Therapy Rocks! | Is “Politicized Therapy” Becoming Just Another Therapy Model?

Once a Radical Disruption, Now You're Just Not Doing it Right

Welcome to Therapy Sucks Rocks a bi-monthly round-up of things I have found interesting in therapy world and beyond with some opinions attached. I will be doing this along with my regular posts on various topics. Lets get going..

When do our “relational ethics” turn into prescriptions for “how to be a “socially just” therapist”?

I have a hater. Well, I might have many, but this particular anonymous person has aggressively followed me across platforms berating me because, in their opinion, I have not been vocal enough about my position on Palestine. Setting aside my deep disdain for performative activism on social media, that might be true. But regardless, this person knows nothing of my views, my inner life, how I live out my ethics in the real world, or my deep heartbreak. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not doing therapeutic activism right.

Photo by christopher lemercier on Unsplash

I love this substack post by narrative therapist Dr. Fran Lassman of a time and space psychology. She has more courage then me. I have been thinking about posting something similar for a while now. I have a draft sitting there, but I could not muster the energy to post it. Sometimes I just don’t want the hate. But read her post.

I have been in a couple of spaces now where folks have self identified as a “politicized therapist.” Today, the language of politicized therapy is everywhere. Therapy accounts on Instagram remind us that our mental health is shaped by systemic oppression. Training programs promise anti-oppressive certification. But something feels off. What was once a radical challenge has been absorbed, repackaged, and sold back to us as yet another framework, another model, another set of best practices. (this might be a good place to recommend the book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò).

Now I might be partly responsible. Back in 2017 J. D’Arrigo, myself and others tried to operationalize doing social justice in therapy in the now often cited article Navigating Critical Theory and Postmodernism: Social Justice and Therapist Power in Family Therapy. In this popular article we were really interested in how when doing this work, we don’t fall victim to practices like instant sociology, or when doing social justice informed therapy we don’t replicate the same colonizing processes, just because we think our ideas are the right ones, or the morally superior.

All this to say, perhaps the biggest concern I have is that we are simply replacing one rigid model with another. Where traditional therapies privileged objectivity and neutrality, today’s politicized models often push a different set of assumptions (that often include a different sort of objectivity). There’s little room for ambiguity, for complexity, for perspectives that challenge prevailing narratives. In some cases, this has led to dogmatism, where disagreement is treated as harm, where questioning the dominant framework is seen as an ethical failure.

This isn’t to say that politicized therapy is without value. Many therapists are doing essential work in helping people understand how their suffering is shaped by the larger social/cultural context. I would like to think myself included. But if we want to maintain the radical spirit that birthed these ideas, we have to ask harder questions.

And for my hater, you really should get familiar with Deepa Iyer’s work around successful social change. There’s lots of ways to do activism.

What I’m watching

I’m enjoying London based fashion designer Bella Freud’s (yes, related) podcast and YouTube channel. Check out this one with Nick Cave.

What I’m Listening to..

Yeah I know, a TikTok hit, but in honor of today’s theme were policing others seems a priority…

What I’m reading..

Remember, we need each other. If real change is going to come about, we need to do it together. Warts and all.

Peace.