Therapy Across Cultures: Honoring Islamic and African American Values in the Room

Written by [Haythem Lafhaj]

Therapy doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it lives inside language, culture, and identity. For clients from Islamic, African, and African American backgrounds, healing often includes deep ties to faith, family, tradition, and collective resilience. As PLMFTs, we must bring cultural humility into every session—not as a checkbox, but as a guiding ethic.

Clients from Islamic traditions may center concepts like sabr (patience), tawakkul (trust in God), or ummah(community) in their worldview. These aren’t barriers to therapy—they’re bridges. When we ignore them, we risk pathologizing coping strategies that are rooted in spiritual practice. When we include them, we affirm identity and open space for culturally congruent healing.

Likewise, many African and African American clients come from traditions where extended kinship networks, spiritual practices, and oral storytelling are essential to identity and survival. Historical trauma—rooted in racism, colonization, and systemic oppression—still shapes many lived realities. Therapists must be fluent in cultural context, but also in the emotional legacies of structural harm.

That fluency requires more than cultural “awareness.” It demands active engagement. How do we talk about faith without assuming belief? How do we explore resilience without dismissing pain? How do we name systemic injustice without overidentifying or retreating into neutrality?

Using frameworks like narrative therapy, we can co-create stories of strength, survival, and resistance. We help clients externalize not just personal problems, but societal narratives that have labeled them as broken. We create space for them to say, “This is who I am, and this is where I come from—and both matter here.”

Culturally responsive therapy isn’t niche—it’s ethical practice. As PLMFTs, we must learn to hold space for Islam, Blackness, tradition, and trauma—without asking anyone to leave parts of themselves at the door.

References:
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice.
Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, Language, and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to Therapy.
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends.