Oppression: learning from clients

Oppression is rarely seen as a source of wisdom. Rightly, it is often viewed as something to challenge, dismantle, and heal from. In the therapy room, where stories of marginalisation, silencing, and survival unfold with courage and vulnerability, a deeper truth often emerges: oppression, though deeply wounding, can be a crucible of profound psychological insight and strength.

How lived oppression can shape insight and empathy

Every person is impacted by oppression to some extent, whether rooted in racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, audism, or other structural and systemic oppressions. This often carries layers of trauma, internalised shame, and chronic hypervigilance. Yet within these wounds lie finely tuned perceptions, moral clarity, and a deep capacity for empathy and complexity.

In therapeutic work, we sometimes encounter people who have had to navigate hostile systems from a young age and have developed a particular kind of discernment. They may intuit inconsistencies in other people's behaviours or language with laser precision. They may question power, not out of defiance, but from having lived at its sharp edges.

This is not romanticising oppression; there is nothing redemptive about pain for its own sake. But there is a kind of hard-earned wisdom that emerges when people are forced to make sense of a world that denies their humanity.

Power and privilege in the therapeutic relationship

As therapists, we are taught not to bring politics into the therapy room. I beg to differ. We must ask: How do we make space for this wisdom? How do we avoid pathologising survival strategies that were once life-saving? How, as therapists, do we shift from treating "symptoms" to truly witnessing the impact of systemic injustices?

Therapy does not exist in a vacuum. The therapeutic alliance itself can mirror the social dynamics of oppression, especially if the therapist holds more privilege than the client. Therefore, part of the work is to recognise and name these dynamics with care. Therapists need to do their own work around power, identity, and status.

Clients bring their experience of oppression not just to tell a personal story, but to offer insight into wider social patterns. When therapists are open with respect and curiosity, these stories become more than narratives about pain; they become accounts of resistance, adaptation, and meaning-making.

What marginalised clients can teach us about resilience

I work with Deaf clients (and hearing clients too), but consider the experience of a Deaf client navigating a hearing world that routinely excludes and misunderstands them. The Black client may be carrying ancestral grief while being expected to perform resilience without rest. The trans client whose very existence is politicised in public discourse. Each carries knowledge not taught in textbooks, knowledge of surviving erasure, managing double consciousness, and resisting dehumanisation.

These clients may teach us something we cannot learn in a classroom: that language can liberate or harm, that silence can be protective or imposing, that dignity can be reclaimed even in the most hostile environments.

Moving towards a more inclusive practice

As therapists, we hold a level of power. It can be valuable for us, as therapists, to reflect on how colonial histories may shape our perspectives and practices. This way, we can start to see our clients with a new lens.

We must hold space for ambivalence, where the client may feel both pride in their identity and grief for what they have lost or been denied. We must hold space for both.

We need to be accountable to the reality that the client is the expert of their own experience; our role is to witness their story.

What I believe to be the most important thing we can do to decolonise our practice is to let the space be a place for rehumanisation, where the client is not just coping but allowed to flourish, imagine, rage, play, and rest.

The wisdom of oppression is not about glorifying suffering. It is about honouring the knowledge that lives in the margins, the insight born out of endurance, and the potential for transformation even in the face of systemic harm.

As therapists, our invitation is to listen, not just to pain, but to the wisdom within our clients' experiences.