The Queer Black Mental Health Handbook: Understand Yourself, Find Joy, and Heal from Trauma

We know it's hard to get good mental health and trauma care if you're queer, Black, or-especially-both. This book takes a step towards changing that so you can address your struggles head-on and access the joy and peace that you deserve. The first of its kind, this much-needed guide offers insights, strategies, and coping skills for folks at the intersection of Blackness and queerness-identities that come with unique psychological and cultural experiences rarely reflected in mental health research or popular discussion. The authors, therapists Marc Campbell and K. Chelsea Davis, point out that mental health struggles are a perfectly normal response to conditions and systems that are designed to make us unwell. They walk you through the signs of depression, addiction, anxiety, grief, and imposter syndrome and point the way towards effective treatment and recovery. They also cover topics like external and internalized racism, generational trauma, religious abuse, and medical mistrust with compassion, clarity, and humor. If you've been disregarded in your doctor's office, experienced microaggressions from a therapist, read a self-help book that completely missed the mark, or felt isolated by your struggles, this book has your back. Drawing upon on the authors' clinical expertise, personal experiences, and the latest research, it was written to help you connect with your joyful, authentic self-expression and well-being. Because healing should be for all of us.