Black men need hope to survive and, ultimately, flourish. As mental health is a critical but often neglected issue, especially among Black men, Care for the Mental and Spiritual Health of Black Men examines that sensitive topic in conjunction with reflections on race, gender, sexuality, and class to offer a hopeful and constructive framework for care and counseling, particularly for Black men. These are not separate from spiritual health and growth, as well, but both are integral to holistic, dynamic wellbeing. In this, the author provides a careful and critical analysis of spiritual hope and healing as ingredient to individual and communal flourishing. As such, this volume will be a vital resource for health practitioners, spiritual caregivers, and providers in community care who serve to bolster the mental wellbeing of Black men.

An unapologetic exploration of the Black mental health crisis—and a comprehensive road map to getting the care you deserve in an unequal system. We can’t deny it any longer: there is a Black mental health crisis in our world today. Black people die at disproportionately high rates due to chronic illness, suffer from poverty, under-education, and the effects of racism. This book is an exploration of Black mental health in today’s world, the forces that have undermined mental health progress for African Americans, and what needs to happen for African Americans to heal psychological distress, find community, and undo years of stigma and marginalization in order to access effective mental health care. In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health, psychologist and African American mental health expert Rheeda Walker offers important information on the mental health crisis in the Black community, how to combat stigma, spot potential mental illness, how to practice emotional wellness, and how to get the best care possible in system steeped in racial bias. This breakthrough book will help you: Recognize mental and emotional health problems Understand the myriad ways in which these problems impact overall health and quality of life and relationships Develop psychological tools to neutralize ongoing stressors and live more fully Navigate a mental health care system that is unequal It’s past time to take Black mental health seriously. Whether you suffer yourself, have a loved one who needs help, or are a mental health professional working with the Black community, this book is an essential and much-needed resource.

Author and activist Kevin Powell and contributors Lasana Omar Hotep, Jeff Johnson, Byron Hurt, Dr. William Jelani Cobb, Ryan Mack, Kendrick B. Nathaniel, and Dr. Andre L. Brown deliver an essential collection of essays for Black men at all stages of their lives on surviving and thriving in an unjust world. The Black Male Handbook answers a collective hunger for new direction, fresh solutions to old problems, and a different kind of conversation—man-to-man and with Black male voices, all from the hip hop generation. The book tackles issues related to political, practical, cultural, and spiritual matters, and ending violence against women and girls. The book also features an appendix filled with useful readings, advice, and resources. The Black Male Handbook is a blueprint for those aspiring to thrive against the odds in America today. This is a must-have book, not only for Black male readers, but the women who befriend, parent, partner, and love them.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 is the day that changed America. A Republican business mogul and reality television host who once proclaimed that if women didn't accept the intimate advancements of men, then men were could simply grab these women by a particularly sensitive extremity below their stomachs, snatched the electoral collegiate vote and since then has worked tirelessly on reversing President Barack Obama's progressive policies and pushing immigration legislation backwards. This vital resource guide incorporates the basic understandings of spiritual care with the current social, emotional, existential and spiritual needs of African Americans simply surviving in Trump's violent America. It's one-of-a-kind, offering specific spiritual care strategies and interventions for African Americans dealing with particular physical, social and emotional health challenges in the midst of rising statistics of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia leading to violence in the United States. Intended for anyone in academia or the helping professions, this comprehensive work benefits those seeking to provide spiritual care to African American hospital patients, counseling clients, church congregants and parishioners, military veterans, or returning service members. The contributors to this anthology are experts in their respective fields who offer a new, refreshing, and energizing perspective on important issues impacting African Americans.

African American males have never fared as poorly as they do currently on a number of social indicators. They are less likely to complete high school than their white male and female or African American female peers, they are more likely to exhibit depressive symptoms, and they have fewer sanctioned coping strategies. Arguably, no other group in American society has been more maligned, regularly faced with tremendous odds that uniquely threaten their existence. When they do receive education, mental health, and physical health services, it is often in correctional settings. They are marginalized in public policies on secondary and higher education attainment, marriage and parental expectations, public welfare, health, housing, and community development. Yet they remain overlooked in health and social science research and are stereotyped in the popular media. Taking a step back from the traditionally myopic view of African American males as criminals and hustlers, this groundbreaking book provides a more nuanced and realistic portrait of their experiences in the world. Chapter authors, both established and emerging scholars of social problems relevant to African Americans, offer a comprehensive overview of the social and economic data on black males to date and the significant issues that affect them from adolescence to adulthood. Via in-depth qualitiative interviews as well as comprehensive surveys and data sets, their physical, mental, and spiritual health and emerging family roles are considered within both individual and communal contexts. Chapters cover health issues such as HIV and depression; fatherhood and family roles; suicide; violence; academic achievement; and incarceration. With original research and a special eye toward enhancing social work and social welfare intervention practice with this often overlooked subpopulation of American society, this volume will be of great interest to researchers interested in African American issues, students, practitioners, and policy makers.

The United States is experiencing a dramatic shift in demographics, with minorities comprising a rapidly growing proportion of the population. It is anticipated that this will likely lead to substantial changes in previously established values, needs, and priorities of the population, including health and mental health for individuals, families, and society at large. This volume focuses on determinants of minority mental health and wellness. This emphasis necessarily raises the question of just who is a minority and how is minority to be defined. The term has been defined in any number of ways. Wirth (1945, p. 347) offered one of the earliest definitions of minority: We may define a minority as a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. The existence of a minority in a society implies the existence of a corresponding dominant group enjoying higher social status and greater privileges.