Building a Cohesive Relationship

One is by developing a cohesive co- existent among the African Americans and the white therapists who are the majority in the field of clinical therapy. (Williams, 2000).

The theory of belonging can be used as a framework for analyzing and interpreting this major problem through a massive campaign to bring about awareness on the need and the importance of racial intermingling. This theory emphasizes on the church membership which usually reflect the need to belong with a group rather than to a group, this brings about interdependency between whites and the African Americans. (Wells, 2001)

The need to belong expresses the fundamental significance of relationship to well- being, day to day experiences provide a ready evidence that need to belong is a determining factor in physical, social, psychological and spiritual health, the theory of belonging stresses that all individuals are to share a common need to be connected with caring others, and common sense that shows that different individual lives are better for being connected. (Brown, 1995). The connection to others happens in varied environments that include but not limited to home, work place, and in political, social, and educational affiliations.

The theory of belonging provides a therapeutic function of religious affiliation in African American communities. Another strategy based on the theory of belonging that can be applied in solving the clinical challenges facing the Black Americans is the involvement of the church as a social institution which is endowed with a therapeutic function of  belongingness, the black church tradition and the experience.