healing justice and cultural humility
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle
because we do not live single-issue lives.”
Healing justice is a framework that was coined by Black feminists and other organizers of color. It recognizes the interdependence of individual and collective mental health, highlighting the role that historical atrocities and current systemic inequities affect all of us. It emphasizes the importance of collective liberation being central to the work of healing.
It seems obvious to me that mental health isn’t solely up to the individual. We are all deeply affected by living in a society which gives power, resources, and validation to some and strips them from others. I see it as part of my job to understand and affirm the affect privilege, inequity, and injustice have on my clients, including how it can show up in the therapy relationship itself.
This is especially true when I work with clients who have different marginalized identities than mine. As a therapist, especially a white therapist, I acknowledge the position of authority and privilege inherent in my work. I acknowledge how that authority has been abused by some therapists and therapeutic institutions. I approach all cross-cultural client relationships from a place of cultural humility; “a dynamic, self reflective, and life long commitment to intersectional understanding that starts from the inside out.”
Approaching therapy this way is part of my own personal activism. These issues affect all of us. Understanding one’s relationship to them helps us all move closer to an authentic, healthy connection with ourselves and the world around us.
healing is resistance