I help therapists, healers, and space-holders bring decolonial and liberatory values into their work—so you’re not just saying you’re aligned… you’re actually practicing it. ⬆️ More integrity, more connection, more liberation. ⬇️ Less burnout, less performative wokeness, less colonial residue. If you want a practice where marginalized clients feel safe, seen, and honored—and you want to feel more grounded and intentional in your work—subscribe and join a growing community of practitioners doing this work differently. You practice can be liberatory-- let's get you there!
Neutrality as a therapist?
Reader,
Q:
"It’s so easy to fall in the space of dehumanizing myself as a therapist… Neutrality as a therapist feels impossible. It seems like it’s people with most privileged identities who can be neutral?"
A:
First of all, my answer to this question is informed by my identities, both the privileged ones, but most importantly, the marginalized/minoritized ones.
I cannot be neutral as a therapist. I have my own opinions, biases, and judgments. But if my opinions are unhealthy (any internalized -isms or phobias I am still unlearning OR any traumas that make me react impulsively instead of responding thoughtfully), then my opinions have no place in the therapy room.
If my opinions (thoughts, experiences, biases) on the other hand are based on how my experiences of oppression help me empathize with other people’s experiences of oppression, then I will make them known.
So, yes, neutrality as a therapist can feel impossible. At least it feels impossible to me.
Is it therapists with privileged identities who can be neutral? I guess so. I am not one of them entirely, so I don’t know if I can speak from lived experience.
What I can say, as someone who has experienced neutrality when I have been the one being oppressed, is that neutrality usually came from someone who:
- had privileged identities,
- had not experienced hardship,
- was not willing to empathize,
- did not feel their own experience with being oppressed was validated and therefore was not willing to validate my experience of being oppressed, and/or
- deep inside was scared of someone like me (with different identities than them)… and the list goes on.
Being neutral is easy; being not neutral takes work.
Thanks for being here,
Silvana @ Decolonize Your Practice
PS.
Please be gentle with yourself. There is much collective grief. Make sure that you are tending to yourself so that you can continue tending to others.
Let's connect!
Liberatory Letters
I help therapists, healers, and space-holders bring decolonial and liberatory values into their work—so you’re not just saying you’re aligned… you’re actually practicing it. ⬆️ More integrity, more connection, more liberation. ⬇️ Less burnout, less performative wokeness, less colonial residue. If you want a practice where marginalized clients feel safe, seen, and honored—and you want to feel more grounded and intentional in your work—subscribe and join a growing community of practitioners doing this work differently. You practice can be liberatory-- let's get you there!
Reader, A quick update on what I've been up to: 🖥️ Start Here, 90-minute live workshop on finding grounded, sustainable ways to decolonize your practice. I'll walk you through my 4-step framework to help you identify where your work feels misaligned, where change is possible, and what often gets in the way.Learn more below or sign up here. Many of us understand the value of affinity spaces. We know how powerful it can be to gather with people who share aspects of our lived experience, where...
June 2026 | issue #8 Reader, i was lucky enough to travel extensively within my country during my formative years. every year, for as long as i can remember, i travelled during the summer with my parents. always to the interior, as a contrast to my upbringing in an urban, traffic-heavy city of eight million people. as i got older, my dad began bringing me along on some of his work trips. he is an engineer who specializes in renewable energy and weatherization projects for poor, rural, and...
Reader, A quick update on what I've been up to: 💻 Decolonizing Mental Health Therapy, a 3-hour CE workshop in collaboration with Therapist To Therapists. We'll examine colonialism in mental health, the importance of identities and code-switching, and discuss ways of decolonizing mental health practice. Learn more below or here. 🖥️ Start Here, 90-minute live workshop on Decolonizing Your Practice. I'll walk you through my 4-step framework to start Decolonizing your mental health practice—...