This chapter examines Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Black couples. Important clinical considerations (e.g., racial realities of anti-Blackness) are provided that must be integrated within the EFT therapy model to provide an appropriate adaptation that is culturally responsive couples therapy. EFT and attachment theory will need to be significantly modified to be a culturally responsive therapy to meet the needs of Black couples. Adult attachment needs to be conceptualized from a network approach (e.g., multiple relationships/collectivism) instead of only a dyadic perspective. In addition, acculturation (i.e., racial identity), race/ethnicity, institutional decimation and Black sex ratios, marriage, anti-Black racism, internalized stereotypes (anti-Blackness), Strong Black Woman/Superwoman Schema, John Henryism, and religion and spirituality are all important factors to consider in providing culturally responsive care and clinical interventions that strengthen treatment approaches with Black couples.

This chapter provides an overview of some of the unique characteristics, strengths, and challenges for creating and sustaining healthy marital relationships between heterosexual men and women of African ancestry. The approach to this work is grounded within the emerging field of African-centered psychology that privileges the lived experiences of African Americans and summarizes a marriage empowerment program, Conversations in Marriage© (CIM), which uses African proverbs to promote situational learning. A definition of culture is developed to conceptualize healthy marriages, and challenges affecting Black marriage are discussed. Key foundations, practices, and processes of a cycle of healthy marriages are presented and implications for building stronger marriages are discussed. Each of these elements are discussed from a perspective that centers sustainable marriage within a framework of community growth, empowerment, and sustainability.

This chapter explores the ways in which religion, spirituality, and romance intersect in Black American same-gender-loving (SGL) men’s lives. Specifically, the author reviewed published scholarly literature on these topics. This review is followed by a critical analysis of the links between religion, spirituality, and romantic relationships and sexual experiences. This author explored the ways in which religion and spirituality influence the development, maintenance, dynamics, and quality of Black American SGL men’s romantic and sexual relationships. Then the author describes strategies, based on the reviewed literature and Afrocentric psychology theory, to help clinicians better assess the interplay of religion, spirituality, and romance. Clinical methods to treat sexual and psychological problems related to these factors are also explored. The chapter culminates with recommendations for future clinical research in this area.

This research investigated patterns of African American couples’ positive and negative stereotyping and perceptions of couple adjustment and examined the relationship between demographic variables and African American couples’ positive/negative stereotyping of each other and couple adjustment. Respondents (n = 142; 101 females, 41 males) were 18 years or older, second-generation African Americans in a heterosexual relationship. The significant findings in this study were as follows: (a) older age is correlated with negative stereotypes of Black females and of Black males; (b) women who had a higher education endorsed more stereotypes of negative Black females than those who did not complete high school; (c) females had higher negative stereotypes of Black women and Black men than males; and (d) both being in a committed relationship and holding positive stereotypes related highly to overall adjustment in this sample of African Americans. Implications for further research and clinical work with African American couples are discussed.

Robert Pervine and colleagues employ Ice Cube’s 1990 song, “Endangered Species” to explicate the popular narrative on black men as an endangered species. This song was preceded by seven-years by Walter Leavy’s 1983 article in Ebony Magazine. Leavy introduced the black community to the provocative question, “Is the black male an endangered species?” To emphasize the deteriorating condition of the African American male, Leavy pointed to a number of factors including high rates of unemployment, homicide, and imprisonment, as well as a decrease in life expectancy that negatively impact their ability to prosper in life. The term “endangered species” refers to a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular area. Causes of the endangerment are usually the loss of habitats, poaching, and the unleashing of an invasive species, in this case police violence. The concept of black males as an endangered species was a reversal of the newly created sense in the US coming out of the 1950s and 1960s that America needed to improve the conditions of the Black Community in order to make good on its commitment to abolish the basic injustice of segregation.

Henry Chambers synthesizes analysis of Jay-Z’s 2003 song, “99 Problems”, as well as Chamilionaire’s 2005 “Ridin’” and 2007 “Hip Hop Police” as means of understanding police racial profiling. The songs analyzed in this chapter discuss policing black men. Though the songs are more than a decade old, they are just as relevant today as when they were released. They tell stories of interactions between police and black men, describe how such interactions do proceed, and suggest how they should proceed. The artists indirectly comment on freedom by discussing how police should treat someone they may not like or may envy but who the police have no basis to believe is engaged in criminal behavior. Indeed, the songs suggest police have an obligation to police properly even if the suspect may in fact be engaged in criminal behavior. However, the songs are somewhat surprising in that they seem to suggest black men will typically be hassled by police but that black men with resources may be able to fearlessly assert their rights to not be policed unfairly in some circumstances. The songs provide strong material to explore what policing should look like in the current age.