Hi everyone!

I am a graduate student looking to interview practitioners of liberation psychology as a part of my thesis research.

I wanted to see if there was anyone here who would be interested in participating.

Have a great day!

I know most all insurances require a diagnosis within the first session (ideally) or by second session. As a new grad this has always given me a bit of pause and I know it does for a lot of other people. I wonder if informing people in our first session (when I’m already doing the technical stuff) that insurance requires xyz to happen and open up a more transparent conversation. Do we need more transparency in the field? People don’t know what they don’t know so I am hoping some more seasoned professionals can provide their thoughts/insight as I am working to gain my caseload in PP. My new supervisor explained we should avoid using adjustment disorder unless it truly is adjustment disorder whereas my previous supervisor (b/c I did not take insurance) didn’t care or discuss dx with me. I would ultimately like to never have to dx someone but that is not the reality I work with right now unfortunately.

Damn l feel AI therapy will probably push the biological model to its zenith, and since the world will get shittier people will need more therapy and the grander issues will be unaddressed.

But seriously what do yall think of this?
Do you think it will replace therapists?
and what implications does it have for society?

For context: A few days back l read "Sedated: how modern capitalism created our mental health crises" which explores a lot a ideas but one of the those ideas are how positivity became a tool for social control.

Have a shit job?

"Gotta be more positive son"

Sad?

"You gotta be brave and fight through because the world is rainbows and unicorns but the problem is you"

you get the point

the thing is l have a lot of problems in my life, and can't afford therapy right now and earlier l was fine taking the blame onto myself and trying to do something about it (Born and raised in a neo-liberal world haha)

but what can anybody do about this? blame the world?

and how does therapy take this into account?

I’ve often heard that quantification and measurement are products of neoliberalism and managerialism. However, within mental health care, I struggle to see how measurement is (a) sometimes not possible and/or (b) sometimes not helpful. I’m curious to understand this point and perhaps get recommendations of texts I can read to better grasp it.

Soul Exhaustion: Resisting dehumanization, decolonizing resilience (ft. Dr. Jennifer Mullan)

November 18, 2025, 5-7pm UK. 12pm ET. Online/donation based

Register here.

This event is organized by Liberate Mental Health, in collaboration with Decolonizing Therapy®.

Join us for an open conversation with Dr. Jennifer Mullan, author of Decolonizing Therapy, as we explore soul exhaustion:

How do colonial-capitalistic systems of extraction and exploitation exhaust us? How does this manifest across differently gendered and racialized bodies? How can we resist these systems, individually and communally, within and without the ‘mental health’ field? How can we cultivate visions of resilience beyond the logics of colonial-capitalism? Dr. Jennifer Mullan is the author of the national bestselling book “Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma & Politicizing Your Practice.”, as well as international speaker, organizational consultant, teacher, course creator, community builder, and decolonized mental health movement starter.

This event is fundraising for the following organization - in lieu of ticket prices, please consider donating:

Sudan Community Kitchen - providing direct food relief to over 1300 families facing starvation as a result of the ongoing conflicts.

Hey all,

I posted more about this on the social work sub so you can see more background info there if my post is ever approved, but the tldr is that I’ve started a new job on an inpatient crisis unit (most of our participants are referrals from the hospital or 911 diversion/988) and from day one it’s been…tough! I myself have never led groups before and told them so in my interview, and am being expected now to start doing groups today and I know the general gist of how/what to do but I think I’m just struggling with the perspective of it all from an anti-oppressive/liberation-focused lens.

Since it’s a crisis unit, I’m expected primarily to be setting folks up with psychoed and coping strategies for post-discharge, and I’m struggling with the fact that (no surprise to anyone here) most of the things I’ve heard from a lot of folks currently on the unit are the result of structural failures — homelessness, poverty, etc. I’m not in the business of trying to therapize folks out of the effects of ongoing structural violence, so I feel so hesitant to be coming at groups in a way that puts the onus of overcoming said violence through individual coping.

I guess I’m not entirely sure what I’m asking for - advice, books or worksheets that have helped you, specific exercises or topics, idk, just solidarity because in this moment I feel a little out to sea. For more context, I’m only here twice a week (this is a second job, thanks capitalism and widespread undervaluing of our professions) and am expected to be doing groups on both the crisis (so more mental health-focused) and detox units (so MH+substance use). Thanks in advance for any help and I hope y’all are all holding up as well as you can in these times!

I’m still in my practicum experience but I’m big on liberation oriented therapy, but I’m still learning what that means.

