Abstract
Mainstream psychotherapy was not developed to address the harmful effects of systemic oppression. In addition to being largely rooted in Eurocentric values and knowledge systems, mainstream psychotherapy risks maintaining an unjust status quo rather than resisting and challenging sociopolitical oppression. Consequently, there is an urgent need for feminist intersectional models of healing that address sociopolitical power. We describe a liberation psychotherapy model that was developed to reconcile intersectional forms of power and foster conscientização, critical consciousness. This liberation psychotherapy model is theoretically grounded in liberation and critical-community psychologies and empirically derived out of qualitative data that explored expert therapists’ responsible navigation of intersectional power dynamics in feminist-multicultural and humanistic-existential psychotherapies. Liberation psychotherapists aim to empower clients’ exploration of their lived experiences through decolonial testimonio that supports liberatory transformation and social justice action. We illustrate examples of how a feminist liberation psychotherapy can be applied toward anti-racism and anti-oppression in clinical practice.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call