Learn About My Psychotherapy Approach

Written by: Shalyn Isaacs / Communication Coaching / November 29, 2021 / 10 minutes read

This blog post is simply a further introduction to WELL SAID clients to get to know me and my approach to psychotherapy better. Applying psychotherapy to address communication issues can be a useful process because together, we can address the underlying causes of your communication issues. I draw on different psychotherapeutic frameworks and approaches in my practice. 

This blog post is inspired by a question I received from a friend earlier this week: “How would you define a positive clinical outcome?” There are a number of different perspectives that can be considered to answer this question effectively and I will do so while also using this as an opportunity to elaborate on my psychotherapy approach so that you can get to know me a bit more!

My Psychotherapy Practice & the Brofenbrenner Model

In order to answer this question, I will start by describing my therapeutic approach and perspectives of psychotherapy. My therapeutic approach is liberation-centered. This means that I practice from primarily intersectional feminist, anti-racist, de-colonial, and anti-oppressive approaches to mental health and trauma treatment.  My intention with being a Psychotherapist is to help guide people in navigating their social, cultural and political circumstances and relationships with greater awareness and self-empowerment. From my experience, a “positive clinical outcome” consists of a client feeling empowered to make life decisions from a place of integrity with their personal values and desires, rather than on the basis of what other people or institutions want from them. I personally consider a “positive clinical outcome” to consist of a client feeling capable of making decisions from a place of self-empowerment and self-knowledge rather than on the basis of embodied trauma and survival. One of my deepest passions is supporting those from marginalized groups with healing and un-learning internalized social messages that dictate who they ‘’should’’ be according to patriarchal, colonial-capitalist, and racialized standards of being. 

For me – a positive clinical outcome does not include a client’s mental health improving because they are feeling more comfortable with conforming to the type of person that other people or institutions want them to be. 

The Therapeutic Relationship From a Liberation-Centered, Decolonial Perspective

Feminist Psychology offers theoretical perspectives from which I base my psychotherapy practice on. In psychotherapy practices that utilize feminist psychology theoretical perspectives, strategies and techniques are not considered to be the main focus of therapy (Enns, 1993). Instead, Feminist psychotherapy focuses on the main components of: consciousness raising, social and gender role analysis, resocialization and social activism (Israeli & Santor, 2000). 

From a Feminist Psychology perspective, the therapeutic relationship can be a place where issues such as power dynamics embedded in unequal social, cultural, and political structures influence the client’s psychological and emotional well-being (Maracek, 2016; Stewart & Dottolo, 2006). From this perspective, I believe that the therapeutic alliance is a place where the microsystem power dynamics between the client and therapist can be explored and deconstructed as parallels to the power dynamics in the client’s social mesosystem and macrosystem. 

From my experience, a “positive clinical outcome” consists of a client feeling empowered to make life decisions from a place of integrity with their personal values and desires, rather than on the basis of what other people or institutions want from them.

Therefore, I consider a positive clinical outcome to consist of the client recognizing that they are the authority of their own experience and the therapist is a guide that walks with them along their journey of self-knowledge, awareness and empowerment. This is also a theoretical perspective that arises from decolonial psychology, which is different and contrasts with the unequal power dynamics seen in classical psychoanalysis (Robcis, 2019). 

We all live within a patriarchal, colonial-capitalist society that perpetuates oppressive social norms. Therefore, we all have internalized and normalized these oppressive norms and values on some level (Haines, 2019; Harro, 2000) . I believe it is particularly important for those in the healing professions to heal and un-learn these internalized social narratives in order to avoid perpetuating them in the therapeutic relationship. If a therapist does not un-learn internalized domination dynamics such as white supremacy, capitalist norms, racism, or patriarchy – they can inevitably end up reinforcing these perspectives through the client-therapist relationship (Haines, 2019).

Clinical Experience

I believe these frameworks, when applied to psychotherapy, can play a role in helping clients know that the mental health issues they were experiencing were not their fault, but rather were influenced by them living in an inequitable society with many oppressive social norms and expectations being imposed on them.

REFERENCES

Enns, C. Z. (1993). Twenty years of feminist counseling and therapy: From naming biases to implementing multifaceted practice. The Counseling Psychologist, 21(1), 3-87.

Haines, S. (2019). The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice. North Atlantic Books. 

Harro, B. (2000). The cycle of liberation. Readings for diversity and social justice, 2, 52-58.

Israeli, A. L., & Santor, D. A. (2000). Reviewing effective components of feminist therapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 13(3), 233-247.

Marecek, J. (2016). Invited reflection: Intersectionality theory and feminist psychology. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(2), 177-181.

Robcis, C. (2019). Frantz Fanon, institutional psychotherapy, and the decolonization of psychiatry. In Frantz Fanon’s Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Clinical Work (pp. 23-38). Routledge.

To work with Shalyn Isaacs as your psychotherapist (qualifying) at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or by calling (647) 795-5277.