Diversity and Anti-Oppressive Practice: 7 Commitments to Make Now
Why are some client communities still being referred to as ‘hard to reach’? This framing says much about therapy’s inadequate reckoning with structural oppression, and limited understanding of what access to therapy services – and indeed therapy trainings – really means. Myira Khan, founder of the Muslim Counselling and Psychotherapist Network and author of the forthcoming Working Within Diversity, explains why we must move beyond talk of ‘inclusion’– and shares some key pointers for anti-oppressive practice.
There are many barriers which make it hard for students to access counselling training and for clients to access therapy. There is a direct relationship between diversity, identity and increasing accessibility, as it’s often issues of diversity and identity that create barriers to accessibility.
Often when we think about the barriers around individuals, groups or communities which organisations/services want to reach, they become known as ‘hard to reach communities’. This places barriers with the individual or communities themselves, as if they are setting up the barriers and it becomes a hurdle for organisations to jump over.
It is the organisation/service that is hard to access! Organisations and services are responsible for creating spaces. Therefore they are responsible for making these spaces accessible and inclusive. It is about positioning the barriers with the organisation and their responsibility for them.
Language is important here. If we want to work within diversity and increase access, we need to know the difference between ‘inclusion’, ‘anti-discrimination’ and ‘anti-oppression’. These are concepts which set-up a different relationship between institution/service and its students/clients.
Inclusion means letting people into the space, but still gatekeeping and holding power (with no recognition of power dynamics or imbalances).
Anti-discrimination means removing difference, seeing everyone as the same, but still the same ‘inclusion’ dynamics of power are being replayed in the space. The organisation/service still holds power over people who access the space.
Anti-oppressive practice instead explicitly acknowledges structural and systemic inequalities, systems of oppression and the entire power-oppression relational dynamic. It allows us to understand and work with the relationship between individual and organisation, and the power relational dynamics that could get played out.
Without approaching our work from an anti-oppressive position, we are unintentionally offering an oppressive position, which is defined as: ‘The systematic targeting or marginalisation of one social group by another social group for the benefit of the more powerful social group. That ignores, denies and removes any acknowledgement of systemic and structural inequality both ‘out there’ and ‘in here’ between counsellor and client’ (adapted from my definition of oppressive practice in Working Within Diversity).
So what might anti-oppressive practice look like? Here are a few suggestions:
- Using anti-oppressive language such as ‘minoritised’ and not ‘minority’ or ‘BAME’, to explicitly name the relationship between the oppressor and oppressed.
- Referring to ‘cultural attunement’ and not ‘cultural competence’ – where we stand at a start line of being attuned through cultural humility, cultural empathy and cultural curiosity, and not at a finish line of ‘competence’, which denotes skills and knowledge of culture. Using cultural attunement also focuses on the relationship and acknowledges our own identity in relationship with the client or student.
- Understanding that cultural-closeness and cultural-distance between the identities of counsellor and client or tutor and student can have both advantages and disadvantages.
- Acknowledging that safe spaces are felt and not created – which is another way of saying don’t assume power. We can create spaces with the intention of safety, but we can’t make others feel safe. They can only tell us if and how they feel safe. Listen to them. What do you need to change in order for the space to feel safe?
- Working towards greater representation of diversity across therapy literature, curriculum, theory, and the staffing/team. We urgently need to address barriers stopping minoritised people entering and successfully navigating the system, gaining opportunities and promotions in our profession.
- Addressing issues related to systemic and structural frameworks of inequality in supervision, including social location, intersectional identities and lived experiences – addressing the power dynamic ‘in here’.
- Explicitly naming anti-oppressive practice, where we are committed to delivering it.