Advice for the New Year from a Black therapist

Hey, y’all,

As 2025 nears, a jumble of fears, hopes, and uncertainties may be rattling around your heart, family, and community. 

How does a new year fit into this moment? The familiar sense of a broad page on the verge of being turned over is in the air. Are you looking for rest and recharge? Or, are you ready and restless for all that is to come next? 

There’s plenty to anticipate, that’s for sure. For now, though, an array of holidays and gatherings with family or other loved ones mark the passing of the year’s final hours. 

How can we approach this time — both inside our relationships with others and as individuals — to step into the depths of 2025 with confidence, healthy goals, and sustainable support systems?

To understand some possible answers, URL Media spoke with Dr. Racine Henry, a Black marriage and family therapist in New York and New Jersey and professor and researcher at the Northwestern University Graduate School.

Dr. Henry works with Black and interracial couples, and with people in monogamous and non-monogamous relationships. She is pioneering a new clinical practice called Integrative Culinary Therapy, and while her specialty is in close partnerships and families, many of her insights apply to relationships of all kinds.

Eye to eye

The 2024 election reaffirmed the extent of America’s stark political divides, and families and couples were no exception.

If opinions have clashed, Dr. Henry emphasized that it’s common to not feel heard, comfortable, or even safe in your family or relationship. She underscored the importance of setting boundaries, whether it be choosing how much time you spend in a room or participating in some activities over others. 

“You can’t control the outcome or the people,” she explained. “So maybe the thing you can give yourself is, ‘I’m going to state how I feel honestly,’ or, ‘I’m going to advocate for myself,’ or, ‘I’m not going to back down when the offensive thing is said, I’m going to address it instead.’”

“That way, regardless of how the conversation ends up, there’s something that you can gain from it that feels positive and worth it to you,” she added. 

As for romantic partnerships in particular, her advice was similarly even-keeled and solutions-oriented — but it still might surprise you. 

“ I don’t believe that couples have to agree on anything, really, to have a healthy relationship,” she said. “It’s more about having a mechanism for problem solving and for making decisions.”

She described how no two relationships function the exact same, so couples can prioritize respect, intentional communication, and flexibility in ways that work for each unique individual and partnership — instead of trying to stick to an idea of what is normal.

“I’ve found … that a lot of couples don’t really talk to each other,” Dr. Henry said. “They may have functional conversations — the bills, the kids, or whatever. But they don’t spend a lot of time just talking the way that you would to a friend or even a stranger.”

“Part of that is getting caught up in the routine of life and … being pulled in different directions,” she continued. “But again, it’s about this idea of intentionality. So what are you doing on purpose and consciously to promote the health and wellbeing of your relationship?”

A new model

These issues are not new for couples — but Dr. Henry’s method for addressing them is. After seeing similar patterns playing out in her practice, and experiencing how to solve them in her own marriage, she set out to do something never done before: bring couples therapy into the kitchen. 

Integrative Culinary Therapy, as she coined the model, is designed specifically for Black couples. It offers a culturally flexible space where partners can develop what Dr. Henry calls “cultural intimacy” through a nine-session structure, which alternates shared cooking exercises with regular talk therapy appointments.

Partners explore how they relate to traditional foods, and building from there, all kinds of discussions become possible, from childhood memories and family histories, to the way individuals’ were taught about love and how that influences the foundations of their adult relationships and belief systems, Dr. Henry described. 

“We can talk about, ‘Here’s why I do the thing that I do in our relationship, here’s where it comes from, here’s the significance it holds for me,’ as whatever identity I hold culturally and ethnically,” she said. “And here’s how we can use that to connect to each other differently.”

The goal is not to teach people how to cook. It’s more so a chance to learn deeply about one another and practice communication skills and teamwork. The result can be a transformative time for a couple. Plus, it all takes place in a comfortable kitchen environment, which allows the session to feel almost like a date night or a break away from routines for couples, Dr. Henry noted. 

“All of our models of treatment, mental health-wise, were done with white participants, and as clinicians, we’re taught how to make these models more adaptable,” she explained, comparing this inequity with the increasingly high amount of Black people seeking therapy and the value of representation in the mental health profession.

“As a Black therapist, I feel like it’s really important that the models [Black people] are met with are made for them and not just adapted to them.”

Looking ahead

Dr. Henry — who goes by Chef Dr. Rae in the kitchen — first tried out her ICT model with real couples in 2019. That’s when she realized it was something she believed in and wanted to pursue, she said.

Since then, Dr. Henry has been bolstering the concept with academic theory, including the integrative systemic therapy framework and other culturally flexible models of marriage and family therapy. She is now sharing the model with colleagues and the wider field for feedback, and is nearing the end of a pilot study funded by a Northwestern University grant. 

Once the results are written up and published, she hopes to create a training manual for other therapists to use and start implementing the model into more communities. 

As 2024 ticks to an end and the dawn of a new presidency awaits, one thing is clear from Dr. Henry’s advice: not to be afraid of prioritizing mental health in the new year, especially in order to nurture your closest relationships. We’ll all need them, no matter what 2025 has in store. 

And maybe, next time you share the kitchen with someone, see what you can learn about them through the food in front of you. 

“We all have those moments of self doubt or that things are difficult or just not turning out well,” Dr. Henry said when asked about her intentions for the New Year.
“I want to remember that I am doing what I feel like I’ve been called to do,” she responded. “I am doing something that I am knowledgeable about and skilled at, and that there is a need for the work that I’m doing.”