About this ebook
Essential questions are posed: Is it possible to think about these complex experiences and assumptions, even if they unsettle and disorientate? Does that render therapeutic encounters more fruitfully appropriate? Is it essential to consider that psychotherapy training often leads us to overvalue theories as objective and scientific, without recognizing them as products of Western Europe during colonialism, empires, and population shifts? To achieve this, psychotherapists must first reflect on their own colonial mindsets which can be wrongly normalised? How can practitioners and clients explore the complexities of pride in different heritages whilst working in a postcolonial way?
This book examines how decolonising perspectives can reshape psychotherapy by critically examining cultural, historical, and colonial assumptions embedded within the field, inviting practitioners to reflect on their positionality and engage with clients' diverse identities.
Addressing decolonial theory, postcolonial studies, psychotherapy practice, cultural competence, therapeutic ethics, and cross-cultural mental health, this book is essential for students, practicing psychotherapists, clinical psychologists, trainers, and researchers in counselling programs.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling.
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About the author
Del Loewenthal is Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of Roehampton, and Chair of the Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling, both London, UK. He is an existential- analytic psychotherapist, photographer and chartered psychologist, with a particular interest in phenomenology. His books include Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism (Routledge 2017).
