How to Find a Black Therapist Near You or Online

Our directory of Black therapists, counselors and psychologists lists at least 579 clinicians. Every listing rests on the clinician's own word that they are Black: an application to us, a claim of their listing, or a directory where clinicians list themselves. Search by city, ZIP, insurance, or telehealth. The five states with the most listings right now:

• California: at least 75 listed
• New York: at least 55 listed
• Texas: at least 41 listed
• Georgia: at least 37 listed
• Florida: at least 31 listed

These counts are a floor. Plenty of Black therapists aren't listed anywhere yet, including here, and the numbers grow as clinicians join.

If cost is what's stopping you, read how to find therapy that takes Medicaid and what therapy costs without insurance, and how to pay less. The sliding-scale options further down this page help too.

BetterHelp is an online therapy service. Its sign-up questionnaire asks "Are there any specific preferences for your therapist?" and "Black therapist" is one of the boxes you can check.

Checking it is a request, not a guarantee: BetterHelp says it will match you "to an available therapist who fits your objectives, preferences, and the type of issues you are dealing with." If the fit is wrong, BetterHelp says you can "click a button and get matched to another provider."

Its therapists don't prescribe medication. BetterHelp lists self-pay pricing at "$70-$100 per week" and "an average copay of $23 per session" for members whose insurance it accepts. We compare it with four other services in our guide to online therapy for Black women.

Our finding a Black therapist toolkit is the printable version: a phone script for checking your insurance, first-session questions, and an email template for switching therapists when the first match isn't the one.

In crisis right now? Call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time.

Across 52 studies, people showed a moderately strong preference for a therapist of their own race or ethnicity, and studies of African American participants showed the largest effects. Across 53 outcome studies, race matching on its own made almost no difference to how much symptoms improved (Cabral and Smith, Journal of Counseling Psychology 2011; PMID 21875181). The finding that does move outcomes is culturally adapted therapy: a 2016 meta-analysis of 78 studies and 13,998 participants found that, where studies tested a treatment against its own unadapted version, the adapted one came out ahead by a medium-sized margin (Hall et al., Behavior Therapy 2016; PMID 27993346).

So there are two reasons to look, and both count. Wanting a Black therapist is a preference you are allowed to have. Wanting a therapist who adapts care to your culture is the choice the outcome research backs. Often they're the same person. They don't have to be.

The Cabral and Smith preference effect across 52 studies (d = 0.63) is moderately strong by any conventional benchmark, and the African American studies had the largest effects of any group on all three measures the authors studied (PMID 21875181).

The reasons are yours to name. Not having to translate your culture before the real work starts. Talking about racism as a stressor without first defending that it exists. Not code-switching in the one room that is supposed to be yours. None of those need an outcome study to be valid, and you don't need a meta-analysis to give you permission.

Cabral and Smith's 2011 meta-analysis pooled 53 outcome studies and found an average effect of d = 0.09 from race matching, which the authors describe as almost no benefit to treatment outcomes (PMID 21875181). A 2025 review of ten systematic reviews on racial and ethnic concordance in mental health reported that "racial/ethnic matching tends to have a greater effect" for Black clients, but did not put a number on that effect (Jackson et al., Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 2025; PMID 40694210).

Honest read: if you expect a Black therapist alone to move your scores on a depression, anxiety, or trauma checklist, the research doesn't strongly back that expectation yet. Our piece on the contested Greenwood-Borjas replication in newborn care covers the same pattern outside mental health.

The 2016 Hall meta-analysis covered 78 studies and 13,998 participants, 95 percent of them non-European American. In the studies that compared an adapted intervention with the unadapted version of the same intervention, the adapted one came out ahead by a medium effect (g = 0.52). Across all comparisons, effects were larger in treatment studies than in prevention studies, and on mood and anxiety measures than on general ones. In the 16 studies that reported remission, adapted interventions had 4.68 times the odds of remission compared with the other conditions tested, which included getting no intervention at all (PMID 27993346).

What Hall measured was the treatment, adapted to the client's culture, not the therapist's race. That's why the questions below work with any therapist you're considering.

Therapy for Black Girls runs a directory to "find a great therapist for Black girls in your area." It was founded by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist who also hosts the Therapy for Black Girls podcast.

The Black Mental Health Alliance, a Baltimore organization, offers therapist referrals and help navigating care. It doesn't run a searchable directory.

Open Path Collective isn't Black-specific, but it is built for cost: its therapists see members for $40 to $70 a session, plus a one-time membership fee.

If a therapist offers a free consult call, use it. These three questions tell you whether a therapist adapts care to you, whatever their race.

1. "What training do you have in culturally adapted therapy, or in working with Black clients?" This asks about the approach directly. A specific answer (a named training, a model they use, how it changes their sessions) is a good sign. A vague one is information too.

2. "How many of the people you see are Black?" This asks about practice. A clinician who rarely works with Black clients may have the credentials and still have little hands-on experience adapting care.

3. "If I tell you racism or microaggressions are a stressor in my life, how would you work with that?" This is the practical test. Listen for how they would bring it into your treatment plan, in their own words. Our guide to finding a Black OB-GYN uses the same approach for pregnancy care.

The race-matching research says nothing about cost, and cost is where a lot of searches end. Ask any practice you like whether it has sliding-scale spots; some keep them without advertising.

Check Open Path if a clinician's standard fee is out of reach. If you are a Black woman or nonbinary person, the Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund offers financial help with therapy costs.

Ask HR whether your job has an Employee Assistance Program and how many free sessions it includes. It can carry you while you look for a longer-term match.