Are perceptions around race holding back mental health services? – Sky News

In the year since the death of George Floyd triggered a wave of Black Lives Matter protests, societies across the world, including here in Britain have reckoned with racial disparities.

These include the lack of representation in boardrooms, to biases in the criminal justice system. Another area being examined is mental health.

Campaigners have highlighted the lack of counsellors and therapists from ethnic minority backgrounds as well as the mental impact of dealing with racism in day-to-day life.

Research by the Health & Social Care Information Centre in 2013 showed that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals make up only 9.6 per cent of qualified clinical psychologists in England and Wales, in contrast to 14 percent of the population.

Speaking on The Daily Podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, Eugene Ellis a practicing psychotherapist and the chair and founder of The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, said that group has grown in the last year, but the wider industry needs to get better at having conversations around race.

"I think it's a skill set that people learn," he said. "The problem is that racism is a taboo area we are not supposed to talk about."

"It's a big problem," he added, "people might be in distress and turn up wanting help, but the therapists don't know how to work with it, especially if you're abiding experiences are of being seen in a particular way through racism."

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Another issue addressed our podcast was the fact Black people were more than four times as likely as White people to be detained under the Mental Health Act - 321.7 detentions per 100,000 people, compared with 73.4 per 100,000 people.

One person who has experienced this first hand is Eche Egbuonu, who has bipolar disorder. After being sectioned, he checked himself out of a hospital and returned home where he had an altercation with his family, leading to his parents calling the police.

A struggle ensued, before they used a taser to restrain him and put him in handcuffs.

"I do remember the sensation, he said. "It is so strange one second, you have control of your faculties of your legs, and then in the next second, you're on the ground, you've collapsed."

Although he is not certain the incident and the police's use of force was linked to his race, it was "definitely a possibility" because of perceptions of black people as aggressive.

Using his lived experience, he has is now campaigning for greater intervention in the black community before people like himself reach "crisis point" like he did, something he feels could be addressed by training more community leaders in mental health first aid.

"I think if some people in the community had access to that kind of training that would have helped them maybe identify what the issue was and to signpost and find the kind of most appropriate resource in that particular moment," he added.

Marlon Bruce, a community consultant, says using counselling services since he was a student has benefited him, but he also feels there is a need for more black mental health professionals.

One thing he is pleased about however, is how more black men he knows are talking about how they feel.

"It's been the biggest shift I've ever seen, he said.

"No longer is it the black guy who's strong and macho. But we can cry, we can share what's bugging us.

"You know, we can have those conversations. What I've realised is the longer you bottled up those emotions, the worse it is in the long run."

The Metropolitan Police refused to comment specifically on Eche's case, but it said police officers draw their use of force powers from Common Law Section three of the Criminal Law Act 1967 and Section 117 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

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Are perceptions around race holding back mental health services? - Sky News