Structural Racism and Psychiatric Practice: A Call for Sustained Change.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Mental Health
• Social Sciences
• Public Health

Background:

• Structural racism is gaining attention due to recent political and social events.
• The field of psychiatry faces a history of systemic inequities.
• Evidence highlights long-standing systemic inequities within psychiatry.

Purpose of the Study:

• To emphasize the urgent need for integrating techniques addressing racial identity and racism into psychiatric practice and education.
• To address the lack of sustained commitment in applying existing strategies for racism in psychiatry.
• To provide recommendations for institutionalizing the focus on racism and racial identity in psychiatry.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing clinical and supervisory work examples.
• Reviewing published strategies for addressing racism and racial identity in psychiatric practice.
• Developing recommendations for institutionalizing focus on racism and racial identity.

Main Results:

• Psychiatry has a legacy of systemic inequities.
• Existing techniques to address racism and racial identity are available but underutilized.
• A lack of sustained commitment hinders integration of these techniques.

Conclusions:

• There is an urgent need to integrate racial identity and racism into psychiatric practice and teaching.
• Institutionalizing a focus on racism and racial identity is crucial for progress.
• Existing techniques can be applied to clinical examples to address systemic inequities.