Healing through Trauma-Informed and Liberatory Relationships

Reader,

This is the fourth of five letters on building healing connections grounded in awareness of power and oppression (healing connections with clients and in your community). Read on!

I know you want to hold space in a way that is truly trauma-informed and liberatory.

One where healing doesn’t require clients to leave parts of themselves behind.
One that recognizes that healing is a process of reclaiming, resisting, and reimagining.
One where we you hold space for the truth of your client's lived experiences.

I know you believe in creating connections that empower, restore agency, and challenge the systems that harm us...

(and you do this by being intentional in how you show up in your relationships)

But the systems we work within weren’t built to uphold your vision. The frameworks we were trained in—rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism—treat trauma like a set of symptoms to manage, rather than a result of living under oppressive systems.

These systems pressure us to focus on neutrality, professionalism, and efficiency at the expense of authenticity, connection, and liberation.

The problem isn’t you as a clinician or your clients—it’s the structures that shape the way we’re taught to practice and think about healing like:

reducing healing to a checklist of interventions or measurable outcomes.
teaching us to see trauma as something personal and disconnected from larger social realities.
encouraging us to focus on individual healing while ignoring the systems that perpetuate harm.

But we can do it differently through Liberatory Relationships by: