Decolonizing Clinical Practice through Testimony and Witness

The notion of decolonizing clinical practice is distinctively relevant for psychotherapists and counselors who seek to discover how to meet themselves and meet with their patients in genuine collaboration and community. The ongoing formation of community through overcoming the disease of loneliness and isolation (van den Berg, 1972) involves the endlessly unfolding phenomenological practice of exploring who we are and where we come from. Therapists come to meet their patients through an increasing relational capacity to bear witness to healing testimony. Necessarily, this witness must involve the exploration of how systems of power and domination have impacted both our individual developmental ontologies as well as our collective epistemologies and knowledge frameworks.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this training you can expect:

· To have a working definition of the terms decolonization, social positionality, and intersectionality

· To develop a reflective phenomenological perspective on your own social position as a therapist

· To begin to develop an understanding of the paradoxical dynamics of power and vulnerability in the healing relationship

· To begin to develop a foundation for future reflection and ongoing discussion in community

Host or Publisher Psychotherapy Cooperative