As a white, cisgender woman working in the field of trauma therapy, I hold immense privilege — racial privilege, cisgender privilege, financial privilege, and the privilege of moving through institutions that were built to center people who look me. That reality shapes the lens through which I was taught to be a therapist, and the ways I’ve been conditioned to navigate the world.

I name this because I believe that doing this work — especially work that involves trauma, healing, and systemic oppression — requires deep accountability. Therapy should be a space where all clients feel seen, safe, and supported, and that means actively working to ensure that the biases I have inherited don’t show up in the therapy room.

Here’s what that looks like for me:

Unlearning in real time. I am continuously engaging with anti-racist work — learning from educators, activists, and therapists of color; reading; listening; and critically examining the ways white supremacy culture shows up in my own practice and thinking. For example, in my doctoral work at Rutgers, I have had the opportunity to attend in-depth seminars on anti-racist clinical practice, anti-colonial clinical practice, Liberatory Consciousness, cultural humility, queer theory, disability theory, Critical Race Theory, and anti-oppressive teaching practices. I also participate in anti-racist trainings for white women through the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science.

Compensating those who are helping me learn. I benefit from the immense emotional and intellectual labor of many BIPOC people (especially women of color) as I undergo this personal work. I compensate these writers/educators/activists whenever possible, through things like paid subscriptions to their Substacks or Patreons, buying their books and digital products, or simply Venmo-ing them when they share their handle publicly. White people have benefitted from the unpaid labor of marginalized people for way too long. I’m committed to compensating the people who are providing me opportunities to do this learning.

Being accountable, not defensive. I welcome feedback and am committed to taking responsibility when I get things wrong. My goal is not to be a “perfect ally: (which doesn’t exist), but to keep showing up, doing better, and making real changes when (not if) I fuck up. I have created an anonymous Feedback and Accountability form for people to let me know when I have done harm or missed the mark.

De-centering whiteness in healing work. Much of traditional therapy was built within a Eurocentric, white-dominated framework that ignores the ways systemic oppression impacts mental health. I am committed to expanding my understanding beyond these frameworks and honoring the lived experiences of those historically marginalized in these spaces.

Acknowledging the appropriation of the modalities I practice. Many of the clinical modalities I utilize (especially EMDR, which includes mindfulness and bilateral stimulation) have been appropriated by white people from indigenous communities. These healing practices of tapping, drumming, and story-telling (to name a few) have been packaged and commodified by the Western, colonial, capitalist psychotherapy field. I paid a lot of money to get certified in EMDR and none of that money went to indigenous groups. I am working to rectify this, in small part, by donating monthly to the Lenapehoking Reestablishment Project, as I live and work on stolen Lenape land.

This work is ongoing, and I will never be “done” with it. I don’t expect a gold star for naming my privilege — but I do believe it’s essential to say out loud as a white clinician with an immense amount of privilege. Again, if you ever have questions, concerns, or experiences in therapy that don’t feel aligned with the safe and affirming space I strive to create, I want to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to use the Feedback and Accountability form (or just email or DM me if you’re okay not being anonymous!).

Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding me accountable. I am deeply honored to do this work, and I am committed to doing it responsibly.