Reader,

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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.

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Thanks for being here,

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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.

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Let's connect!