During my MFT residency this past week, something unexpected sat heavy with me. A fellow Black woman shared that she worries she’ll struggle doing therapy with Black clients who live in the projects. She admitted that her first thought is often, “Just get out.”

I appreciated her honesty, but it illuminated something bigger — how quickly even we, as clinicians of color, can forget the historical, structural, and generational forces that shape the lives of the very people we hope to serve.

That moment brought me back to work I did years ago as a parent coach for a nonprofit. I worked with families living in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, many in the projects. It was in that job that I learned about the history of housing design in New York and how figures like Robert Moses shaped the physical and psychological landscapes people still live in today. That information has stayed with me ever since, because it changed the way I see people — not as individuals who “won’t leave,” but as individuals who were conditioned to stay.

This perspective matters. Especially in therapy.

The History We Don’t See: Robert Moses & Containment by Design

Robert Moses, one of the most influential urban planners in American history, designed many of New York’s public housing projects in the mid-20th century. His blueprint was intentional:

Place everything inward. Community centers, playgrounds, childcare, schools — all tucked into the center of the housing complex. Create a self-contained world. One where residents could live their entire lives within a few blocks. Limit movement. If your needs are met inside, you have fewer reasons to venture into other communities — especially wealthier, whiter ones.

The intent was to keep poor people geographically contained. But when racist housing policies, redlining, and generational inequities pushed Black families disproportionately into these areas, containment turned into generational experience. The architecture may not have been designed for Black people, but it was certainly lived by Black people.

And that kind of design reshapes culture.

It reshapes beliefs.

It reshapes what people understand about life outside their neighborhood.

When Your World is Small, So Are Your Choices

If you grow up in a space where:

everyone you know lives in the same buildings, schools, childcare, groceries, and recreation all exist within the complex, and no one regularly leaves the neighborhood unless necessary…

you begin to internalize a certain belief:

“This is where life happens.”

When this is all you’ve seen — and all your parents and grandparents have ever seen — why would “just get out” feel like an option?

What looks like complacency from the outside is often conditioning from the inside.

Generational conditioning doesn’t announce itself.

It doesn’t say, “I’m limiting you.”

It simply repeats itself until the repetition becomes normal.

Therapy Requires Context, Not Judgment

This is why the conversation from my residency stayed with me. As therapists, we don’t just meet clients where they are — we meet them within the systems that raised them.

A Black family living in the projects is not sitting across from us because they want someone to judge their choices. They’re sitting across from us because they need support making new ones.

And to support them, we must understand:

the history that shaped their neighborhood, the structures that limited their options, the conditioning that shaped their worldview, and the generational narratives that influence what they believe is possible.

Therapy isn’t about telling a client to “just leave” their environment.

Therapy is about helping them understand that a world outside it exists — and helping them explore what life beyond their conditioning can look like.

This is especially true for Black therapists supporting Black clients. We are not exempt from internalized biases. We are not exempt from judgment. But we have a responsibility to check ourselves when those thoughts arise, because our clients deserve empathy, not our assumptions.

What I Carried Into My Graduate Training

My experience as a parent coach taught me something invaluable:

People don’t stay where they are because they want to — they stay because they don’t know anything else.

Learning about Robert Moses’ designs wasn’t just historical trivia. It helped me:

see clients with more compassion, understand environments as psychological ecosystems, and recognize that many “choices” are shaped long before a person is old enough to choose.

That knowledge made me a more grounded coach then, and it’s making me a more thoughtful therapist now.

Because ultimately, therapy isn’t about judging the decisions someone has made.

It’s about helping them see the decisions they haven’t yet realized are available.

As Therapists, Our Work Is Expansion

We are here to expand:

awareness possibility identity and choice

We are here to help clients explore what lies beyond the world they were raised in — not shame them for not having stepped out sooner.

So when a client walks into our office from the projects, the question isn’t:

“Why are they still there?”

It’s:

“What has shaped their story, and how can I support them in writing a new chapter?”

That is the heart of culturally grounded, trauma-informed, community-aware therapy.

And that is the lens we need — not only for our clients, but for ourselves.