The Cost You Don’t See
How This Economy Is Hitting Black Women’s Mental Health Hardest
Getty Images: FatCamera
In 2025, nearly 300,000 Black women were pushed out of the workforce in just three months. While the latest national unemployment rate stands at 4.6%, the rate for Black women jumped from 5.1% in March to 7.1% in November.
There’s a particular kind of grief in these trends. Losing a job, a means of stability, can hit our self-worth hard and shake our identity at its core. It’s not just about the fear surrounding money, but the feelings that come with being treated as expendable. Especially at a time when many of us were already trying to regain our footing, this level of uncertainty can make the future feel so much smaller. In my line of work, I talk to so many women who feel numb, isolated, scared, or ashamed now more than ever.
All of that strain is feeding a mental health crisis for Black women, and access to culturally competent care is not keeping pace. Simply put, cultural competence refers to a mental health provider’s ability to use their knowledge to address the needs of clients with different backgrounds, from race and ethnicity to religion and sexual orientation. It doesn’t necessarily mean finding a provider who looks like you or shares your exact background. It means that the person across from you has done the work to understand where you’re coming from, so you don’t have to translate your lived experience to feel understood.
When that cultural context is missing, providers run the risk of minimizing the psychological toll of bias and racism. According to licensed psychologist Dr. Mariel Buqué, barriers to culturally competent mental health care don’t just make it harder to find the right provider. They can stall healing for years and widen the gaps in quality of life that communities of color already face.
Despite an increase in diversity across the U.S., the latest APA data shows that only 5.49% of psychologists identify as Black or African American. For the Black community and Black women in particular, trying to find a psychiatrist, therapist, or other mental health provider who shares their unique cultural experiences is proving a challenge. When culturally responsive providers are few and far between, the burden shifts back onto the client to educate the provider, instead of the other way around.
The lack of diversity in the mental health field isn’t because people of color don’t want to do this work. Many do. The issue is the burdens associated with the path itself, and as Dr. Thema Bryant, former president of the American Psychological Association, emphasizes, barriers show up at every level of the mental health system for communities of color. Some of those barriers are financial. Becoming a therapist or psychologist requires years of schooling, and those years come with an enormous price tag that is often out of reach for economically disadvantaged students. Then, students must gain experience through internships and supervised hours that are often unpaid or underpaid. That reality weeds people out. It creates a cycle where communities that most need culturally responsive care have fewer providers available to them.
When you’re the one looking for support, that gap can make the search feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. The key is to treat finding a therapist like finding a partner in your healing. Start with resources that are built for this. Specialized directories can help you filter by identity, specialty, and approach, and reviews can give you clues about how a provider actually shows up for their clients. Word of mouth matters, too. Ask someone you trust if they have a therapist they love, or if they know someone who does.
Once you have a few names in mind, start with a consultation. That first conversation is not a commitment. It’s a chance to notice how your body and mind feel while you’re talking. Do you feel rushed? Do you feel seen and believed? Do you feel like you have to explain the basics of your lived experience just to be understood? If the fit isn’t there, keep looking. Trust your gut, and let it guide you toward someone who doesn’t just look like you but can genuinely connect with the emotions you’re experiencing.
While you’re searching for the right fit, it helps to have something you can come back to in the meantime. When job loss hits, especially in an economy that has not been particularly kind to Black women, it can feel personal. Before that feeling takes root, I encourage you to pause for five minutes and reset.
Start by reflecting on a triumph of yours. Think of a moment you survived or overcame something that proved to you what you’re capable of. Then ask yourself what you accessed internally to get through it. What did you pull from within when you had no choice but to keep going? Maybe it was your emotional intelligence, discipline, or adaptability. Write down three qualities you relied on. These are internal assets. They existed before this job, and they exist after it.
Now re-anchor your identity. Say this slowly, either out loud or in your head: “My value did not start with a paycheck, and it does not end with one. The same woman who ______ is still here.” Fill in the blank with the accomplishment you started the exercise with. Take one breath after you say it, and let your body catch up to the words. Your employment status may have changed, but your character has not. This moment is a circumstance. It is not your identity.
If you’re experiencing job loss, instability, or mental health struggles right now, please hear this: this is not the end of the road for you. A time like this can make it harder to think about what comes next, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing. You deserve to feel safe, not only financially, but emotionally, mentally, and physically. You deserve support that understands the full context of your life, and you deserve care that doesn’t require you to translate your pain to be taken seriously.