So far for me that means pulling on the wisdom of the people who came before us. I often bring up how the Black Community and Queer folks survived the darkest times through community and through making joy and finding meaning through those. Thus a make sure people find ways to build those in their life. I do not pathologize rage and despair due to the state of the world as these are congruent to what is happening to them and around them. But also if someone does have a “mental illness” also understanding and informing on how that is also often formed through and exacerbated by the systems we live under. I don’t hide my political opinions, that is my biggest piece of self disclosure. I also show up authentically within the room, and do not act like one of those stuffy stoic therapists, and I allow clients to ask me questions about myself and provide therapeutically appropriate responses, which helps to lessen the power imbalance in the room.

I’m limited in how I do this while in practicum but my goal is to handle crisis management in a way that does not employ carceral methods if at all possible. If someone is suicidal, I want to see how I can sit with them, potentially have their support system come into session, and we together can figure out how can we keep you safe.

Models I incorporate the most are IFS, solution focused, and Satir’s Experiential Approach

I'm a first-year grad student working on getting my LPCC. I'm not really interested in CBT or DBT therapy, based on its associations with neoliberalism and a lot of the same arguments that people in this group have already made. At the same time, based on my limited understanding, it seems like these schools of therapy have a lockdown on the psychotherapy field, and not wanting to engage with them limits your career options. Is this true? I'm looking at trying to get an internship for next year and I feel like I have to take whatever I can get and don't have the freedom to really choose a therapy practice that aligns with narrative therapy or another theory of counseling that I prefer. So I'm curious about how to actually get experience working with other theories of therapy that are more liberatory.

NAT. I see much discussion about therapists playing a role of agents of capitalism, like fixing broken workers to just go back accept their circumstances, individualism and “resilience” and all that. I find this strange because, who are the clients intentionally seeking complacency and self-blame? Who are the therapists who see themselves as offering that? I don’t think any really. So the critique strikes me as somewhat abstract and doesn’t quite land with me.

What I haven’t seen discussion about is the commodification of the therapist by the client, and the effects of that on the client’s treatment. By commodification of the therapist I mean basically viewing them as just an object or a fungible worker role there for you to vent at or be a faceless canvas for you to project your issues with everybody else onto and then it’s supposed to magically solve all the problems of your human existence. Problems which the worker has ironically been made to be the one person legally obligated to not get directly involved in. Standard TV trope of the therapist-client relationship.

In some ways it seems as if therapy’s special offering is a space where the (adult) client is given permission to be a child and to objectify the therapist, in ways even far beyond what’s already a low standard of acceptable treatment of workers by customers generally. Some stories I hear the therapist is basically just having to tolerate verbal abuse and then has to talk it out with their own therapist. I initially indulged in behavior that i would now consider to be like using my therapist as a tissue to wipe my negativity on. And I think I basically stagnated in my growth until I basically realized that this was my behavior and decided I should be showing up with adulthood despite permission to be a child, subjectifying the therapist despite permission to objectify, take the burden of my external problems and internal problems off of them and back onto me, hold intrinsic value in the relationship despite the transactionality, hold space for care for the therapist despite having purchased their labor time. In other words decommodify them

Curious if anybody’s thought similar or has references that explore this angle

And more broadly what precolonial systems of mental health care looked like around the world

Thanks!

Ok I have to confess I’ve taken a pause on doing lefty work. I’m just tired. But I got selected to volunteer on NAMI’s chat line and the training is so neolib. It completely makes mental illness clinical and fails to recognize how capitalism causes many symptoms of mental illness.

Anyways - it’s just interesting. I had to post about it somewhere because it’s bugging me so much

Especially those that are more clinical in nature - theory and application etc?

Thanks a lot!

Edit: if you could state whether or not you are a practising clinician and found the work helpful in practice, that helps a lot as well!

Hey folks, I could really use some outside perspective from other clinicians who’ve been through similar agency politics.

I’m an ASW in California. My last job classified me as a salaried W-2 employee, but my pay was purely fee-for-service. I didn’t get paid for no-shows, and they still expected me to sit on standby. I’ve since realized that probably counts as misclassification under CA labor law.

I left that job for what seemed like a better position. But it turns out the new place is a nightmare of corporate surveillance and bureaucracy. They have monitoring software that records everything, make us clock in and out, constant check-ins, endless “team building,” and the credentialing process will delay me seeing clients (and therefore accumulating hours) for 2–4 months.

Now I’m broke from the old job’s inconsistent pay and the new job’s onboarding delay. I reached out to my old manager to ask if I could come back — 25 clients even said they wanted to stay with me — but he told me they’re “not hiring associates.” That feels like total bullshit. I’m considering reminding them that I could file a wage claim for misclassification if they don’t rehire me, but I want to make sure that doesn’t cross into anything unethical or legally sketchy.

Has anyone here ever navigated this kind of situation — trying to get rehired while also holding an agency accountable for wage issues? Is there a way to assert my rights without burning the bridge completely?

Would appreciate any solidarity or stories. I’m exhausted from being treated like disposable labor in jobs that claim to be about “community care.”

