CHIA Leader Spotlight: Julia Alexander
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
Julia Alexander (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Austin, TX, where she owns a private practice that provides compassionate therapy, social justice education, and consultation rooted in anti-racist, social justice, and liberatory frameworks. Julia also partners with Colors of Austin Counseling to lead our practice’s Collective Healing In Action Group for White-identifying therapists. For this month’s blog, I wanted to highlight Julia’s work to shed some light on the nuances, successes, and challenges inherent in affinity work for White therapists.
Julia comes to this work with a background in social justice education
“As an undergrad, I studied the psychology of racism: white identity development, colorblind racial ideology, and intergroup dialogue. I went on to get a master's in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts. During that time, I co-facilitated an intragroup dialogue class on race and racism for white students.”
She comes to this work from a deeply personal place. “I remember noticing, in a kind of fleeting way, how my unresolved feelings of anger, frustration, and shame (didn't have the words for that at the time) around my own whiteness impacted my capacity to hold and support my students. I started looking up words like "countertransference" to understand what I was going through, which makes me smile now. After a few years of working in higher education and doing some social justice curriculum design, I longed for more tools to do the deep work that I felt was necessary supporting healing from systemic oppression and trauma. Of course, I know now that I longed for these tools to hold many unhealed, hurting parts of myself.
Social justice education about race happens at the expense of people of color
Julia shares why she loves and deeply believes in the affinity group process. “I think it's an essential component of racial justice work, or any justice work for that matter. My experience after doing this work for 15 years is that a lot of social justice education about race and racism happens at the expense of people of color. Trainings, workshops, or classes, for example, often start with a racism 101. White participants may have big reactions or awakenings to things they hadn't considered before but I think these spaces can be really harmful and invalidating for BIPOC people whose lived experience involves an intimate understanding of racism.
Julia illuminates the fears she oftentimes sees brought up when White folks contemplate affinity work. “Affinity groups are a great solution to this problem but unfortunately, affinity groups tend to bring up a lot of fear for people- especially white people. "Isn't this segregation?" "Being in an all-white group is racist,” and “how will I learn about race and racism in an all white group,” are all concerns I've heard often. However, when done well, I think affinity groups give white people an opportunity to learn about the history that many of us were not taught in school, provides space to feel things essential and normal to healing- like grief, betrayal, shame, and anger about a system that asks us to dehumanize others. It also gives us an opportunity to shift culture in real-time; to build collective, compassionate, emotionally resilient, and accountable communities.”
Internal Barriers to Unlearning Internalized White Supremacy
Based on her experience, Julia sheds some light into the challenges White mental health professionals oftentimes experience when trying to do anti-racist work or when working with clients across cultures. She shares, “I think that many White people live very racially isolated lives as a result of decades of government policy and practices that have intentionally valued and maintained segregation in the US. As such many White people are ill equipped to have conversations about race and systemic racism, much less hold the complex embodied experience that these conversations bring up. For some white people, the only exposure they have to conversations about race are what they’ve witnessed from family members who were explicitly racist. Add to that, the continued resistance we face to teaching and learning about systemic racism in k-12 schools. All of this is so heartbreaking and it also gives us context.”
When it comes to mental health professionals, these barriers impact how they work with clients and colleagues of color. “For many white mental health professionals, grad school or a training they’ve done once they’re already licensed is the first time they are truly learning about the reality of an unjust, race-based system in the United States. When this happens we have White mental health professionals in a racial identity development stage that’s commonly marked by dysregulation and shame. Performativity in the form of demonstrating how much you know or shaming others becomes common armor against this shame in addition to hiding/silence. There might also be an over-reliance on friends or colleagues of color during this time to "teach" us. This dysregulation and shame can come up when working with clients of color too. Over-identifying, demonstrating how much you know on one hand or relying on clients to teach you on the other, moving from an embodied place to an intellectual place, or just avoiding the topic of race all together, are all common struggles that White clinicians face.”
“You are not alone”
As a message for White therapists who want to engage in this work or are thinking about starting, Julia says “you’re not alone. Please reach out if you're struggling. I love supporting other white people in this work. The second is to slow down so you can move forward. I think it’s easy and normal when first starting this work for shame to move us to a place of reactivity based action. It’s in this place that we’re much more likely to cause harm to our colleagues and clients of color- even if unintentional. So finding ways to manage what’s happening in your body and the thoughts and feelings that accompany those body sensations is really important. I think that’s where community comes in and is so essential. This is why I love affinity group spaces so much. Lastly, find support in practicing self-compassion. This might seem counterintuitive but I really believe that self-compassion only increases our capacity for accountability and emotional resilience. “
