Anti-racism Statement

The therapists at The Integral Psychology Center are committed to the on-going work of anti-racism in ourselves, our work, our community, and our country. We can and must do better.

We aspire to understand that each person we work with, and ourselves as therapists, lives within the larger context of our communities and cultures. Our society includes intersecting forms of oppression that affect all of us differently. When one’s context is different, so is one’s reality. Systemic racism has real effects on all of us, whether we acknowledge them or not.

Racism causes all of us to lose our humanity. We must recognize, acknowledge, and address it wherever it shows up, including in ourselves, our families, and our communities. We understand the impact of systemic racism as a trauma that can affect both physical and mental health for people of color. We do not pathologize normal responses to the abnormal condition of racism. Good psychotherapy does not help people adjust to a sick society. Rather, good psychotherapy helps us heal from the wounds of oppression and trauma and address all of the factors that support mental health such that people feel valued and empowered in their lives. A sense of agency and the ability to effect change is often the outcome of good psychotherapy.

We recognize that currently every therapist at the Integral Psychology Center is White and with our White racial identities comes generations of unacknowledged and unearned privilege. We acknowledge that systemic racism not only disadvantages people of color, but also gives advantages to White people. We commit as a group to disrupting systemic racism and doing our own internal work as White people.

The call for peace must not silence the call for justice. The two must work together to dismantle systemic racism and heal from this trauma. The Black American philosopher Cornel West said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” We aspire to that expression of love in our communities.