Have you ever wondered if it’s okay to bring up politics with your therapist? Spoiler alert: the answer is yes, of course! Therapy is your time. You are not only allowed, but encouraged, to bring up anything important to you in the therapy room. Discussing politics in therapy may be easier said than done. In this blog, I will explore some helpful things to consider.
History of Politics in Therapy
Throughout history, politics and therapy have long intermingled. Many of us may imagine Sigmund Freud, one of the founding fathers of modern psychotherapy, as a distant and removed figure in a dark room, uninfluenced by the outside world, but this is simply untrue. Freud did in many ways favor a neutral approach to therapy. However, he was a Jew in Central Europe at a time of violent antisemitism. He died shortly after the Nazi invasion of his country. Both his and his daughter, Anna’s, books were burned by the Nazi government.
Along similar lines, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, America’s most famous sex therapist, survived the Holocaust. She went on to greatly influence therapy as we know it today. In the late 1960s, when psychotherapy was a male-dominated field, women began to form consciousness-raising circles as a form of therapy. This was to support one another’s emotional lives outside of what were then the misogynistic ideas of mainstream psychology. Even the way we diagnose is political. Most notably seen in changing ideas around homosexuality as a psychological disorder. Now, the use of “conversion therapy” for queer people is widely dismissed. Given the influence of politics on our lives, there is no way to keep it out of the therapy room.
Let''s Talk About Feelings
In therapy, we talk about what impacts our lives and process our feelings and experiences related to those impacts. We are all impacted by structural and collective forces beyond our control, so there is no reason why politics and therapy shouldn’t mix. Government policy, war, economic conditions, and social movements often have dramatic effects on our emotional lives, our relationship to ourselves, and our relationship to others. Psychotherapist Richard Brouillette wrote in The New York Times that “unfortunately, many therapists, because they have been trained not to discuss political issues in the consulting room, are part of the problem, implicitly reinforcing false assumptions about personal responsibility, isolation and the social status quo.”
While therapy may not be a place to dissect political theory or engage in policy debate, it is certainly a place to process feelings that result from current events or unjust political structures. Your therapist doesn’t need to agree with you politically to understand that Supreme Court decisions make you feel afraid, that war makes you angry, that budget cuts make you sad, or even that the expansion of civil rights or being part of a social movement makes you feel deep joy. These are all core feelings that everyone experiences. Even a politically disengaged therapist should be able to help you identify these feelings.
Sharing Your Fears
Even clients who are traditionally viewed as in dominant groups may have fears that are worthy of discussion in therapy. Straight people may fear that queer people are undermining their families. American citizens may fear that immigrants make them unsafe. Wealthy people may fear that tax reform will make them less secure. While the “facts” behind these feelings are debatable or downright wrong, the feelings are real. A good therapist can help their client acknowledge their fears and gain insight into them. If a therapist remains curious and open to the client’s core wounds, they can understand the defense of scapegoating. They can support the client in finding healthier ways of confronting anxiety and isolation.
Having a therapist who helps you to experience and share core feelings will combat isolation. It can result in a feeling of connection or “undoing aloneness”, a central goal of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy. Undoing aloneness is a particularly important goal of therapy at the current moment. Loneliness strengthens fascism and threatens democracy. In a world where people are often made to feel that their problems are their fault and where people feel increasingly alone, relational therapy is inherently political. A therapist can reinforce the gaslighting effects of white supremacy, patriarchy, and grind culture. Or they can acknowledge the unfairness of these structures and help their client feel less alone in their experience.
In Psychoanalysis Under Occupation, Lara and Stephen Sheehi write that psychotherapy can be used in the service of oppression or the service of liberation. While therapists are trained to remain “neutral,” Sheehi and Sheehi argue that neutrality is a denial of the client’s experience. An attuned therapist can pick up on the client’s experience in the political realm. They can provide an experience of connection and validation that may be denied by dominant politics outside the room.
To Agree or Disagree With Your Therapist
It’s everyone’s right to decide what they need in a therapist. For some clients, mixing politics and therapy might be very important. For others, it might not matter at all. Let’s consider how probing into politics with your therapist might affect the work you do in the therapy room.
Agreeing With Your Therapist
The “therapeutic alliance” is what we call the unique collaborative relationship between therapist and client. A therapeutic alliance should feel trusting and safe enough, even when the client or therapist is challenged. Knowing your therapist’s political leanings may have a great effect on the therapeutic alliance. For example, it may be vital for a queer client to know that their therapist’s views and votes align with the dignity of queer people. A Black client may need to know that their therapist believes Black Lives Matter to form a foundation of trust. An immigrant client may want to know that their therapist does not support the mass detention or deportation of immigrants. For many who live within the toxic stress of being a minority, the political support of their therapist could be a necessary building block for a trusting therapeutic bond.
Disagreeing With Your Therapist
Conversely, a political disagreement between client and therapist has the potential to strengthen the therapeutic bond and challenge assumptions that may be holding the client back from other relationships outside the room. For example, an attentive and loving therapist who is pro-choice could challenge a pro-life client’s belief that all pro-choice people are bad. Hearing “I disagree with you. I also care about you and value our relationship” from a therapist can help a client feel safe in the room and can serve as an incubator for having productive conflict with others outside the therapy room. In relational therapy, the relationship between therapist and client can be a very fruitful space to negotiate conflict within an already trusting bond. This relationship can have the power to challenge splitting, or the tendency to put people in categories of “all good” and “all bad.”
Therapist’s Boundaries
It can also be okay if your therapist does not want to disclose their politics. They might ask you, “What would it be like to know this about me?”, or probe what deeper need might lie beneath your desire to know. When a therapist does not disclose, it keeps the focus solely on the client and allows them to delve deeper into their fantasies and anxieties without the distraction of the therapist’s stance.
Your fantasies about your therapist’s politics could range from “I’m sure my therapist voted for the same candidate as me because everyone I care about voted for that candidate” to “I’m sure my therapist didn’t vote for my candidate because everyone around me disappoints me” to “I’m sure my therapist voted in a particular way because everyone of their race/religion/gender voted for that person.” These assumptions are all fertile ground for exploration of your own psyche without needing to know where the therapist stands.
How to Bring Up Politics in Therapy
Finally, if you would like to discuss politics with your therapist but feel hesitant to do so, you can bring it up with your therapist. Saying, “I want to talk with you about my political opinions, but I’m afraid,” is an invitation to your therapist to get curious about you. Your fear may reflect fears in other relationships or past traumas that would be useful to discuss in therapy. It may also reflect inaccurate assumptions about who your therapist is. Remember, it’s your therapist’s job to discuss things that are important to you; they can handle it.
Mixing politics and therapy can be important work, and is increasingly unavoidable in a polarized society. I invite you to think about what would be useful, scary, or exciting about bringing up politics with your therapist. As with all topics, we are here to meet you where you are and dig in!
Interested in exploring your politics in therapy? Reach out to myTherapyNYC to find out which of our therapists would be a good fit for you!
Have you discussed politics with your therapist? Join the conversation in the comments below!
Specializes in LGBTQ+, Relationship issues, Polyamory/Non-traditional relationship structures, Trauma, Men’s Issues, Religious/Spiritual Issues, Veterans.
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1 comment
Great post! I love the exploration of the fantasy therapist a client trusts as well as the fantasy of “I trust no one.” So true.