The Helper or the Help: Co-Transference Between Black Female Therapists and White Clients

This paper examines how the identities of Black female therapists and their White clients may contribute to enactments stemming from what this author calls a Black Nanny-White Charge co-transference. The roots of the Black Nanny-White Charge co-transference can be traced to the intergenerationally transmitted roles both therapist and client have inherited from the racial oppression Black women have been subjected to in the United States, the historic role Black women have played in caring for White children, and the experience many middle-class and wealthy White children have had of being cared for by a Black woman. Though much of the literature on racial dissimilarity between therapists and clients features White therapist-BIPOC client dyads, drawing on psychoanalytic theories of intersubjectivity and the framework of intersectionality, this paper explores the unique, mostly unconscious features of the dynamic interactions between Black female therapists and their White clients. The meta psychoanalytic theory of intersubjectivity allows for recognition of a racialized co-transference among White clients working with Black female therapists and helps avoid the potential pitfalls that could forestall mutual recognition. The author coins the term nurture hesitancy to describe the reluctance Black female therapists may experience when engaging White clients. Using two clinical vignettes, the author illustrates how the developmental achievement of mutual recognition between Black female therapists and White clients demands resolution of the Black Nanny co-transference and nurture hesitancy.