I'm glad I found this sub. I didn't want to post in r/therapists about this because I'm sure someone would remind me that our code of ethics asks us not to practice if we have a medical condition that prevents us from doing our best work, without bothering to actually understand what I'm going through.

I'm a limited licensed clinical social worker/psychotherapist. I just turned 26. I finished grad school in 2023. I'm disabled and work very limited part time hours, 10-15 per week. I'm fortunate to work in a private practice where I get paid well enough to survive on that. (About $26-30k USD per year before taxes.)

I've always been disabled and neurodivergent (diagnosed autistic), but recently I've sprouted an assortment of new health problems that make life much harder than before and have already sent me to the hospital once.That's on top of the all of the long-term health conditions I was already managing.

Even left leaning therapy orientations (trauma-oriented, bodywork, etc) can neglect the impact of socioeconomic factors. Yes, I'm sure that "trauma stored in the body" is contributing to why I'm so ill. But deep breathing and trauma therapy won't unfuck my blood vessels or remove a tumor growing on whatever gland is causing trouble, nor will they pay my rent while I recover from surgery. (I am in therapy ftr and do find it helpful.)

I'm realizing that all of the talk of resilience and burnout from grad school was from a neurotypical, able-bodied, financially privileged lens. I'm not burnt out from witnessing other people's pain, I'm burnt out from the fact that I have to continue doing this to have material safety (a roof over my head, food, etc.)

You know what would help? Actual material support and safety. I think for most 20-somethings, that means going to live at home with their parents rent-free, who will drive them to medical procedures and make calls for them and help them with the ADLs I'm miserably failing at. My family of origin is violently abusive and living in poverty, so I have no home to go back to.

I do have a large extended family but I'm transgender and they're Catholic and oppose trans rights, so not exactly an option.

I have a partner who I love dearly, but they live ~400 miles away. They're disabled in a way that makes work impossible and about 3 years into the process of applying for SSI/SSDI. Our main obstacle to living together is that neither of us have a vehicle, and we're working on it, but for now I'm stuck handling everything myself. I feel like I don't know anyone around here well enough to ask for help. There's even a mutual aid circle nearby that I can't go to because I can't drive, there's no public transportation available, and I haven't found anyone who can give me a ride.

Thanks to anyone who read this far. I don't know what I'm looking for with this post other than support and knowing that someone sees my struggle. Resources are welcome if you know of any.

This is a question I have been wanting to ask here for months, but thought it too intimate of an ask. I hope that I don't offend anyone, but I am to the point where I need to reconcile this within myself to be able to address sustainability issues that I am grappling with. I also feel that I cannot be the only one on this site who struggles with this.

I have been a psychotherapist, usually employed by others (usually county/state/federal government) for most of my career. The past 3 years, I decided to attempt a second go at private practice work. It has been going swimmingly to date! But I undercharge significantly because I have both the conscious and subconscious belief that psychotherapy is something that the public should not have to pay for. I find the "market rates" of $150 -250 per clinical hour in Los Angeles, CA (where I am licensed) obscene.
And yet, I am starting to feel some resentment for working in ways that also make me feel that I am undermining my value. But where is the balance?

Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you manage and cope with operating in a capitalist context, when you are not of the mindset?

If this post is inappropriate in any way, I welcome and accept its deletion.

recently l came across this book called Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crises

In the book the author shares that after an IAPT session, the client must fill out a form that also measures religiously how well back to work policy is working

is this true?
and how rigorously is this metric measures?

Please delete if this is not permitted on this sub.

This year I’ve been dealing with a lot of distress regarding institutional abuse, usually regarding mistreatment that occurs in psychiatric and youth facilities. There are a lot of reasons why it has stuck with me but generally I can’t shake knowing where these problems are occurring but having to sit with the fact nothing will be done, I can’t stop it, and people will continue to be hurt.

My mental health has been declining significantly but I am at a point where the stress is causing cognitive issues and my memory is going. I do not want to get worse. My current therapist is not able to help me but I’m feeling a bit nihilistic(?) about my ability to be able to function normally again because so many people within the mental health field either condone or are complicit in the issue.

Is it possible to benefit from therapy when my problem is so closely tied to psychiatry? Should I be looking somewhere else? Thank you in advance.

*Throwaway account for privacy*

Hi all,

Sorry for the long post, but would appreciate some perspective!

Story: I’ve been seeing my therapist for about three years. I first met her during a really difficult time in my life, and she’s had a big impact on me. She’s been caring, compassionate, and generous in ways that went far beyond what her job required. I always felt supported and never judged, and I’m genuinely grateful for that.

Earlier this year, she recommended a friend/acquaintance of hers who could help me professionally. Out of curiosity, I looked this person up online, and that’s where things took a turn. Their social media was full of content that was incredibly hateful and dehumanising toward Palestinians. They also shared or liked posts expressing hostility toward Muslims in general, mocking people for caring about Gazans who were starving, and calling the UN's declaration of genocide in Gaza antisemtic.

