Decolonising Therapy

Decolonising therapy

challenges Eurocentric frameworks, addressing systemic inequalities like racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. It validates diverse lived experiences and provides culturally sensitive, affirming care.

For communities, this means:

• BIPOC individuals receive care that acknowledges racial trauma.
• LGBTQIA+ people access affirming, bias-free spaces.
• Forced migrants find support for navigating systemic barriers.
• Sex workers are respected, not stigmatised.

By fostering equity and inclusion, decolonising therapy creates healing spaces that empower individuals and strengthen communities. It’s essential for a more just and compassionate society.

Decolonising Psychotherapy: Embracing Collective Healing

Decolonising psychotherapy means moving beyond Eurocentric, individual-focused models to include diverse cultural practices like collective healing. Many BIPOC communities process trauma through shared experiences and mutual support, which resonate deeply with their lived realities.

In responses to tragedies and situations like the Grenfell Tower fire, terrorist attacks or COVID-19, statutory services have highly depended and focused on individual support—but there’s also a need forcollective healing especially when the traumas themselves were collective. Evidence-based approaches, such astrauma-informed group workandcommunity storytelling circles, narrative approaches, recognise individuals as part of a collective, fostering resilience through shared grief and meaning-making.

I'm not saying remove 1:1, I'm saying let's think past 1:1, Eurocentrism and NICE guidelines which do not always serve BIPOC interests.

By integrating these culturally sensitive practices, we can ensure mental health responses honour both individual and communal healing. Isn't it about time to rethink how we approach care in diverse communities?

Saquib Ahmad 16/12/24

#decolonisation #decolonisingtherapy #mentalhealth #fightingfear #queerbipoc #bipoc #therapy #culturallysensitivetherapy

Decolonising Psychotherapy: Honouring Diverse and Consensual Relationships

Therapy often reinforces heteronormative and mononormative ideals, positioning heterosexual, monogamous relationships as the default or superior model. This perspective marginalises individuals in consensual non-monogamous relationships, such as open or polyamorous partnerships, as well as communities like the LGBTQIA+ community and some religous communities.

These biases can pathologise diverse relationship structures, mislabeling them as “trauma responses” and "fear of commitment" or minimising their importance. Decolonising psychotherapy means moving beyond these limiting frameworks to empower individuals through consent, communication, and affirmation.

This isn’t to deny compulsive sexual or romantic acts aimed to seek external validation or even the existence of coercive control, which can sometimes be present in non-monogamous relationships or structures (NB; coercion can also occur in monogamous relationships). However, it is critical to distinguish dynamics like these from healthy and consensual relational choices that reflect personal autonomy and mutual respect.

Consensual relationships—whether monogamous, non-monogamous, or otherwise—are valid expressions of love and connection. Therapists must adopt inclusive, culturally sensitive practices that affirm the diversity of relational choices and ensure every client feels valued and supported.

Wouldn't it make more sense to honour consent and thus consensual open relationships or any other consensual relationship structure rather than cling to coercive monogamy? Or will we let our moral beliefs hold our clients back?

Saquib Ahmad 18/12/24

#decolonisation #decolonisingtherapy #mentalhealth #fightingfear #queer #lgbtqia #monogamy #heteronormativity #openrelationship #polyamory

Decolonising Psychotherapy: Affirming and Supporting Sex Workers

Stigma often leads therapists to view sex work as inherently harmful, framing it as the source of a client’s distress rather than examining the systemic and societal issues at play. Decolonising psychotherapy involves affirming sex workers’ agency and dismantling biases, recognising that their challenges are often rooted in the environments and systems they navigate, not the work itself.

Sex work can indeed be traumatic, but this is often linked to how problematic their clients behave—driven by shame, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or other oppressive attitudes—or due to discrimination from legal and criminal justice systems shaped by systemic versions of the same discriminatory issues. By understanding these broader dynamics, therapists can focus on supporting sex workers in addressing the real sources of their distress.

Decolonised approaches require therapists to educate themselves on the socio-economic contexts of sex work, affirm the validity of consensual choices, and advocate for systemic change in sex work as well as the broader society.

Isn’t it time we move away from seeing sex workers as “broken” and instead recognise that it’s oppressive systems—not their work—that create or exacerbate their struggles? Shouldn’t therapy be a space where sex workers feel respected, validated, and empowered to navigate their realities—and not our prejudices in the room?

Saquib Ahmad 20/12/24

#decolonisation #decolonisingtherapy #mentalhealth #fightingfear #sexwork #sexworkiswork #stopstigmaagainstsexwork

Decolonising Psychotherapy: Forced Migrants Deserve Better

Assuming that forced migrants are now safe in the West is a harmful myth. While it may be relatively safer than the conditions they fled, forced migrants continue to face significant threats. Racism, xenophobia, and anti-migrant sentiments are pervasive, as highlighted by the racist and Islamophobic riots across the UK in the summer of 2024, culminating in the tragic arson attack on a hotel housing migrants. These acts are not isolated incidents but part of a wider systemic issue of racism, Islamophobia, and the war on migration in the UK—and the West more broadly.

For queer forced migrants, these challenges are compounded by homophobia and transphobia, present both within migrant communities and the wider public. In many cases, they are forced to navigate layers of discrimination and violence, including within housing centres shared with queerphobic individuals. Their reality involves a constant balancing act of managing systemic barriers, personal safety, and emotional exhaustion.

Decolonising psychotherapy means addressing these realities head-on by adapting therapy models, policies, and procedures to meet the unique needs of forced migrants, including queer forced migrants. This includes:

• Flexible Engagement: Recognising the unpredictability of their lives, allowing leniency for missed appointments, lateness, or cancellations without penalisation.
• Trauma-Informed Care: Acknowledging the intersection of systemic oppression, ongoing threats, and displacement trauma. For example, narrative therapy can help forced migrants reclaim their stories of resilience.
• Specific Support for Queer Forced Migrants: Creating safe and affirming spaces that address the dual challenges of migration and LGBTQIA+ identity, such as group therapy tailored to their experiences of isolation and discrimination.
• Adaptable Interventions: Avoiding rigid tools like diaries or logs that are impractical in settings with limited privacy or resources. Alternatives like brief-session therapies or EMDR can be more effective.
• Policy Revisions: Overhauling strict rules that set these communities up to fail, focusing instead on accessibility, compassion, and understanding.

Decolonising psychotherapy isn’t just about individual care—it’s about accepting and validating experiences, not checking for "thinking errors." Their pathology isn’t caused by them but by the systems they exist in. It is also about challenging the systemic issues that forced migrants face and mitigating them wherever possible, ensuring mental health services adapt to their realities. Let’s create therapeutic spaces that validate their struggles, empower their resilience, and genuinely support their healing.

Saquib Ahmad 08/01/25

#decolonisation #decolonisingtherapy #mentalhealth #fightingfear #forcedmigrants #refugees #asylumseekers #queerforcedmigrants #queermigrants