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Anti-Oppressive & Anti-Racist Therapy in Ontario
The stress of navigating racism, discrimination, and systemic inequality is real. It accumulates over time. It affects the body, the nervous system, relationships, and the ability to feel safe in the world. And it's often invisible in traditional therapy, either ignored entirely, or inadvertently reproduced by a practitioner who hasn't examined their own assumptions.
At Gibson & Associates, anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice isn't a specialty add-on. It's a framework that shapes how we work with every client, including how we think about power, whose knowledge counts, and what we might be getting wrong.
What is anti-oppressive therapy?
Anti-oppressive therapy is a clinical approach that recognizes how power, privilege, and systemic inequality: including racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism, shape mental health and the experience of being in therapy. Rather than locating all distress within the individual, it acknowledges that social context is a legitimate and significant source of suffering.
It means your therapist understands that some of what you're carrying isn't personal. It means they don't ask you to adapt to systems that have caused harm. It means they examine their own assumptions and the ways that power moves inside a therapy room, including the power differential between therapist and client.
Why "culturally competent" isn't enough
Cultural competence: the idea that a therapist should learn about different cultures to serve diverse clients, is an improvement over ignorance, but it doesn't go far enough. It can still leave the therapist in the position of an expert on "other" cultures, which reproduces the very dynamics it's trying to address.
Anti-oppressive practice goes further: it requires examining power, including the therapist's own, and actively working against the reproduction of harm within the therapeutic relationship. It centres the client's knowledge of their own experience rather than positioning the therapist as the authority on what that experience means.
Intersectionality is central to this work. Race, gender, class, disability, sexual orientation, immigration status, and other dimensions of identity don't operate independently, they compound and interact in ways that shape a person's life and their experience of seeking help.
Who comes to us for this work
People come to us from a range of experiences and needs, including:
- BIPOC clients who have experienced racial trauma: the psychological impact of racism, discrimination, microaggressions, and systemic exclusion
- Clients whose identities have been pathologized or dismissed in previous therapy: who left feeling more damaged than when they came in
- 2SLGBTQ+ clients looking for affirming care that doesn't require defending or explaining their identities
- Immigrants and newcomers to Canada navigating the intersection of cultural displacement, loss, and the stress of settlement
- Anyone who has felt, in a therapy room, that part of them wasn't welcome and who wants to try somewhere different
What this looks like in practice
We don't ask you to explain your culture or background as if we know nothing. We don't treat your experiences of discrimination as something to work around or minimize. We don't position the therapeutic relationship as the only place healing happens, or suggest that insight alone is sufficient when the conditions causing harm remain.
When systemic factors are relevant: and they often are, we name them. We don't ask you to perform wellness in a way that requires you to set aside what you know about the world. We follow your lead on how much of this framing is useful to you in a given session.
We also hold ourselves to ongoing learning. Anti-oppressive practice isn't a credential that can be acquired once, it's a commitment to continued examination of assumptions, engagement with research and community knowledge, and accountability to the people we're trying to serve.
Find a Therapist in Ontario
Virtual sessions mean access to anti-oppressive therapy isn't limited by the demographics of any particular city or neighbourhood. We serve clients across Ontario, in addition to in-person appointments in London, Barrie, and Toronto. Our services are typically covered by extended health benefits, check with your provider.
Karen Van Esch
Katelyn Tigchelaar
Kristina Manouilenko
FAQs
No. Anti-oppressive therapy is relevant to any client whose identity or life experience intersects with systems of power: including gender, disability, class, sexuality, immigration status, or religion. It's also for people who are examining their own privilege and how it shapes their life and relationships.
We won't claim to fully understand your experience, because it's yours. What we will do is believe you, take it seriously, and work from within your frame of reference rather than asking you to fit ours. We're also transparent that our learning in this area is ongoing.
That experience matters, and we want to hear about it. Therapeutic harm: including harm related to race, identity, or cultural erasure, is real. We'd work carefully and transparently to build something that feels different, and we wouldn't ask you to simply trust us before you have a reason to.
Yes. Virtual sessions are available to clients anywhere in Ontario, which also means you're not limited by what's geographically close to you.
Yes. Affirming care for 2SLGBTQ+ clients is part of our practice. You don't need to explain or justify your identity, and we don't treat it as a presenting concern unless you bring it as one.
Still have questions?
You deserve a therapy space that doesn't ask you to leave part of yourself at the door. Book a free 15-minute consultation. In London, Barrie, Toronto, or online across Ontario.
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