Reader,

1. Is it considered ethical by ACA (american counseling association if you're not in the u.s.) standards to offer sliding scale to a marginalized population to reduce barriers to care?
2. Is it ethical to broach identities with my clients during the first session, intake, or meeting?
3. Is it ethical to attend a protest, meeting, gathering, or affinity space where my client may be present?
4. Is it okay to bring up politics in the therapy or healing room?
5. Is it ethical to refuse to diagnose when a diagnosis feels like harm?
6. Is it ethical to practice in ways that are culturally rooted but not fully sanctioned by Western governing bodies?

I get these questions in supervision. I get these questions in consultation. I get these questions in non-formal clinical settings when talking shop with therapist friends.

But whenever I’m asked these questions… and I’ve been doing this long enough that they come back again and again (so you are not alone in your doubts)…

Whenever I’m asked these questions, I like to zoom out. I like to step back and answer with another question… how therapist of me.

Ethical according to whom?

Ethical according to ACA, APA, or whichever governing body you’re required to follow? Ethical according to your board? Ethical according to current law (and I have many thoughts about what is currently considered legal and illegal)? Ethical according to the rules and expectations your degree, title, and/or profession demand?

And who created those laws, rules, and expectations?
Who did they center?
Who did they leave out?

What knowledge and lived experience were they based on?
What knowledge and lived experience were ignored, dismissed, or appropriated and repackaged as “evidence-based”?

Who did not get a seat at the table of rules and regulations where ethics codes were written?

Because here is what I know (from academia and from lived experience): ethics are not neutral. They are shaped by power. They are shaped by history. They are shaped by who had institutional authority and who did not.

So when you ask, “Is this ethical?” I wonder…

Are you asking if it is aligned with your values?
Or are you asking if it will protect you from punishment?

Sometimes those two overlap. Sometimes they don’t.

And that tension is real.

I am not advocating recklessness. I am not dismissing risk. Licensure is real. Boards are real. Consequences are real.

But so is harm done in the name of neutrality.
So is silence in the name of professionalism.
So is compliance dressed up as ethics.

If you have burning questions like the ones above, or you simply want more community in navigating them, I am reopening my AMA: Community Liberation Sessions (formerly Decolonized Consultation Sessions).

These sessions are not therapy or supervision. They are facilitated, collective gatherings for therapists, healers and space-holders interrupting colonial patterns in their work — practicing in real time and bringing their questions, tensions, and lived realities into shared reflection.

We will examine power. We will examine fear. We will examine where we’ve internalized rules that may not have been designed with us in mind.

​Get in the waitlist here​

​Submit your questions ahead of time here​

Formal announcement coming next week!

Reflection Questions - is this ethical?

• When I ask “Is this ethical?” what am I really afraid of?
• Who benefits from my silence?
• Where have I confused professionalism with neutrality?
• What would my practice look like if it were shaped by liberation rather than fear?
• What risks feel aligned with my integrity, and which risks feel performative?

Hit reply and let me know what came up for you. I read every response.

With liberatory care,

Silvana

​​Liberatory Letters | The Practice of Liberation | Decolonize Your Practice​

PS. Hang in there. I know you're doing your best... even if it doesn;#x27;t feel that way at times.

PPS. Sign up for the waitlist for Community Liberation Sessions here​

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⬆️ Let's connect!