Allyship Is Awkward: How Therapists Can Keep Showing Up Anyway
What if the awkwardness of ally work is not a sign you are doing it wrong, but the actual work?
Curt Widhalm, LMFT, and Katie Vernoy, LMFT explore what it looks like to do ally work as a therapist when you hold majority identities the people around you do not share. They move across three zones where this shows up: with clients in the therapy room, with colleagues and consultants in professional spaces, and in broader community and advocacy work.
Drawing on their own missteps and on the work of creators like Ashani Mfuko of Anti-Racism School Is In Session and Dr. Raquel Martin of Mind Ya Mental, Curt and Katie make a direct case to white, cis, straight, and other majority-identity therapists: cultural humility is not a credential, fragility shifts the labor onto the people around you, and the strong feelings that come with ally work belong with other allies, not with clients or colleagues of color. This is an episode about staying in the room, decentering yourself, and learning to fail better.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why ally work is inherently awkward, and why that is not a problem to be solved
How fragility, over-apologizing, and gold-star seeking shift the emotional labor onto clients and colleagues of color
What repair actually looks like when a cross-cultural rupture happens in session
Why being called out by a client can be a sign the relationship is alive enough to repair
How to process defensiveness and hurt with other allies instead of with clients or colleagues of color
Why cultural humility is not a free pass, and what therapists owe their own continuing education
How consultation with diverse colleagues protects clients from being conscripted as your teacher
Ally work is ongoing. The goal is not to stop making mistakes. The goal is to keep failing better.
Full show notes and resources: mtsgpodcast.com
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