About Chantel Cohen
Chantel Cohen is the Founder and CEO of CWC Coaching & Therapy, where she and her team of therapists and coaches provide mental health services with a business coaching lens. Chantel herself is on a mission to empower entrepreneurs of color, women business owners, and founding duos. Central to her approach is the Become One Again Method, a strategic framework designed to enhance the three most important relationships in our lives: our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with our significant other, and our relationship with our business or career.
https://chantelcohen.com/#hello
There’s a particular kind of grief in these trends. Losing a job, a means of stability, can hit our self-worth hard and shake our identity at its core. It’s not just about the fear surrounding money, but the feelings that come with being treated as expendable. Especially at a time when many of us were already trying to regain our footing, this level of uncertainty can make the future feel so much smaller. In my line of work, I talk to so many women who feel numb, isolated, scared, or ashamed now more than ever.
All of that strain is feeding a mental health crisis for Black women, and access to culturally competent care is not keeping pace. Simply put, cultural competence refers to a mental health provider’s ability to use their knowledge to address the needs of clients with different backgrounds, from race and ethnicity to religion and sexual orientation. It doesn’t necessarily mean finding a provider who looks like you or shares your exact background. It means that the person across from you has done the work to understand where you’re coming from, so you don’t have to translate your lived experience to feel understood.
When that cultural context is missing, providers run the risk of minimizing the psychological toll of bias and racism. According to licensed psychologist Dr. Mariel Buqué, barriers to culturally competent mental health care don’t just make it harder to find the right provider. They can stall healing for years and widen the gaps in quality of life that communities of color already face.
Despite an increase in diversity across the U.S., the latest APA data shows that only 5.49% of psychologists identify as Black or African American. For the Black community and Black women in particular, trying to find a psychiatrist, therapist, or other mental health provider who shares their unique cultural experiences is proving a challenge. When culturally responsive providers are few and far between, the burden shifts back onto the client to educate the provider, instead of the other way around.
The lack of diversity in the mental health field isn’t because people of color don’t want to do this work. Many do. The issue is the burdens associated with the path itself, and as Dr. Thema Bryant, former president of the American Psychological Association, emphasizes, barriers show up at every level of the mental health system for communities of color. Some of those barriers are financial. Becoming a therapist or psychologist requires years of schooling, and those years come with an enormous price tag that is often out of reach for economically disadvantaged students. Then, students must gain experience through internships and supervised hours that are often unpaid or underpaid. That reality weeds people out. It creates a cycle where communities that most need culturally responsive care have fewer providers available to them.
When you’re the one looking for support, that gap can make the search feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. The key is to treat finding a therapist like finding a partner in your healing. Start with resources that are built for this. Specialized directories can help you filter by identity, specialty, and approach, and reviews can give you clues about how a provider actually shows up for their clients. Word of mouth matters, too. Ask someone you trust if they have a therapist they love, or if they know someone who does.
Once you have a few names in mind, start with a consultation. That first conversation is not a commitment. It’s a chance to notice how your body and mind feel while you’re talking. Do you feel rushed? Do you feel seen and believed? Do you feel like you have to explain the basics of your lived experience just to be understood? If the fit isn’t there, keep looking. Trust your gut, and let it guide you toward someone who doesn’t just look like you but can genuinely connect with the emotions you’re experiencing.
While you’re searching for the right fit, it helps to have something you can come back to in the meantime. When job loss hits, especially in an economy that has not been particularly kind to Black women, it can feel personal. Before that feeling takes root, I encourage you to pause for five minutes and reset.
Start by reflecting on a triumph of yours. Think of a moment you survived or overcame something that proved to you what you’re capable of. Then ask yourself what you accessed internally to get through it. What did you pull from within when you had no choice but to keep going? Maybe it was your emotional intelligence, discipline, or adaptability. Write down three qualities you relied on. These are internal assets. They existed before this job, and they exist after it.
Now re-anchor your identity. Say this slowly, either out loud or in your head: “My value did not start with a paycheck, and it does not end with one. The same woman who ______ is still here.” Fill in the blank with the accomplishment you started the exercise with. Take one breath after you say it, and let your body catch up to the words. Your employment status may have changed, but your character has not. This moment is a circumstance. It is not your identity.
If you’re experiencing job loss, instability, or mental health struggles right now, please hear this: this is not the end of the road for you. A time like this can make it harder to think about what comes next, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing. You deserve to feel safe, not only financially, but emotionally, mentally, and physically. You deserve support that understands the full context of your life, and you deserve care that doesn’t require you to translate your pain to be taken seriously.
About Chantel Cohen
https://chantelcohen.com/#hello
