Therapy with an Intersectional Framework

I was introduced to intersectionality, coined by Black Civil Rights Advocate, Feminist & Scholar Kimberly Crenshaw in undergraduate. “Intersectionality examines how race, class, gender, and other [identities] overlap and compound to explain systemic discrimination and inequality in society.” I had an immediate response of being seen and also it offered a framework for understanding my own experience and other’s.

Years later, I became a therapist and was introduced to many theoretical modalities but even the humanistic approaches did not feel as complete as an intersectional framework. My current approach includes the embrace of a few modalities like Buddhist Psychology but all under an intersectional lens.

To quote an amazing Liberation Black Artist Tracy Hersey from Nap Ministry “without a sustainable framework, praxis, we are going to be lost.”

When I work with a person in the therapy space, I take into consideration their individual needs, family relationships & impact and macro systems that interact with both. Not only does this approach humanize their lived experiences but also identifies conditions of oppression and injustice that have often preexisted their psychological distress or disturbance.

At its core intersectionality offers clarity of the realities of our societies and names the tools of oppression whether it be respectability politics, pathologizing poverty, or toxic abusive family interactions to name a few that are required to change. In therapy, the knowing of what is wrong, is the seed of change. Intersectionality empowers people in naming the wrongs and paving a new path of healing, joy and liberation.