Therapy as a Political Act

Therapy as a Political Act

An interview with Dr. Travis Heath, PhD, regarding the myth that therapists can remain neutral and be considered not “political”. Curt and Katie talk with Travis about how he perceives effective therapy and how to interrogate the ways in which people interact within the systems where they live and work (and what they consider to be absolute truths). We also look at decolonizing therapy and honoring preferred, culturally relevant methods of healing. Finally, we look at being a therapist (and especially a BIPOC therapist) during this time – the ways we can support each other and the opportunities we have to impact real change with our clients.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

Interview with Dr. Travis Heath, PhD

Travis Heath is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He has worked in Los Angeles, California and is currently a licensed psychologist practicing in Denver, Colorado. The work he has been focused on includes shifting from a multicultural approach to counseling to one of cultural democracy that invites people to heal in mediums that are culturally near. Writing he has contributed to has focused on the use of rap music in narrative therapy, working with persons entangled in the criminal justice system in ways that maintain their dignity, narrative practice stories as pedagogy, a co-created questioning practice called reunion questions, and community healing strategies. He is currently co-authoring the first book on Contemporary Narrative Therapy with David Epston. His practice has been apprenticed by David Epston, substantially influenced by the work of Makungu Akinyela, and inspired by collaborators such as marcela polanco, Tom Carlson, Sasha Pilkington, and Kay Ingamells. He has been fortunate enough to run workshops and speak about his work in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, and United States.

In this episode we talk about:

• Travis’s personal history and its relevance to the current conversation
• Therapy as a political act
• How neutrality fits into the idea of politics-free therapy – “Neutrality is a political position”
• Narrative therapy’s role in anti-racism
• Interrogating systems at play in clients’ decision-making
• Challenging assumptions and “absolute truths”
• How therapists are impacted by the stories and perspectives of their clients
• How to manage clients who have held positions that are threatening to you as an individual
• The systems perspective on how people behave and how systems shape their beliefs
• The place for antiracism work within therapy
• “We don’t need more social justice theories; we’ve got many of those. We need more social justice practices”
• A framework to carry social justice in therapy beyond the current news cycle
• The problem with multicultural counseling
• Decolonizing therapy – looking at how to restore culturally relevant methods of healing
• The problem with CBT for non-Eurocentric clients
• Preferred mediums of healing and cultural democracy
• The mediocracy of typical therapy prescriptions
• Elevating the knowledge of the other
• Expertise in asking the right questions and elevating the expertise of the other
• Co-creation of tools and strategies
• The liberating effect of asking your client for their inherent knowledge
• Where to use your role as expert