support and share the research of our students, staff, and alumni.

We celebrate these contributions with pride, and we acknowledge the responsibility to continue this work together. Only by stepping into these charged spaces with courage – willing to be seen, to make mistakes, and to learn together – can we hope to move past the paralysis of white fragility, shame, judgment, and censure, and instead open the way for genuine collaboration, understanding, and progress.

For more information on citation justice visit:

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2023/citation-justice-what-it-is-and-how-you-can-practice-it

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/05/16/aspirational-metrics-a-guide-for-working-towards-citational-justice/