Reader,

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One of the most liberatory things we can do as therapists and healers is model healthy vulnerability and transparency—especially when it comes to the limits of Western therapy.

Because the truth is:

Therapy cannot undo colonization.

It cannot stop white supremacy, anti-Blackness, transphobia, imperialism, or genocide.

And pretending that it can only upholds the very systems that are wounding us.

We know this, even if our field is uncomfortable naming it.

Clients come in with real pain rooted in systemic trauma, and we’re handed a treatment plan, a diagnosis code, and a 50-minute hour.

It’s not that therapy isn’t meaningful, it’s just that it’s not complete.

And when we pretend that it is, we inadvertently gaslight the people we’re supposed to support.

Being decolonial in our work means naming this.

It means saying out loud: there are limits to what we can do in this space.

It means modeling to clients that it’s not their fault they’re still struggling after years of sessions... especially if the world is on fire.

It’s not that they’re “resistant.”

It’s that therapy cannot solve oppression.

And still... we can do something.

We can model presence.

We can witness, deeply.

We can hold both pain and power in the same breath.

We can point to movements, lineages, and other forms of support that are collective and embodied and liberatory.

We can shift from the individualism that dominates our field to something more relational, more ancestral, more just.

We can be honest. And that honesty can be healing.

When we name the limits of therapy, we don’t diminish its value; we expand the possibilities for healing outside of it.

This is decolonial care.

This is liberatory practice.

This is how we show up with integrity.

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🪞 Reflection Prompts for Journaling

1. Where have I felt the limits of what therapy can hold? How did I respond—inwardly and outwardly?
2. What narratives about “being the helper” am I still unlearning?
3. When I’m honest with clients about the limits of therapy, what do I fear might happen? What actually happens?
4. How do I balance professional responsibility with shared humanity in my sessions?
5. Who or what helps me remember that healing is collective—and not mine to carry alone?

🔥 Hit reply and share your reflections with me, I want to know what's happening in your world!

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Here's to more honesty decolonial healing spaces,

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In community,

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Silvana @ Decolonize Your Practice​

PS. You can read previous Liberatory Letters here.

PPS. Sign up for a 1:1 Decolonial Consultation here before the price goes up in July. Therapists and healers have been using this meeting to process how their decolonial work is pivoting to ground and remain grounded during during these extra uncertain times.

PPPS. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you can subscribe here.

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⬆️ Let's connect!