Should Therapists Challenge Racism?
There has been, in recent months, a great deal of focus on the Black Lives Matter movement which has given rise to considerations about our own behaviours and attitudes and created a need in us to do more for equality and diversity, but how does this apply to the therapy room?
Should we challenge racist attitudes of clients if these arise in therapy? It may seem controversial of me to say I don’t believe we generally should but, after a great deal of conflicted soul searching, this is precisely my decided outcome.
I feel the need to explain myself before I even start. This article does not support the challenging of racism in the therapy room and, as an advocate of anti-racist practice in my personal life, it makes me uncomfortable to admit this. As a therapist however, it helps me offer my clients the open space to be truly themselves, to share their beliefs and perspectives and to feel accepted without judgement and this must come first within any therapeutic relationship. This is the basis we work on as therapists. We must display unconditional positive regard for our clients, and we must find empathy for our clients if we are to build a foundation to support the client through their difficulties, whatever these may be. Our role is to see our client’s lives through their eyes without judgement, to accept all of who they are without offence, to support them to an outcome that feels right for them, not us. This may make the work extraordinarily challenging if bigoted attitudes are abundant throughout the work and of course we have the option to work with a client or not, but we must accept that if we choose not to, it’s because we have opposing views to the client and we must remind ourselves that it isn’t our role to convert them. Even if we KNOW our values to be morally right, it’s not for us to set the agenda for the work and move a client towards an outcome that feels right for us.
Firstly though, we must ask ourselves what it means to challenge the client’s beliefs. In what other context would we do this? We generally look to explore the beliefs of our clients as we feel is necessary in the client’s best interests. This need to challenge comes from a different place, it comes from a societal need, and we need to consider our motives or we’re at serious risk of damaging the client-therapist relationship.
Even if we consider the term ‘challenging’ as simply ‘exploring’, there are still a whole host of considerations to take into account. Is the racism an offhand comment (doesn’t make it okay but it isn’t a part of the work) or is it an integral part of the therapy? Is it something that causes them distress? How do we gauge when it might be appropriate to focus on the racism? Is the client aware that what they’ve said is racist? Do we share the same race as our client (this could complicate matters)? Do they want to explore it?
During ‘usual’ therapy sessions, if a client asked us what we thought about their situation, what they were thinking, feeling, or how they were behaving, we’d want to know why they wanted to know, what purpose does it serve for our client to know what we think about it? We’d bat it back. Yet when we think about racism, and anti-racism, we’re often keen to offer our views even if we haven’t been asked for them because we have a human sense of responsibility to do so, particularly when the world is shouting out that this is exactly what we need to do to support BAME communities. We feel conflicted. We will feel guilty if we don’t address it, we feel a moral obligation to raise it as the problem it truly is, we aren’t being true to ourselves and our values, we worry what it says about us if we’re failing to challenge someone’s racist attitudes. Unfortunately, the need to feel better about ourselves adds another level of pressure to a situation we already feel pressured to take action in.
We want to challenge but voicing our own opinions in opposition to the client may simply see them leave and not return. Alternatively, they may return feeling admonished and the relationship will need work to re-establish an equal footing.
I have most definitely, rightly or wrongly (definitely wrongly), gently challenged views I find difficult to hear in my sessions with clients. I’ve held my hands up to show my non-manicured, unpolished nails to a client who stated all women are high maintenance, and I have also made small non-agreeing gestures to clients making racist comments and I’ve left them hanging, low challenge, low risk, but showing my own belief in a way that helps me feel more comfortable with not challenging the client’s words, but also not offering the opportunity to the client to discuss them either. This makes for difficult territory as the client may now feel uncomfortable in knowing I feel differently to them. They may feel judged by me. These are still my own views seeping into the room, and the healthy thing to do in those moments would be to, firstly, be honest - “I have very different views on this subject,” to let them know “I’m happy to hear your views,” and to ask, “are you still comfortable discussing it?”
As much as we must strive to be non-judgemental in the therapy room, we do also need to be congruent with ourselves and our clients.
The implementation of congruence does lead me to a more optimistic section of the article as there is a real potential for discussion to occur. There is certainly the opportunity to explore racism if their dialogue makes us feel uncomfortable and particularly if our relationship is likely to suffer for this. We shouldn’t keep this from them. The work needs to be put aside in order to focus on the relationship as the client needs to understand what is happening in the communication between them and us. What this does is give us the chance to open up the conversation about beliefs. It gives us a wonderful opportunity to bring the racist beliefs to the forefront of the work because it is needed in order to ensure our relationship is open and honest and continues to be the safe space the client needs to move towards their intended outcome. It gives the client permission to bring their beliefs to the session knowing that we are trying our best to understand them from their point of view despite our differing beliefs. It allows the client to feel accepted for who they are and will help a stronger relationship to develop which in turn may give rise to a willing deviation from the work to explore where their beliefs have arisen. We will have the ability to offer them a different perspective if they want it, and from this comfortable position they may also be open to challenging their own beliefs, and perhaps come to accept that their beliefs have been founded in unhealthy social conditioning and work towards change in the same way they might work through damaging core beliefs about themselves if working on, say, low self-esteem due to messages they’ve received from others in childhood. It is working at this equal platform, where attitudes are discussed as different but not right or wrong, that the best opportunity for this change can be offered. What makes their belief true? Where’s the evidence? Is there another way to look at it? Have they always felt the same way? And so on.
What a wonderful piece of work this would be. I would personally relish this, but the client must be a willing participant to the work in order for any positive outcome to be achieved.
Long story short, nothing good can come from directly challenging racist attitudes in the therapy room apart from making ourselves feel better. The only way to explore racism in the therapy room is on an equal footing with the client’s consent.
I’d be interested to hear your views. Please feel free to leave a comment.
