The Circle of Becoming | Blaq Butterfly
There is a growing tension happening online between licensed mental health professionals, life coaches, wellness influencers, trauma educators, and digital healing spaces.
At first glance, it looks like a debate about credentials.
But underneath it? It is really a conversation about trust.
Trust in systems. Trust in institutions. Trust in medicine. Trust in psychology. Trust in authority. Trust in who gets to guide people emotionally.
And for many Black people, that trust has always been complicated.
The Internet Changed Who People Listen To
Years ago, therapists stayed in offices, pastors stayed in churches, motivational speakers stayed on stages, and psychologists stayed in universities.
Now? One viral clip can position someone as a healer, therapist, relationship expert, trauma educator, life strategist, spiritual guide, and mental health advocate all at once.
And audiences often cannot tell the difference between therapy, coaching, psychoeducation, motivational speaking, emotional support, entertainment, or lived experience storytelling.
That’s where the conflict begins. Because the more visible someone becomes, the more people stop asking “Did this help me?” and start asking “Who gave them authority?”
The Dr. Bryant Debate Is Bigger Than One Woman
Much of the recent conversation surrounding Dr. Cheyenne Bryant exploded after clips circulated discussing her decision to no longer operate under a clinical license while expanding her private coaching and media platform.
Licensed psychologist Dr. Raquel Martin publicly challenged several of the statements made in those clips, emphasizing the importance of licensure, ethics boards, accountability, diagnosis protections, and regulated care.
And to be fair, many of those concerns are valid. Licensing does matter. Ethics matter. Oversight matters. Consumer protections matter.
Especially in mental health spaces where vulnerable people may be suicidal, traumatized, dissociating, struggling with psychosis, battling addiction, or experiencing severe depression.
Mental health is not simply “good advice.” It is healthcare.
But many Black patients listening to this debate are hearing something else entirely. Because on paper, all of this sounds good. Until you become the patient.
Being Evaluated” vs. “Being Understood”
Many Black patients know the emotional exhaustion of being over-medicated, feeling pathologized instead of understood, being rushed through appointments, cycling through therapists, and searching endlessly for “the right fit.”
The reality is: many Black people do not experience the mental healthcare system as emotionally safe. And the statistics reflect that reality.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, Black adults are less likely to receive mental health treatment than white adults, more likely to receive lower quality care, and more likely to end treatment early due to mistrust, cost, misdiagnosis, or poor provider relationships.
Research published through the National Library of Medicine has also documented how Black patients are disproportionately misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, underdiagnosed for mood disorders, undertreated for pain, and less likely to receive culturally responsive mental healthcare.
So while professionals defend the system, many patients are quietly asking: “Who is protecting us from the system?”
The Selection Process Feels Like Modern Dating
Finding a therapist can feel eerily similar to dating. You search profiles. Study photos. Read bios. Look for red flags. Hope someone understands your communication style. Try to determine emotional safety within minutes.
Then comes the intake forms, the vulnerability, the financial commitment, the emotional risk, and the possibility that you still may not feel seen.
And like dating, many people are doing this while depressed, grieving, anxious, traumatized, or emotionally exhausted.
People in crisis are often expected to navigate mental healthcare systems with the same energy they barely have to survive daily life. That gap matters.
The Trial and Error Reality of Antidepressants
One of the least discussed realities in mental healthcare is how exhausting medication management can become. Many patients spend years cycling through SSRIs, dosage changes, mood stabilizers, side effects, withdrawals, emotional numbness, fatigue, insomnia, and weight fluctuations before finding the “right” combination.
For some people, medication is life-saving. For others, the process itself becomes traumatic.
And Black communities often carry additional fears because of longstanding historical distrust surrounding medicine and experimentation.
Why Many Black People Distrust Mental Health Systems
Black mistrust toward healthcare systems did not appear out of nowhere. It was built historically through medical experimentation, racialized diagnoses, unequal treatment, forced institutionalization, unethical studies, under-treatment of pain, and systemic neglect.
Even controversial cultural conversations like the “Willie Lynch Letter” continue circulating because many Black communities are still trying to understand the psychological roots of generational trauma, division, survival behaviors, hypervigilance, and internalized fear structures.
Whether every historical document circulating online is academically verified or not, the emotional reality remains: many Black people believe psychological systems were never originally designed with Black healing at the center. That belief shapes how people interact with therapy today.
So Where Do Coaches, Blogs, and Healing Communities Fit In?
This is where the conversation becomes nuanced. Because while licensed care is necessary, there is still a massive emotional accessibility gap.
That gap is where life coaches, healing influencers, peer support spaces, advocacy blogs, faith communities, community outreach, and digital wellness platforms begin to thrive.
Not because people “hate therapy.” But because many people are searching for language, relatability, emotional visibility, community, cultural familiarity, accessibility, and hope.
Sometimes people are not looking for a diagnosis first. Sometimes they are looking for somewhere to finally exhale. That does not replace therapy. But it explains why so many people gravitate toward spaces that feel emotionally reachable.
The Danger of Desensitization in Black Professional Spaces
One of the hardest conversations many Black patients are afraid to say out loud is this: some Black professionals become emotionally desensitized too.
Not because they are evil. But because burnout, institutional pressure, productivity demands, and repeated trauma exposure can disconnect providers from compassion over time. And patients feel it.
They feel rushed, clinically processed, emotionally flattened, reduced to symptoms, or spoken to like case files instead of human beings.
This becomes especially painful when patients entered those spaces hoping cultural familiarity would automatically equal emotional safety. It does not always.
Kaiser and the National Mental Health Debate
Mental healthcare systems across the country are increasingly under scrutiny. Kaiser Permanente mental health services have faced public criticism and legal scrutiny over appointment delays, access issues, and concerns regarding mental healthcare availability.
In 2023, California regulators fined Kaiser Permanente $200 million over mental healthcare access failures, including long wait times and insufficient follow-up care.
These stories matter because they reinforce what many patients already feel: accessing quality mental healthcare can feel like fighting an entire system while already emotionally exhausted.
Therapy Is Still Worth It
And despite all of this: quality therapy can absolutely change lives. The goal is not to discourage therapy. The goal is to encourage self-advocacy inside the process.
Because healing often requires trying different providers, asking questions, setting boundaries, seeking second opinions, understanding your rights, learning your diagnoses, and advocating for culturally responsive care.
The journey can feel exhausting. But the right therapeutic relationship can also become life-changing.
So Now What?
We Create Pathways.
I am not writing this from the outside looking in. I am writing this as someone who has sat in waiting rooms, filled out intake forms while barely holding it together, and walked out of sessions feeling more misunderstood than when I walked in.
And I kept going. I figured it out. And now I want to hand you what I wish someone had handed me.
Consider this your starter kit for navigating the mental health ecosystem on your own terms.
Know Your Story Before You Walk In the Door
One of the hardest parts of entering a new therapeutic relationship is answering the question: “So, what brings you in? What do you need from us?”
That question is deceptively simple. But if you have never been asked to organize your own story, it can feel impossible to answer in a 50-minute session with a stranger.
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