Dr. Jameca CooperForensic Psychology Consultant, Emergence Psychological Services · Board Certified Counseling Psychologist and Forensic Psychology Consultant

Why the ‘Strong Black Woman’ mindset can harm your health #blackwomen #mentalhealth #genx

11 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment of her talk, Dr. Jameca Cooper, a psychologist with over 20 years of experience, explains how the cultural expectation for Black women—especially those of Generation X—to be the “strong Black woman” leads many to suppress their emotions. She describes how this emotional suppression does not eliminate distress; instead, the unprocessed feelings are stored in the body through a process called somatization. The result is a range of physical symptoms—stomach issues, headaches, backaches, and overall bodily wear—despite the lack of verbal expression of pain or trauma. Cooper emphasizes that the body “keeps the score,” meaning that unacknowledged stress accumulates and can worsen over time, contributing to early health decline among Black women who internalize the strong‑woman stereotype.

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While the strong Black woman equals dying early, we need to talk about what happens to the feelings you don't let yourself feel. In my over 20 years of experience as a psychologist, I see many, many Black Gen Xer women who come in just totally worn down, bodies beaten, because when you suppress your emotion, you think you're getting rid of it, but the body always keeps the score. So you suppress it, and it ends up in this process that we call somatization, which means you still feel it in your stomach, your headaches, your backaches. So although you're not verbally expressing your pain and your trauma and stress, the body is keeping that score. And you're packing it all and leaving it into your body so that it can fester and build and get worse and worse over time.