"You're fighting a fight that goes deeper than just your own experiences. It's systemic and generational. It makes sense that you're exhausted, and it's incredibly important that you rest." Oftentimes, after hearing this, I can see my clients physically exhale stress. Sometimes their body tenses up out of fear that their experiences would be minimized. When they hear that they're not overreacting, they're able to engage with more openness and a sense of safety.
I'm Joel Blackstock, the Clinical Director at Taproot Therapy Collective. I am white and CIS gendered, but I work with manky black clients in therapy. When a Black client presents with racial battle fatigue, the most effective micro-ritual I have is simply stating the elephant in the room immediately. A lot of people come in hesitating to bring up systemic problems because they have been conditioned to believe that acknowledging oppression is just having a "victim mindset" or "blaming." They are often testing the room to see if I am going to gaslight them or if their reality is too heavy for the session. To validate them without pathologizing, I often say: "I feel comfortable saying that we are in a sinking cruise ship of a country. Some people are pretending it's a Disney cruise, but we're in a really bad situation and that affects lots of populations, especially the African American community." You can feel the shift in the room immediately. It lets the client know that I am not pretending that everything is okay and that I am comfortable sitting with a diagnosis of society rather than a diagnosis of them. It signals that their reality is not "too much" for me. From there, we can move into a realistic conversation about resilience. I often tell people that these systems are so big that we can't fix them in a therapy hour. I tell them that if these problems go all the way back to the Bronze Age, or if they appear in the Bible, then they are probably not going to go away in our lifetime. But that does not mean we can't become resilient. It is also hopeful because we know that people have been dealing with these things for a very long time and it's not just us or our generation. By acknowledging the problem is ancient and systemic, we stop trying to "fix" the world and start figuring out a healthy way through it together to make a life that works. Best, Joel Blackstock Taproot Therapy Collective
As a white therapist, it is my responsibility to consciously and intentionally create a safe space for clients who are Black, Indigenous or People of Color to openly share about the impact of racial battle fatigue. Creating this container starts well before the client is in my office, with me doing my own inner work and information gathering around concepts including whiteness, racism and oppression. Then, I must communicate this intention to clients when we meet. It can be easy for a white therapist to assume that clients already "know" they are a safe person given that they are in a "helping profession", but even from a place of intended compassion, this can be a clinical error. It is a part of my practice to name my identity and privilege, plus invite opportunities to make repair in advance of any ruptures to safety I may unintentionally create. From this place, when a client of color speaks about the harms of racial battle fatigue, I can validate their experience as real, instead of questioning their role or their reality, which can further perpetuate harm. In situations such as this, I acknowledge the way the system supports this dynamic and may say something like, "This is not the result of something you did. This is the insidious nature of a system that has been designed to deplete the resources of marginalized people. This is not your fault." I also talk a great deal about self-care and collective healing in community. In the actual therapy room, such validation can create the space for a client to take a deeper breath, sit back in their seat and let their shoulders, unburdened for a moment, relax.
When a Black client brings racial battle fatigue into the room, I focus on validating the reality of the harm without turning it into a diagnosis or something "to be fixed." One micro-ritual I use is a brief grounding pause paired with explicit permission, where I say: *"Before we go any further, I want to name that what you're describing makes sense in a system that asks you to carry more and explain yourself more. Nothing about your reaction is excessive. Let's take one breath together and let your body know it doesn't have to justify anything right now."* That language centers context, not pathology, and signals that their nervous system response is logical, not personal failure. In one session, a client came in tightly wound after yet another workplace incident where they were labeled "aggressive" for being direct. After I used that phrase and invited a slow breath with feet planted, their shoulders visibly dropped and their speech slowed. They said, "That's the first time someone didn't try to reframe it or make me tougher." From there, the work shifted from self-monitoring and self-blame to choice and resourcing—what they wanted to protect, where they could conserve energy, and how to exit moments that weren't safe. The concrete change was regulation first, strategy second, which allowed them to leave the session feeling steadier instead of braced for the next hit.
Nameless racial battle fatigue When a Black client identifies the problem as racial battle fatigue the aim is to accept reality but not transform his or her reaction into a diagnosis. A short pause with an express validation and decision has become one grounding micro-ritual that has been effective. The exact language matters. A sentence such as, your tiredness is understandable. There is nothing wrong about this response. Anything that has been going on with your nervous system has been playing its part in an unjust atmosphere, usually comes about in a different manner than one with reassurance. Then, there is a mere ceremony which resources the moment. I ask the client to put both feet on the ground, take one slow breath and pick one word that explains what his/her body requires at this moment. There is a frequently used word of rest, space, protection or relief. It is the fact that they make the choice, not the clinician. This type of trauma-informed pacing is stressed by the providers that are in sync with the RGV Direct Care. It does not position the client as weak or in disarray at the same time respecting the cost of recurrent stress. One session, one of the clients became visibly relaxed in their shoulders upon hearing that language and said, "I feel less like I need to prove that this is real. The latter change created room to do more serious work without reducing the weight they hold.