Politics in Therapy:

There’s been a lot of conversation in my field recently about the part politics can or should play in therapy relationships with clients. So I want to address this question more directly, the question being: How political should I be as a therapist?

As political concerns become more frequent and personal, the violence in Palestine, the riots in America, and trans-gender rights being only the most salient examples, the boundary between our political lives and everything else thins and cracks. At the same time, we’re seeing an intersection forming between generations. One one side are experienced and established therapists who still have a lot of power in the field and value an apolitical approach to therapy. On the other are younger professionals who grew up in a time where being apolitical was associated with cowardice and ignorance, a time where identity politics required everyone's participation. Naturally, a lot of friction has accumulated between these two groups of people who are trying so hard to work together peacefully.

No one regulates a therapist's political approach. Organizations meant to create or refuse therapeutic qualification are not overly concerned with a therapist's political expressions, beyond what is directly harmful to a client. But that’s a bit of an open ended question as well. Arguably, certain political beliefs are harmful, even if they’re the current trend, and an avoidance of political acknowledgement can be harmful as well. And what’s harmful to one client might be crucial to another. So sometimes we need to be honest, lest clients should assume that we align ourselves with the majority when the majority is dangerous to them. And sometimes we need to be reserved, lest our own political beliefs disrupt therapeutic alliances. And always we have to ask ourselves, what counts as harm?

Therapy isn’t a comfortable process, despite our best efforts. A rewarding therapeutic experience requires challenging familiar and comfortable ways of thinking and being. Change is hard. And dismantling the self in a clinical way is often painful. As I’ve said before, we cannot save our clients from suffering, and trying to do so is going to cause us to miss important opportunities for resilience. In some ways, the therapist’s job is to facilitate painful change, so who’s to say that change should never have an impact on a person’s relationship with politics?

Furthermore, I believe it is arguable that what we consider ‘mental health’ or ‘healthy relationships’ have political implications, too. Maintaining a state of mental health, in my opinion, requires skills like self-reflection, critical thinking, and flexible perspectives. These are words we associate with more progressive-leaning politics. It is a field rather saturated with liberals and new democrats because these are the people who, stereotypically, tend to gravitate towards mental health services and mental health care. Research shows that people who feel opposed to these political stances find the field less accessible and less welcoming to them. Are there real reasons for this experience? Probably. Despite how hard we work to hide it, therapists are often passionately political people, it’s a part of what drives us. The question of how we bridge such a gap is not one I have an answer to yet. But I’m suspicious it requires moving away from our polarized culture and acknowledging that therapy requires sacrifices on all sides. And remember, no therapist is obligated to make themselves accessible to everyone, that’s not a realistic standard. So, making therapy accessible is about encouraging as much variety as possible within the profession. And I believe the most effective way to variety is open encouragement for diverse authenticity.

As I piece together all these different factors and perspectives, the picture it creates is not a simple one. On one hand, if therapy is inherently political, then it doesn’t make sense to restrict the therapist's political expressions. It also doesn’t make sense for me to always be overly honest with client’s about my political views. Each client has different needs, and will therefore be potentially hurt by different approaches. So the really unsatisfying answer I’ve come to is that my political expression needs to be able to change from client to client, while still remaining authentic to myself. If that doesn’t sound like an easy task, it’s because it’s not.

And so acceptance needs to be employed as well. I will make mistakes. I will misstep. I can’t be everything all the time. And I will need to have faith that I’ve done my job well enough that a client can respond with the same grace that I model for them. I know us therapists worry near-constantly about somehow scaring client’s away. But, I have very little control over a client’s actions both in and out of the therapy room. And they don’t have control over mine. Either we match, or we look elsewhere. And I, at least, have decided that as important as my job is to me, it is not more important than my values. And that stance serves me in my work much more than it restricts me. 

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is I don’t think we can afford to default on our politics anymore. Whatever choice we make about our political expression, it needs to be intentional. And that means engaging with our politics, owning them, at least to the extent that allows us to make authentic and informed choices. And that means seeking out the information we need ourselves, not standing by and waiting for it to come around. And remember, everythings is a balance. Clients have a right to politically safe therapy. And therapists have a right to political expression. Finding how those two puzzle pieces fit together is going to be different for everyone. It’s going to take time, trial and error, and some rather creative solutions. And at this time some of those solutions are going to feel unconventional. But I believe now is the time for doing away with a bit of convention.