About a year ago, I started working on the idea for this newsletter. I noticed there was a lot of talk about a “new” nationwide mental health crisis, said to be caused by the pandemic. But to my mind, the root cause of this distress was not the pandemic. It was structural violence, particularly the mutually reinforcing structures of patriarchy and white supremacy. The pandemic’s scourge reflected and depended upon these pre-existing structures; its impacts might have been radically different, had we tackled not only the virus but also its operating conditions.
My plan, initially, was to profile the researchers, therapists, academics, activists, artists, and healers who are already experts in combating and understanding structural violence. I wanted to share their knowledge with clinicians who are transitioning their practices away from individual pathology and towards a framework that incorporates systemic violence as a source of trauma and distress.
Why is this so important to me? I'm a trauma therapist in private practice. I’ve worked in community mental health, and with veterans at the VA. I’ve spent over ten years supporting people from all walks to life, most of whom are being crushed by the weight of the systems they live in.
Before I was a therapist, I was an academic. I’ve taught critical theory—understanding how systems work, and how they create violence and oppression—to undergraduates, social workers, doctoral students, advocates, and educators. I’ve found teaching this kind of theory helps people understand why it’s so difficult to challenge dominant power structures, and how to develop strategies to better transform them.
Lately, I've been training therapists how to identify and address the impact of structural violence on their own lives and those of their clients. This newsletter will share these practices more widely, adding to the expertise shared by those who are profiled here.
In many ways, my plan for Therapy for Social Change is the same as it was a year ago. But interestingly, today, which is the day I marked on my calendar to write my introductory post, is the day after Supreme Court Justice Alito’s draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press.
So I'm writing to you with an acute awareness of how it feels in my body when structural violence lands on me, and what it feels like to be palpably overcome with rage, and fear, and the felt sense of my powerlessness to protect everyone I love—and everyone I can envision but don’t yet know—from this kind of violence.
So much of mainstream therapy focuses on the self, with little attention to the health of the collective. So many of the treatments said to be “evidence-based” focus on cognition, as if trauma lands only on the mind, and not the muscles, the flesh, and the soul.
I want a therapy that supports people who are claiming their power, not only as individuals, but as members of a collective, capable of undermining the larger structures that are bearing down upon almost all of us.
There's the knowing I have every day that patriarchy and white supremacy are landing on the bodies and minds of people like me and the people I work with, people who the dominant culture labels “marginalized.” When I absorb the violence, I want to cower and shrink, or leave my body and take flight in my mind. But then I remember that it’s not all on me; that when the collective takes a stand, we have the possibility for change.
I’m writing to say that working at the level of the individual, as so much of therapy does, can be dangerous. It can implicitly encourage people to believe their only power is to focus on their own pain, or their small arena of impact.
Or, worse, in its silence about structural violence and oppression, it can lead people to believe their feelings of despair, failure, terror, and self loathing are solely the consequence of their neural pathways; their poor choices; their lack of discipline and organization.
So much of mainstream therapy focuses on the self, with little attention to the health of the collective. So many of the treatments said to be “evidence-based” focus on cognition, as if trauma lands only on the mind, and not the muscles, the flesh, and the soul. I want a therapy that supports people who are claiming their power, not only as individuals, but as members of a collective, capable of undermining the larger structures that are bearing down upon almost all of us.
So: I still hope to use this newsletter to collect resources, guidance, research, and ideas for therapists and other practitioners who are interested in the relationship between structural violence and mental health. And beyond that, I dream of creating, here in this space, a community of expert and novice practitioners; of activists and advocates; of artists and visionaries; all of whom are creating a world in which the liberation of the earth, the sky, and the marginalized are one cause.
I hope the people who convene here will teach one another how they’ve learned to work at the level of the individual and the collective. I hope they’ll share the methods that have moved them—and others—out of shame and despair and into their own creative power and purpose.
I hope you’ll send this announcement to people you know. I hope you’ll write a comment, telling us how you do the work, and what you’d like to receive from this community.
I hope you’ll subscribe to this newsletter, so that I can know you’re here, and gather steam and energy, writing to you.
Introducing ….