Breaking it Down: Decolonizing Therapy
Katherine [Katu] Medina-Pineda, MHC-LP
According to the American Psychological Association, in 2021, less than 1% of psychologists were Indigenous. The first ever Black psychologist, Dr. Francis Sumner, obtained his degree in 1920, and one hundred years later, only 4% of psychologists (APA 2018), 7% of marriage and family therapists (APA 2018), 2% of psychiatrists (APA 2021), and 22% of social workers (Institute for Health Workforce Equity 2020) are Black. There is no clear data on other racial and ethnic groups that are minoritized, except to overstate the majority of the workforce continues to be predominantly white. Additionally, until fairly recently, the field of psychology remained blindsided to its own biases, universalizing the experiences of specific test subjects (read: white, wealthy, educated, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, thin) to be applicable to all populations around the world.
Decolonizing therapy invites clinicians to politicize their practice and acknowledge the impact and wound of colonization on everybody, particularly minoritized populations from the Global South. It makes sense that a field created and curated by white men for other white men is inherently going to be racist, homophobic, classist, and misogynistic. As a response, decolonizing therapy, created by Dr. Jennifer Mullan, aims to explore treatment from the intersection of the political, the ancestral, and the collective in tandem with psychology. Decolonizing therapy offers clinicians and clients alike a much-needed viewpoint that differs from western psychology and its rootedness in white supremacy culture and capitalism, such as:
Individualism: over-emphasis on one’s individual experience without considering relationship impact on one’s immediate community/collective
Objectivity: the idea that there is one correct way of being/acting/doing which all human beings need to be measured to in order to be considered a “good person”
Personal comfort: avoiding discomfort, conflict, accountability, and messiness in relationships in favor of centering one’s own ease and comfort (to “protect one’s peace”)
Urgency: short-term treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapies and solution-focused therapies are overemphasized in graduate programs, centered by insurance companies to avoid indefinite reimbursements. Treatment plans are revised every three to six months, creating an expectation for clients and clinicians that goals can be achieved in that amount of time
Productivity: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) includes sections for every diagnosis on the financial loss for the government and employers, as if to say the central motivation to cure/solve/improve the mental condition is to ultimately improve the economy
What is decolonizing therapy?
Dr. Mullan discusses the ways in which the Mental Health Industrial Complex gaslights oppressed people into invalidating their natural responses to oppression by pathologizing them into diagnosis while training clinicians to surveil, police, and assess clients. The system is not broken! It is working exactly as intended, and that is why it is helpful and important to bring that awareness into the therapeutic space in order to provide clients with an emotionally decolonized space. One that instead offers:
Interdependence/community: exploring not just the individual experience, but also the experience of the individual in community, the role of the individual in community, and the impact of these on each other
Compassion over perfection: fostering a space of compassion and nuance from which an individual can explore their relationship with judgement and critique of the self and others as a result of rigidity and perfectionism
Intuition over productivity: favoring the mind-body connection over external measures of success and productivity by bringing awareness to the body cues that provide information of how a person is feeling so that the individual can make better informed decisions when confronted with the daily challenges the system puts them through
Accountability over avoidance: learning how to tolerate discomfort during conflict and confrontation, reframing the relationship to accountability not as punitive or carceral but rather, as loving and connective; valuing repair over “winning” disagreements
Flexibility over objectivity: favoring complexity and nuance to foster more compassion toward the individual and the world around them with the understanding that reality is relative and relational, and intent and impact do not always align
Where can I find a decolonizing therapist?
Individuals who are seeking therapy that is decolonial and wondering how to find clinicians who are aligned with their values, remember the process of finding a therapist is a lot like dating: do not hesitate to ask a potential therapist about their political identity or worldviews on issues that matter to you. The one consistent marker of “successful therapy outcomes” across all treatment modalities and frameworks is the therapeutic relationship, and it is hard to feel comfortable with a therapist without knowing whether they may be secretly or overtly judging parts of yourself or themselves. It is important to remember that identity does not determine politic, and training programs for clinicians teach us to be complicit with white supremacy in covert ways- it is up to the individual clinician to un-learn, learn, and re-learn how to untangle themself from what they were taught. That means even clinicians who are themselves BIPOC, TLGBQ+, or come from working class backgrounds are indoctrinated into the system: it is why explicitly asking for how these identities shape their worldviews can be helpful for clients to get a sense of whether there is enough alignment to engage in the vulnerable work of therapy with a new clinician.
Sources:
Bureau, U. C. (2021, May 11). American Psychological Association Uses ACS Data to Identify Need for Mental Health Services, Education, and Training. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about/acs-data-stories/psychologists.html
Mullan, J. (2023). Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice. W. W. Norton & Company.
Okun, T. (2021). White supremacy culture characteristics. White Supremacy Culture. https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/characteristics.html
(2023). Apa.org. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/10/gaps-treating-race-ethnicity-populations
WHAT IS DECOLONIZING THERAPY? (n.d.). Www.decolonizingtherapy.com. https://www.decolonizingtherapy.com/what-is-dt