Decolonizing Therapy: Healing Beyond Borders, Bias, and Oppression

"I sat in the therapist’s office, struggling to explain why a simple interaction at work had left me feeling so raw. The therapist listened politely, nodded, and gently redirected me back to ‘how I could manage my feelings better.’ I left feeling more isolated than before; like the weight of what I carried wasn't just invisible, but inconvenient. I wasn’t just looking for coping skills; I was looking for someone who understood why the pain was there in the first place."

For many, this experience is all too familiar. Traditional therapy often emphasizes symptom management without fully addressing the broader systems that wound us. Healing, in these spaces, can feel like a personal project rather than a collective, lived journey.

This is where decolonizing therapy steps in.Not as a trend, but as a movement—an intentional shift away from frameworks that center Eurocentric, colonial narratives toward those that honor the rich, complex ways individuals and communities experience pain, resilience, and healing.

What Is Decolonizing Therapy?

“Decolonizing therapy” is showing up everywhere these days, but what does it actually mean? At ReiDefine Wellness, we believe it’s more than a buzzword. It’s a practice rooted in respect, truth, and real healing.

Decolonizing therapy means:

• Centering your whole story: including your culture, identity, family, and lived experience.

• Recognizing how colonization, oppression, racism, sexism, ageism (all isms) have shaped not just communities, but our mental health and ideas about “wellness.”

• Challenging the one-size-fits-all model from traditional (often western, white-centered) psychology, and making space for different ways of knowing and healing.

• Honoring community knowledge, ancestral practices, and wisdom, whether that’s storytelling, art, group connection, or spiritual traditions.

• Making therapy safer, more accessible, and more empowering for people who’ve been ignored, harmed, or misunderstood in the mental health system.

In summary, decolonizing therapy challenges the assumption that mental health struggles are isolated, internal problems. Instead, it recognizes that racism, sexism, ableism, displacement, generational trauma, and systemic inequities aren't just backdrops to our lives, they actively shape our mental health.

It rejects the "one-size-fits-all" models that have historically pathologized diverse ways of being. Instead, it reclaims narratives, honors ancestral wisdom, and insists that healing must go beyond survival, it must be about thriving.

Decolonizing therapy reminds us:You are not broken. The systems that harm you are.

Myths about Decolonizing Therapy—Busted

• “It’s just for Black, Indigenous, or racialized people.”

  
  

  Nope. While it starts with recognizing how racism and colonization hurt marginalized folks the most, decolonizing therapy helps EVERYONE by challenging narrow definitions and making care more honest and welcoming.

• “It rejects science and proven methods.”

  
  

  False. Decolonizing therapy still uses evidence-based tools like CBT, EMDR, etc., but always checks: “Whose evidence is this? Does it fit this person’s real life?” It’s about adding -not taking away- options for healing.

• “It means hating on white culture or people.”

  
  

  Not at all. It’s about addressing harmful systems and histories, not targeting individuals. Decolonizing therapy creates space for ALL backgrounds to be valued and for honest dialogue about privilege, power, and history.

• “It’s just political.”

  
  

  Mental health is always shaped by society. Decolonizing therapy admits this fact, so healing is real, not just surface-level. Our goal? True liberation from old stories that keep us stuck.

Decolonizing therapy recognizes that colonial systems harm globally- through patriarchy, ableism, religious oppression, capitalism, and more.

Healing in this context isn't limited to a single identity. It's about creating spaces where every story, every cultural practice, every form of resistance is valid.

Who Benefits From Decolonizing Therapy?

While often associated with Black and Indigenous healing, decolonizing therapy serves anyone who has been harmed by oppressive systems, including:

• People of color navigating racial trauma

• Survivors of gender-based violence

• Immigrants and refugees grieving cultural loss

• Workers facing inequity and workplace discrimination

• Individuals carrying intergenerational wounds from colonization, war, displacement, or systemic exclusion

• LGBTQ2S+ individuals seeking affirming, non-pathologizing care

If you have ever felt unseen, unheard, or misunderstood within systems meant to support you—decolonizing therapy is for you.

What Does Decolonizing Therapy Look Like?

Decolonizing therapy is more than what happens inside a session. It's about how therapy is structured, delivered, and experienced:

• Honoring Cultural Practices: Healing may centres around human connections in authentic ways that align to the client. These may include: storytelling, drumming, meditation, movement, ritual, not just talk therapy.

• Rejecting Deficit Thinking: Responses to trauma are honored as survival strategies, not pathologies.

• Centering Lived Experience: Clients’ languages, traditions, and values are respected, not judged.

• Healing Across Generations: Therapy supports both individual healing and repairing ancestral wounds.

• Prioritizing Accessibility: Healing shouldn't be a privilege; it should be a right. Sliding scales, community healing circles, and culturally relevant approaches are key.

Healing Specific Harms:

Decolonizing therapy directly addresses the unique pain caused by oppressive systems, including:

• Workplace Discrimination: Validating the pain of microaggressions, advocating for boundaries, and rebuilding self-worth.

• Gender-Based Violence: Offering trauma-informed, culturally grounded paths to recovery.

• Immigration Trauma: Honoring grief, identity loss, and rebuilding belonging.

• Stereotype and Bias Recovery: Helping clients reclaim their narratives from harmful societal myths.

• Systemic Oppression: Healing the aftershocks of institutional violence, whether in schools, workplaces, or healthcare.

Why Choose Decolonizing Therapy?

• Cultural Relevance: Healing approaches that see you, not erase you.

• Empowerment and Self-Determination: Therapy that centers your voice, not just your symptoms.

• Healing Historical Trauma: Acknowledging not just what happened to you, but what happened to your ancestors.

• Social Justice Advocacy: Recognizing that true healing is intertwined with fighting for equity and liberation.

• Action and Liberation: Moving beyond personal survival into collective thriving.

A Call to Action: Healing as Revolution

Healing is not assimilation.Healing is not minimizing your pain to fit into dominant narratives.Healing is revolutionary.

Decolonizing therapy asks:

• What would it mean to heal not just for yourself, but for the generations before and after you?

• What if therapy wasn’t about adapting to a broken world, but imagining a new one?

At ReiDefine Wellness, we believe healing should honor the fullness of your story.Our approach is rooted in trauma healing, cultural humility, and the unwavering belief that your path to wellness should be as complex, beautiful, and courageous as you are.

If you're ready to move beyond coping- and into reclaiming- know that you're not alone.Healing is not a destination. It's a revolution.We’re honored to walk with you.