Reader,

Here’s the truth:

there is no such thing as decolonial therapy.

Therapy, as we know it, is inherently colonial. It was built inside systems designed to pathologize, regulate, and discipline. Systems that have been invested in “fixing” us rather than liberating us.

But there is decolonial healing.

And that’s what we’ve been doing for generations. Long before therapy. Long before licensure. Long before CEUs. Long before Western psychology even existed.

Decolonial healing is ancestral. It is collective. It is relational. It is the knowledge that survived despite erasure.

This is your wake-up call.

I am not invalidating the good you do as a therapist.

I am not dismissing the ways you care for your clients.

But I am saying this: when we pretend therapy itself is decolonial, we risk causing inadvertent harm. Because we keep funneling people back into a structure that was never designed for our liberation.

It’s not your fault you’ve been practicing this way.

The real culprit is a system that convinced us that healing only counts when it is billable, credentialed, licensed, or certified.

But we can do this differently.

We can honor therapy as a tool, not a savior. We can name its limits. We can hold space for what our licenses allow while not confusing that with what liberation requires.

And we can root our practice in something bigger than therapy—something older, wiser, more connected to our communities and ancestors.

Because therapy will never be the revolution.

But you can be part of the lineage of healing that moves us toward it.

🌱 Reflection Prompts

1. Where have I confused therapy with liberation?
2. In what ways do I unintentionally uphold colonial systems when I call therapy “decolonial”?
3. How might I begin to name the limits of therapy with clients—while still honoring their care?
4. What practices, stories, or lineages of healing feel older and deeper than therapy in my own life?

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

Here's to healing beyond therapy,

In solidarity,

Silvana @ Decolonize Your Practice​

PS. Last call for 1:1 Decolonial Consultations at the current rate ($220-- price goes up in the fall).
⭐️ Do the work your clients actually need — without reproducing colonial scripts.​
💛 Hold space for systemic grief — without gaslighting yourself into “resilience.”
​This is where we dismantle the old rules and root into liberatory practice.
👉🏽 Book your spot here.

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

PPPS. And forward this email to a peer as well!

PPPPS. You can read previous Liberatory Letters here.

​​​​

⬆️ Let's connect!