Thrower Consulting & Therapy - Massachusetts

Virtual Therapy & Career Support in Massachusetts

Racial Responsiveness

Consultation & Supervision

Do you want to “do better” with race and racial justice in your work?

You’ve read the books, you know some of the important language, but putting these ideas into action feels disconnected from your day-to-day work life. You feel unsure how to communicate about anti-racism with skill or confidence.

You face racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. regularly and you want to contribute to a more just world but feel you don’t know enough about your own race or what to do with your privilege in your specific role. You either feel like you don’t do enough or feel unsuccessful at supporting meaningful change in your work.

Being more than a passive ally means doing work to understand yourself.

Racism is one of the most complex systems of oppression in our world.

We have been socialized all our lives to avoid race and racial injustice. Addressing racism in your work is not about following a set of rules or checking off boxes.

Your racial justice values are deeply intertwined with how you think, feel and behave about your race (and race in general). You can become more confident in addressing racial dynamics at work and grow a deeper understanding of your race through:

  • Orienting yourself to your values & skills (i.e., your purpose)
  • Grieving what you thought you knew about race (so you can learn more)
  • Approaching (not avoiding) your racial anxiety
  • Develop racially responsive skills (i.e., advocate, elicit feedback, talk about & analyze racial dynamics, deepen empathy and perspective taking)

As a mental health service provider, the way you understand & address race matters.

Inquire about consultation

I’m Dr. Stephanie Thrower and my pronouns are she/her. I was trained in counseling psychology and social justice.  My research focuses on how to train White therapists to be more racially responsive. Even in a field like mental health (where building trusting and compassionate relationships is key), I learned problematic racial dynamics and racial injustices still occur. 

I am interested in how systemic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal racism work together to maintain the status quo. 

My expertise on race as a White cis-female gives people all kinds of feelings. Humility and/or deference doesn’t seem compatible with expertise.  Yet, building expertise for me has meant deep learning, which inevitably has also taught me how much more is left for me to learn.

I support professionals to manage complex, nuanced power dynamics, internal defense mechanisms, and systemic pressures in order to meaningfully address racial injustice at work. 

What can consultation do for you?

Authentically integrate your professional & personal values with your racial equity values

Consultation & coaching can help you:

  • Skillfully talk about race when it comes up
  • Understand and address racism or a racial event
  • Build supports who help fill in the gaps of your understanding on race and racism
  • Detect the patterns of behavior you and your organization or business use to avoid race, racism, privilege, and power
  • Gain more clarity on the ethical issues of identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, etc.) in work
  • Increase insight into the nuance of your racial identity with exploration of other intersecting identites
  • STOP relying on people of Color (who you offer services to, supervise or manage) to teach you about your own privilege
  • Learn what you need to do in your work to make space for important stories/experience of people of Color to be heard and honored
  • And if you happen not to be White, learning more about White racial identity might help you navigate surviving your work and understand how Whiteness operates in your specific field and organization

Articles on Racial Responsiveness

Become more racially responsive

I offer 1:1 coaching and small group consultation to help develop racial identity development for mental health providers and leaders. Below is an overview of the content & skill development covered.

Module 1

SELF

Clarify & specify personal racial justice goals to build an accountability and support plan
Identifying personal and professional values relevant to racial justice
Deepen your understanding of your unique emotional experience processing racial material in order to identify effective ways to cope

    Module 2

    HISTORY

    Explore origins of your career values and philosophy – knowing where we came from helps us understand where we want to go
    Explore origins of how you learned about race, and how that knowledge and experience of race has changed
    Learn the origins of the theoretical model – Helms’ White Racial Identity Theory

      Module 3

      IDENTITY

      We will learn how Helms’ White Racial Identity Development Theory applies to you, as well as your work and business environment. This theory will: 1) provide you with a framework (which has been researched over the last four decades) to understand how race shows up and is responded to, as well as 2) teach you how to tailor interventions in your work.

        Module 4

        PRIVILEGE

        Dive deeper into working on your relationship with privilege so privilege defensiveness and denial doesn’t get the best of you!
        Examine how privilege dynamics come to life in your business or organization, and identify what needs to be done to highlight exclusion and inequity

          Module 5

          POWER

          Explore different kinds of “psychological power” and how it relates to your interactions with others at work
          Identify and unpack any wounds from unskilled leaders that you might be carry forward in your role today

            Module 6

            ADVOCACY

            Identify advocacy routes that fit your interpersonal style and specific context that can help you address systemic racial justice in your work.
            Develop your own personal support plan for ongoing racial responsiveness in work (and your whole life)

              I provide coaching and consultation to help you be a more racially just professional.

              I bring authenticity, education, and compassion when I work with individuals and organizations

              Training

              My graduate school experience in Sport Psychology (MA), Mental Health Counseling (MA), and Counseling Psychology (Ph.D.) has been focused on learning about identity development, examining the systemic and cultural context around us, and helping individuals move toward purpose and liberation with courage.

              Experience

              I have been providing race consultation and group facilitation since 2011. My early experiences facilitating small group classes on social justice and advocacy skill development inspired my first doctoral research study.  Since then, I have been providing consultation, leading groups, and presentations to various academic, hospital and mental health settings. Most recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to facilitate year-long small group sessions within a program put on by the Yale Psychiatry Department called GROW: Get Racism Out of Work.

              I am a therapist with a practice that focuses on mental health at the intersection of motherhood and career drawing heavily from Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT).

              The theoretical foundation of what I do is rooted in Dr. Helms’ scholarship and mentorship. Resisting white supremacy and the patriarchy is an essential part of increasing psychological flexibility, improving self-compassion and compassion with others, & deepening our relationships with others and ourselves.


              Research

              The following are a few relevant published works:

              ​Thrower, S. J.,Helms, J. E., Manosalvas, K. (2020). Exploring the role of context on racially responsive supervision: The racial identity social interaction model. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, Vol 14(2).

              Thrower, S. J., Helms, J. E., & Price, M. (2020). Racial Dynamics in Counselor Training: The Racial Identity Social Interaction Model. The Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision, 13(1).

              Reach out for support

              We can connect to discuss your needs to determine if I can be of any assistance or direct you to another expert trainer or consultant.

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