There’s a myth still floating around in therapy rooms: that we, as clinicians, should remain politically neutral. That talking about politics is “biased,” “inappropriate,” or “outside the scope of practice.”
That myth is not only outdated — it’s dangerous.
Because in 2025, politics is personal. It’s in the couple fighting over whether their kid deserves access to gender-affirming care. It’s in the immigrant family wondering if it’s safe to drive to work. It’s in the exhausted single mother who lost her Medicaid, who now chooses between medication and groceries. And it’s in every client who walks into therapy wondering if their grief, anxiety, or rage is “too much,” when in fact it’s a rational response to being gaslit by a society that treats their pain as an inconvenience.
I work primarily with individuals facing chronic or terminal illness alongside PTSD, anxiety, and depression, often presenting with major life transitions, pending decisions and facing long awaited truths. Many of my clients come from marginalized communities — though not all. And politics shows up in all their lives, whether they name it that way or not. My therapeutic approach is grounded in trauma-informed, systems-aware, and grief-sensitive care. In this framework, political context isn’t an abstract add-on — it’s a core part of understanding what is breaking people down and what is available to help them rebuild. I integrate elements of narrative therapy, existential therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), all within a trauma-informed and systems-oriented framework. These modalities allow clients to explore meaning, agency, and identity in the face of overwhelming circumstances — political or otherwise. I don’t impose a political lens — I help clients connect the dots between their emotional distress and the broader forces that may be impacting them, if and when they are ready.
Mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s shaped — deeply and daily — by politics, policies, and power. If we ignore this, we’re not providing care. We’re providing containment. We’re telling our clients, in effect, “Bring your trauma, but not the truth about where it came from.”
Let me be blunt: political violence is family violence. And it’s showing up in session after session.
As a therapist trained in trauma-informed and systems-oriented care, I view political context not as a distraction from mental health, but as an inseparable part of it. Whether I’m offering existential support to a terminally ill patient, providing grief counseling to someone navigating the loss of autonomy due to disability, or helping a caregiver manage burnout, politics is already in the room — it shapes the conditions of suffering and resilience.
In practice, this doesn’t mean that therapy becomes a political discussion — it means we acknowledge how political realities shape the client’s emotional landscape. When a terminally ill patient tells me their pain medication was reduced because of restrictive prescribing laws, I don’t treat that as just a symptom management issue — I help them process the fear, anger, and betrayal that comes with being denied dignified care. When a caregiver says she’s working 60 hours a week and still can’t afford to pay all her bills or seek medical care, I don’t pathologize her exhaustion — I name it for what it is: burnout rooted in structural neglect. When a disabled client expresses guilt for needing help, I explore how capitalism equates worth with productivity. These are not abstract political ideas. They are daily, lived realities — and validating that truth becomes part of the healing.
While I do occasionally support individuals with more complex diagnoses, the majority of my clinical work is with those navigating trauma, grief, anxiety, and depression — especially in the context of life-altering medical diagnoses. These are not the “worried well.” These are people grieving their bodies, their safety, and their place in a rapidly shifting world. And the way we talk about that grief — or avoid talking about it — matters.
For clients with conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or OCD, the approach may look different — more structured, grounded in psychoeducation and stabilization. But even in those sessions, the political may emerge: a client with schizophrenia may express distress about police encounters or housing instability. A client with OCD may obsess over safety in a world that genuinely feels unsafe. The goal isn’t to politicize their diagnosis, but to contextualize their reality when it intersects with systemic harm — which it often does. Politics is never the starting point with these clients — but it’s sometimes part of the healing terrain.
I’ve seen marriages strained — or collapse entirely — over what used to be “just political differences.” But these days, political values are tied to core moral beliefs — about race, gender, freedom, safety, bodily autonomy, and truth. What was once dismissed as a “difference in opinion” is now a chasm of reality. Often, one partner upholds values shaped by justice, empathy, and collective care, while the other clings to traditionalist, individualist ideals grounded in hierarchy and control. These are not minor disagreements. They are deeply entrenched worldviews. And when therapists fail to name the political context for these divides, we’re leaving our clients to fumble through that confusion alone.
I’ve seen clients grappling with ruptures in their families of origin. Adult children going no-contact with parents who repeat conspiracy theories, downplay racism, or vote for policies that harm marginalized communities — and then blame their children for being “too sensitive.” These are not random interpersonal dynamics. These are political wounds. When a queer client is told by their father that they’re going to hell, that’s not just a “family issue.” It’s the product of a society that still sanctions that kind of hate under the guise of religious freedom.
Children are watching, absorbing, and reacting to all of it. When one parent is attuned and emotionally safe, while the other is emotionally avoidant, authoritarian, or dismissive — those dynamics mirror societal power structures. Children internalize whose emotions are welcome and whose are not. They learn quickly who is allowed to cry, who must be strong, and who gets blamed when the house feels unstable. That’s not just family dynamics. That’s cultural indoctrination.
We are also witnessing a silent epidemic of friendship losses — what many are calling “the second pandemic.” Lifelong friendships are fracturing because one person can no longer tolerate being around someone who denies their humanity, votes against their rights, or trivializes their trauma. This is not ideological “intolerance.” This is survival. And therapists who encourage clients to “repair” these ruptures without acknowledging the political stakes involved are pathologizing healthy boundaries.
It’s time to be honest: not all relationships are meant to be preserved. And some are only “functional” because one person is constantly shrinking, suppressing, or self-abandoning to keep the peace.
