What Do We (White Counsellors) Do About Whiteness?
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Authors
Card, Amanda
Issue Date
2025-10
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
whiteness , racism , white privilege , white identity , anti-racism interventions
Alternative Title
Abstract
While there is considerable encouragement for counsellors to uphold social justice values in the course of therapy, there is little in the way of guidance when it comes to how white counsellors might address racial bias, thoughts, and behaviours with their white clients. This project reviews the state of research on whiteness from a psychological perspective, including in relation to counselling and counsellor education. There continues to be limited and reticent uptake on these issues both in the classroom and in the therapy room, despite plentiful evidence that prejudice not only hurts those being oppressed but also harms those active or implicit in oppression. There have been significant offerings from Black, Indigenous, and Person of Colour (BIPOC) scholars that provide grounding in how this work can go forward in order to address ongoing racial violence and injustice. The potential for making inroads in the therapeutic relationship to support white people to come to terms with their racial identity is compelling and illuminating models from several BIPOC experts are shared and co-mingled as a potential path for white counsellors to follow forward.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
openAccess
openAccess