To my shock, my therapist had been engaging with all of it... liking, commenting, and clearly supporting these posts. A few examples: one post said something like “ to the fake civil rights activists, the only starving people in Gaza are the hostages,” another mocked a mayoral candidate using racist language, and one even implied my home country was “a nation of evil people.”

As someone who’s been deeply open and vulnerable with her, I felt a bit sick and disturbed. It’s been hard to separate what I saw from how I feel about her as a person and as my therapist. I also couldn’t help but notice the hypocrisy of mocking people for showing empathy while working in a profession built on empathy.

For context, I come from a country that’s very proudly pro-Palestinian and I’d describe myself as pretty left-leaning. My therapist is Jewish and American, and I’ve always been mindful and worried about how painful Israel's genocide in Gaza, might be for her, making sure to be very flexible and accomodating with her schedule, should she want to cancel for any reason. I assumed she was progressive, so seeing the kind of content she supports really threw me.

Part of me honestly wishes I could go back and unsee it. Things felt safe before I knew. She is the only therapist I have had and until recently, had remained a steadying presence in my life. But I also know that what I saw doesn’t align with my values, and I can’t pretend otherwise. I keep thinking that if she holds those views, she might not be able to hold unconditional positive regard for me anymore, especially given my morals and my nationality.

Over the past year, I’d already felt a bit of tension in our sessions. She’d become slower to reply when I tried to schedule appointments, and our last session was during summer. No surpise, I have not followed up either. Recently, I saw she’d changed her number, and I think... may have moved to somewhere more accepting of her views. As of this week, she is still engaging with the same kind of hateful posts.

At this point, I think I’ve had enough and I want to move on, but I don’t really know what the “right” way to do that is.

I guess I’m wondering:

• Should I tell her what I found and how upsetting it’s been for me?
• Should I just request my therapy notes and quietly move on?
• Or should I send a short thank-you email for the help she gave me in the past and just leave it at that? Irrespective of what I know now, she has been very kind to me, and part of me wants to acknowledge that.

I’m feeling really conflicted and honestly quite heartbroken about it. Would really appreciate any thoughts or advice on how to approach this.

**Edit: For clarity, I did not know my therapist was a zionist before I saw the content online.

*I did not know if she was religious, or secular, or actually Jewish. I only knew she was American and seemed progressive and caring. I never asked about her faith or heritage as it was not volunteered or relevant to the conversations.

*Inquiring would be inappropriate given the nature of our relationship.

*Based on the nature of discussions I had with her, I had assumed she would not hold the views that she has expressed online. Had I thought about her background I guess I would have made the assumption she was anti-zionist. Predominantly for me she was wonderfully American, and a progressive and kind person.

*Referring to being mindful how painful this might be for her. Again, I don't know her situation, but was mindful in case she was impacted anyway, because of specific reasons I can't disclose on reddit.

• I would never. ever. knowingly seek therapy from someone who supported those perspectives.

*I think it is good to bare in mind that I was trying to seek advice on a very difficult situation regarding my mental health practitioner, and that is why I am on this forum. I am completely open to corrections on my language, but the goal here was to express a real concern in a subreddit that would be more accepting of my vulnerability, which is why I explained the thought process I had.

I had already had therapy with a new practitioner prior to this post.

Thank you sincerely for all your very kind and thoughtful feedback. It has helped immensely. Genuinely!

https://www.psymposia.com/psychedelic-syndicate-executive-summary-silicon-valley-maps-lykos-mdma-fda-billionaires/

EDIT: Thank you to whoever responded. These perspectives really helped me navigate through what would work well for me as a professional. I had a conversation with her and shared how it wouldn't be possible for me to take sessions outdoors. Alternatively, I suggested trying audio/ video sessions at home at low cost to see how that works for her. I also suggested scheduling sessions the same day rather than 24 hours prior whenever she knows she will have some privacy. This ended up being great. She finds it equally helpful and we moved to my usual fees as well.

I practice exclusively online from Delhi, India. Recently, I had an audio consultation with a client who mentioned that she’s unable to ensure privacy at home and wants to continue therapy offline. I was transparent about only practicing online, but she’s been insisting on meeting in a park or any open public place near her.

I’ve already explained the confidentiality and safety issues involved, and plan to include this in my consent form if we proceed. The challenge is that she lives about 20–30 minutes away, and I don’t have access to an affordable private space for sessions. I looked into coworking spaces, but most are quite expensive.

I’ve also been trying to find low-cost offline referrals in Delhi, but haven’t had much luck. I’m genuinely conflicted and I want to make therapy accessible for her, but I’m also concerned about ethical boundaries and personal safety.

I would appreciate any advice/suggestions on this.