What’s often unspoken in these relational breakdowns is the emotional toll on everyone — not just those directly harmed. Even those who benefit from the status quo suffer. How many people have quietly swallowed their discomfort at a racist joke to avoid rocking the boat at Thanksgiving? How many have minimized their identity or advocacy to keep a friend group intact? How many white, straight, cis, able-bodied clients feel guilty and isolated because they’ve realized their communities are built on unspoken agreements to ignore injustice?
This is not just about “them.” It’s about all of us. Polarization doesn’t just tear apart families — it tears apart the very fabric of social trust. It creates cultures of silence and tension where no one feels fully safe or seen. It teaches people to perform connection instead of embodying it. And that emotional dissonance is a form of trauma, too.
When therapists urge clients to “stay connected” at the cost of their dignity or peace, we are reinforcing a model of relationship that rewards silence and punishes truth. That is not conflict resolution. That is compliance.
Yet too many therapists still try to “reframe” this pain as communication issues, generational differences, or unresolved attachment. While those frameworks can be useful, they’re insufficient when divorced from context. A white client breaking down over a fractured relationship with a Black partner must understand the dynamics of privilege and power. A disabled client facing rejection from family due to their care needs isn’t just “stressed” — they’re facing systemic ableism. A working-class immigrant client juggling three jobs while supporting a family back home isn’t just “overwhelmed” — they’re being crushed under a capitalist boot that rewards exploitation and invisibility.
Grief is a universal language — one of the few experiences that bridges political divides. But what differs is the naming of that grief. Conservative clients may call it “losing their way of life” while progressive clients may describe it as “fighting to survive oppression.” The lived experiences may not be so different — but the interpretations are shaped by the beliefs, fears, and values that give them meaning. As therapists, our role isn’t to correct those narratives — it’s to make space for them, explore them, and understand how they help or hinder healing.
Trauma and grief are not partisan. People across the political spectrum are hurting — often from the same systems, even if they interpret that harm differently. My role is not to impose a worldview but to make space for theirs, and to help them examine whether those narratives are healing or harming them. I believe therapy is for everyone — not to convert, but to liberate. And liberation looks different for every client.
I do not assume political alignment with my clients. Many of the people I support identify as conservative, religious, or apolitical. And the pain they bring into the room is no less valid. My approach is grounded in building safety, first and foremost. Political conversations only emerge when they are relevant to the client’s distress — and when they do, I follow their lead. A conservative client may not use the language of structural trauma, but they still grieve being unseen, overwhelmed, or betrayed. In those moments, I am not pushing ideology — I am witnessing their pain and helping them make meaning of it. Similarly, liberal or progressive clients may speak in terms of injustice, oppression, and collective grief. They may arrive already attuned to systemic harm but burdened by a crushing sense of helplessness or despair. With them, too, my role is not to co-sign every fear, but to hold space for it, to ground it, and to help them navigate how to live and act meaningfully in a world that often feels broken.
Therapy is not about indoctrination — it’s about liberation. And liberation requires honesty. It requires naming reality. It requires expanding our understanding of trauma beyond personal history and into structural context.
The argument for neutrality hides behind professionalism, but neutrality is not ethical. It is not compassionate. In many cases, it is violence. Silence benefits the status quo. And the status quo is deeply oppressive.
Being apolitical in the therapy room privileges the comfort of the privileged over the safety of the marginalized. It centers the therapist’s anxiety about “being political” over the client’s lived trauma. It sends the implicit message: You can talk about your symptoms, but not their roots. You can cry, but not rage. You can describe what hurts, but not who hurt you — especially if it’s the government, the culture, or capitalism itself.
That’s not therapy. That’s pacification.
To be trauma-informed, we must be system-informed. To be culturally competent, we must be politically competent. To be ethical, we must refuse to be neutral in the face of injustice.
Because let’s be real: most modern therapy was never meant to dismantle oppression. It was built to help people cope with it — quietly. Western therapy upholds the individual above the collective. It pathologizes resistance. It tells people to regulate their emotions before asking whether those emotions are, in fact, entirely appropriate reactions to political abandonment and systemic betrayal.
If we’re not interrogating that — in our education, supervision, and sessions — then we are just teaching people how to survive inside a burning house.
Decolonizing therapy means expanding our frameworks beyond pathology. It means trusting our clients’ rage, grief, and fear as intelligence. It means integrating somatics, collective care, and political education into our practice. It means moving therapy away from “fixing the individual” and toward supporting collective healing and transformation.
The institutions governing our work must evolve, too. Training programs need to treat structural racism, capitalism, transphobia, and state violence not as electives, but as core curriculum. Licensing boards must revisit codes of ethics that promote neutrality over justice. And therapists need to stop hiding behind false objectivity while people suffer in silence.
What if our therapy rooms were not just spaces for healing, but spaces for resistance? What if we made room for activism, advocacy, and imagination? What if we understood resilience not just as bouncing back, but as fighting back?
We are living through mass disillusionment. Political betrayal is everywhere. From the Supreme Court to school boards, from healthcare systems to housing policies, people are watching their dignity eroded in real time. They are grieving what democracy was supposed to be. They are anxious because the world is unsafe. They are angry because the world is unjust. And they are tired — bone tired — of being told to meditate their way through it.
We don’t need neutrality. We need courage. We need therapists willing to take the risk of being misunderstood in order to be truly present. We need clinicians who understand that the real risk isn’t speaking up — it’s staying silent while injustice becomes normalized.
So here’s my plea to my fellow therapists: stop playing neutral. Stop using “scope of practice” to avoid hard conversations. Stop minimizing systemic trauma to keep your comfort intact. Clients don’t need you to save them. But they do need you to stand with them — to see them, believe them, and name the truth with them.
Because in times like these, silence isn’t therapeutic.
It’s betrayal.
