Therapy is Political: Why Queer Therapists Should Care About Palestine
You’ve probably heard the phrase “the personal is political.” These words served as a rallying cry during the civil rights movements of the 1960s, highlighting the inherent connection between a person’s individual lived experiences and the larger political and social systems that surround them.
Therapy is also political. As therapists, we’re trained to support our clients as they navigate and move through conflict, crises, and other challenges. In order to do this, we need to consider the whole picture–not just our clients’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but also the context surrounding them: How is their physical health? Are they in school or employed? What sort of financial resources do they have access to? What does their support system look like? We ask these questions because we understand the importance of acknowledging the larger context–the political, social, and cultural systems–within which our clients live. Unfortunately, many of these systems are oppressive, and as queer therapists in a state that introduced more anti-LGBTQ+ bills last year than any other, we should be familiar with what oppression looks like. And you can’t CBT, DBT, or EMDR your way out of oppression.
Oppression is violent. It’s not “hypothetically” violent, but literally, physically violent. It requires violence and the threat thereof to exist. Homophobia and transphobia are violent. White supremacy is violent. Occupation is violent. Colonialism is violent. And for the past seven months (and 75 years) we’ve witnessed this violence. More than 36,000 Palestinian civilians have been brutally killed since October. So why aren’t more of us speaking up?
In late December, Dr. Jennifer Mullan, the author of Decolonizing Therapy, and Melody Li, LMFT, the founder of Inclusive Therapists, published an open letter called “End Mental Health Field’s Complicity to Genocide.” In this letter, they speak to the violent, colonial, and white supremacist foundations of our field as well as the ongoing harm being done by both professional organizations and individual practitioners who have remained silent regarding the humanitarian crisis that is the Palestinian genocide.
From that letter: “We understand, through our training in attachment trauma, complex post-traumatic stress, and intimate partner violence, that silence in the face of abuse equates to harm and complicity. This stands in stark contrast to the principles that many practitioners, educators, psychologists, and social workers have invested in—principles of care, empathy, and unconditional positive regard to create possibility from healing collective traumas.” We cannot claim to care about trauma healing if we’re silent in the face of ongoing oppression and immense human suffering.
The most recent version of the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics (2014) lists “honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach in support of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of people within their social and cultural contexts” as one of the five core values of the counseling profession. The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies, endorsed by the ACA in 2015, stresses the importance of counselors to “develop knowledge of historical events and current issues that shape the worldview, cultural background, values, beliefs, biases, and experiences of privileged and marginalized clients.” We cannot claim to care about cultural competency if we’re silent in the face of ongoing oppression and immense human suffering.
The ACA Code of Ethics also includes “promoting social justice” as one of the five core values of counselors. We cannot claim to care about social justice if we’re silent in the face of ongoing oppression and immense human suffering.
As therapists who know the devastating impact of trauma and oppression on mental health, we have to speak up. As queer Texans still fighting for our ability to live as ourselves, we have to do something. We have an ethical and professional responsibility to stand up for Palestine.
Here’s what you can do:
Donate time, money, and/or counseling services to Palestinian-, Arab-, and Muslim- led organizations
Read, sign, and amplify the Open Letter by Dr. Mullan and Melody Li, LMFT
Let your clients know it’s safe to talk about Palestine in session
Participate in Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS)
Find community by joining support groups for Pro-Palestine mental health providers
Learn more about decolonizing therapy, collective healing, and liberation psychology
A version of this article appeared in the TX-SAIGE Spring newsletter