06/19/2026
Juneteenth.
As a white therapist I want to name that I'm not a neutral observer here and careful that this post doesn't center my own reflection over the day itself.
The mental health field has a history of causing measurable harm to Black communities. Pathologizing adaptive responses to racism. Diagnosing Black children with conduct disorders at higher rates and mood disorders at lower rates than their white peers. A workforce that remains overwhelmingly white while claiming to serve everyone. Frameworks built on whiteness and called universal.
Affirming practice and complicity in that system are not mutually exclusive. I hold both.
Antioppressive practice on Juneteenth means examining who benefits from the "traditional" frameworks we use, who wrote them, and who they were designed to help. It means whether the language we use in documentation tells the right story about what our clients are actually navigating.
What's one thing you've changed in your clinical practice as you've started decolonizing your therapy?
