The Role of Social Justice in the Therapy Space

Every now and then, I’ll say in session or in a group text that I hate this timeline. Whether it’s a

new climate disaster, another revelation about the depravity of the men making global decisions,

a video of someone being murdered, or yet another catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, it can

feel overwhelming and hopeless.

And as someone who exists within multiple layers of privilege- being white, growing up middle

class, having access to private schools and higher education- I’m also aware that much of what

feels “new” to me is simply increased awareness. These injustices have always been happening.

Many people have already known, witnessed, and spoken about them, only to have their

concerns dismissed or weaponized against them.

In session, a clear question often emerges:

How do I improve my life when the economy feels rigged?

How do I create safety in a fundamentally unsafe world?

What am I supposed to do when the institutions I was promised would protect me no longer

function the way I believed they would?

This is where therapy has shifted for me.

I was trained to consider biopsychosocial factors (what you inherit, the environment you’re in,

what’s happening internally, and what’s happening relationally). But increasingly, I recognize

how profoundly systemic forces shape individual choices. My work now includes helping

clients discern what belongs to them personally, what is systemic, and how to engage

meaningfully within systems that may be designed to harm them.

One truth I hold deeply at this point is this: everything, and I do mean everything, is political.

Who gets safety and who doesn’t.

Whose needs are considered essential.

Who can violate the law without consequence.

Who is treated as expendable.

We cannot separate individual decision-making from the political context in which we live.

Social justice requires that we identify systems of oppression, cultivate practices of resistance,

and strengthen agency at the individual and community levels to have a global impact.

Because of this, I’ve stepped away from therapy that focuses on individual change in a vacuum.

Instead, I focus on individual agency and responsibility while also making sure there is clear

context to acknowledge the world we are actually living in.

You may notice that while this blog is titled around social justice and therapy, I’ve mostly

discussed systems. That’s intentional.

To me, social justice is systemic. It lives in our understanding of systems and in our willingness

to modify them, dismantle harmful ones, and build new ones. Individual therapy becomes the

space where people increase their capacity to participate in that work.

In my practice, therapy is about expanding individual capacity to contribute to justice beginning

with the self, moving into close community, then broader community, and ultimately the global

village.

Because we belong to one another, and each person’s movement toward wellness contributes

to collective wellness, together we get to decide what kind of world we are building next.