This workshop for clinicians will explore the harmful origins and history of the mental health field, and offer a perspective on the detrimental impact this has had on past and current therapy practices. We will discuss how the mental health profession has upheld white supremacy, patriarchy, and other oppressive practices, while exploring ways to mitigate systemic harms and incorporate decolonial and antiracist practices into the therapy process.

Attendees will be called upon to reflect on their own implicit biases and prejudices, as an intentional movement toward approaching mental health from a decolonial perspective. We will explore this movement together as a series of choices toward equity and justice at individual, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels.

Liberation psychology and community psychology perspectives will be explored as a means of moving outside of traditionally taught therapeutic methods, and addressing harms caused by systemic oppressions.

Following this workshop, participants will have an increased understanding of:

• Colonial and hegemonic origins of the mental health field
• Ways in which systemic oppression and white supremacist ideologies have been upheld within the mental health field
• Implicit biases and their impact on client-therapist relationships
• Ways in which liberation psychology and community psychology perspectives can present a means of extending culturally affirming and humble care within therapy