Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive, and Intersectional Approaches to Therapy

Therapists who integrate anti-racist, intersectional, and anti-oppressive approaches understand that lives are shaped by experiences of race, class, gender, ethnicity, ability, neurodivergence, sexual orientation, and other factors. Those who have been marginalized or oppressed need acknowledgement that their challenges and concerns neither begin nor end with their individual selves.

What Is an Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive, and Intersectional Approach in Psychotherapy?

This approach is grounded in the understanding that inner conflicts or core difficulties are influenced not only by one’s early caregiving environment, but also by the wider context of social experience. Personal, interpersonal, and social conflicts can interweave.

Thriving on the inside is about more than what goes on in your mind—there is a need to understand how injustice outside connects to disharmony inside.

Individuals seeking therapy may worry that their experience will be misunderstood, minimized, or dismissed by a therapist. It is vital that a therapist provides a safe, healing space for all clients, regardless of identity or any other factor shaping their lived experience.

Why Is an Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive, and Intersectional Approach Relevant in Psychotherapy?

Those who have been targets of racism, classism, ableism, or other forms of discrimination are often burdened with having to take initiative to address the problem. This can happen in the therapy space as well.

Respect for the importance of cultural issues in an individual’s life, and an open forum within which to discuss all aspects of one’s experience is fundamental to an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and intersectional approach.

It may be important for you to connect with a therapist who shares your lived experience of race, immigration, LGBTQ2SIA+ identity, or other identification. Or it may be adequately reassuring to know that you’re meeting with a therapist who is actively reflecting on their identity, social location or position, privilege, and the limits of their personal understanding in their work with clients.

What Can I Expect in Therapy from Someone with an Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive, and Intersectional Approach?

Therapists working with an informed, intersectional lens will aim to understand your personal concerns and any unique barriers linked with your identity, and will:

• Engage collaboratively with you to support your sense of wellbeing, as you navigate all identities relevant to you
• Demonstrate curiosity and compassion about the events and experiences that contribute to your individual challenges
• Collaboratively explore your intersecting identities and how they affect you in different contexts
• Understand that complex problems often have multiple, or layered, sources
• Challenge whiteness and other forms of power and privilege
• Work with an understanding of the chronic stress associated with interaction with dominant social groups
• Reflect on their own social location, identity, privilege(s), biases, and prejudices
• Maintain a commitment to self-educate
• Oppose historical biases in psychotherapeutic practice that have viewed people of colour, and queer, trans, and nonbinary people, with a deficit model