The Advantages of Being a Therapist of Color

The Advantages of Being a Therapist of Color

By Laura Castro, LCSW

When I first became a therapist, I knew my identity as a woman of color would shape my work. What I didn’t know then is just how much it would become one of my greatest strengths, not just for clients of color, but for all the people I work with.

Being a therapist of color comes with its own complexities. We carry our own histories, and sometimes we feel the weight of our communities in the therapy room. But over time, I’ve come to see how meaningful and deeply healing this role can before, both clients and for myself.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Lived Experience Creates Deep Empathy

When clients of color come into therapy, they’re often carrying experiences they’ve had to explain, or minimize, in other spaces. Things like code-switching, intergenerational expectations, and the exhaustion of navigating predominantly white environments.

When they sit across from someone who doesn’t need it all spelled out, who understands from lived experience, there’s often a sense of relief. It’s not just being validated, it’s being truly seen.

2. Therapy Feels Safer When You Don’t Have to Translate Yourself

For many clients, therapy has felt like one more space where they’ve had to shrink, explain, or sanitize their truth. But when your therapist shares some of your lived experience, whether cultural, linguistic, or emotional, that weight starts to lift.

There’s less need to perform or explain, and more room to be real. That safety can open the door to deeper, more honest healing.

3. We Support White Clients in Exploring Privilege and Becoming Gentle, Accountable Allies

Therapists of color don’t only serve clients of color; we also support white clients who are doing the important work of looking inward. Many want to better understand how privilege and power shape their relationships and worldview, and how internalized racism can quietly influence thoughts and behaviors.

These conversations can feel vulnerable, but in therapy, we approach them with warmth, honesty, and compassion. It’s not about judgment, it’s about growth.

Becoming a more self-aware, grounded ally is a process, and it begins within.

4. We Expand What Healing Can Look Like

Much of traditional therapy was built around white, Western ideas of healing, often centered on individualism and emotional control. But for many of us from collectivist, spiritual, or immigrant backgrounds, healing looks different.

As a therapist of color, I get to bring in culturally rooted perspectives. I can hold space for ancestors, spirituality, bilingual expression, and family dynamics that might not "fit" neatly into textbook therapy, but are absolutely central to my clients’ well-being.

There is no one right way to heal.

5. We Normalize Mental Health in Our Communities

Representation matters. When people see someone who looks like them working as a therapist, it challenges old beliefs like “therapy isn’t for us.”

I’ve had clients tell me, “You’re the first therapist I’ve met who speaks my language” or “I didn’t think I’d ever feel comfortable in therapy until now.” And once that door opens, healing starts to ripple outward, to families, friend groups, even whole communities.

Every session matters. Every story matters.

6. Our Presence Is Healing

Simply existing in this field, as a therapist of color, is powerful. We are often the first, the only, or the few in our training programs, our clinics, our professional spaces. That comes with pressure, but it also comes with purpose.

We are expanding what therapy looks like, who it’s for, and how it’s done. And that, in itself, is healing.

If you’ve been looking for a therapist who understands cultural nuance, who won’t make you explain the basics, or who can gently guide you through tough inner work—I’d love to meet you.

I offer virtual therapy for adults across North Carolina through Carolina Healing Collective. Let’s talk.