Kayla: Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast, and I'm your host, Kayla Das.
In today's episode, Mish Kumar Johnson, an accredited mental health social worker in Australia, and accredited EMDR practitioner, will discuss how to have an anti-oppressive and anti-colonial approach in your practice.
Hi, Mish. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today.
Mish: Thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited to dive into our chat today.
Kayla: Mish, before we dive into today's episode, please introduce yourself, where you're from, and tell us a little bit about your practice journey.
Mish: Mm. Well, I'm sitting on the unceded lands of the Woiwurrung, Wurundjeri, and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation, also known as Melbourne in Australia. And I pay my respects to First Nations Elders, both past and present.
I'm a non-binary queer neurodivergent mental health social worker of color. And I've been in the space for almost 13 years now as a mental health practitioner and more recently as an EMDR practitioner.
Kayla: Amazing. So, first of all, what does anti-oppressive and anti-colonial mean? In other words, how would you define both terms?
Mish: That's such a great question. Anti-oppressive practice is a framework that actively seeks to recognize, challenge, and dismantle systems of power and privilege that perpetuate things like inequalities, marginalization, and harm.
It really requires a commitment to understanding how intersectional identities, say such as race or gender, sexuality and class, shape a person's lived experience and their access to opportunities.
So, within mental health work, anti-oppressive practice involves four things:
1. One is centering marginalized voices.
2. Challenging power dynamics.
3. Prioritizing cultural humility. And
4. Then, having an action-oriented practice.
So, if you really think about it, an anti-oppressive lens is not passive. It's about recognizing complicity in systems of harm and then taking active steps to create a more equitable and affirming space for participants.
Then if we look at anti colonial practices, that goes one step further, because it explicitly challenges the legacies and ongoing impacts of colonization. And also acknowledges that colonial structures, say cultural erasure or resource exploitation, are still embedded today in institutions and practices.
So, within a therapeutic context, this means acknowledging and recognising colonial trauma, decolonising practice, so critically evaluating and transforming modalities. Uplifting Indigenous knowledge systems, but also interrogating your own neutrality. So, refusing to be neutral, for example, in the face of colonial violence.
So, what's the connection between the two? So anti-oppressive and anti-colonial practices are deeply interconnected. Colonization and colonialism is one of the most pervasive systems of oppression. And I find that its ripple effects go through multiple intersecting identities. And whilst anti oppressive work addresses forms of systemic inequity and specifically targets colonial histories and structures. It really seeks to address roots of that and continuing manifestations of that.
So, both frameworks require a commitment to dismantling oppressive systems while building practices and spaces that foster dignity and healing.
Kayla: You kind of touched on this, but what does it mean to be an anti-oppressive and anti-colonial practitioner? For instance, how would one demonstrate that they are anti-oppressive and anti-colonial in their practice without just saying that they are that?
Mish: Yeah, that's super fair. So, being anti colonial and anti-oppressive requires more than rhetoric, right? It's about embodying these principles through reflective action, structural change and accountability because it really demands critical awareness and participant-centered care with the commitment to dismantling and addressing the systems both inside and outside of the therapeutic space.
So, what does that look like in practice? That looks like critical self-reflection and accountability, so constantly interrogating your own positionality, biases, and power within therapeutic relationships and spaces. But also centering the lived experiences of marginalized communities. It also looks like adapting modalities and protocols. Like EMDR, for example, was developed within Eurocentric paradigms that may not fully align with the cultural realities, for example, of all participants.
And then it also looks like advocating beyond the therapy room. And some people say, well, how do I do that? And that could be things like a blog post. Having someone on your podcast, writing to a government official to advocate for change. There is a whole bunch of things you can do. It also looks like resisting what I call performative allyship and what a lot of people call performative allyship. So, it's not about optics or identity signaling, but it's about demonstrating principles through meaningful and authentic action and connection. And then the last two things is around prioritizing intersectionality and promoting identity affirming practices.
So, what's the key difference here? The key difference is a lived commitment where anti oppressive and anti-colonial work is grounded in tangible changes and systemic action. It's not a static identity of saying, I am a anti-oppressive, anti-colonial practitioner, but a lifelong practice of unlearning, relearning, and reimagining ways to really heal and support participants in the context of justice and equity.
Kayla: I love that. You use the word intersectionality. And just for any practitioner who may not have heard of that term before, tell us a little bit about that and how that shows up just in our practice as a whole.
Mish: Intersectionality examines overlapping systems of oppression. Such as racism, sexism, ableism, and really asks us to contextualize participants, their trauma or lived experience within systems that are intersecting. And allows us to really position people's experiences within all of their identities, rather than siloing out each identity as a problem and seeing the bigger picture.
Kayla: How have colonial frameworks shaped traditional mental health paradigms?
Mish: Colonialism has deeply influenced traditional mental health paradigms. So, it's embedded Eurocentric, individualistic, and hierarchical values that seek to marginalize non-Western ways of understanding and even addressing mental health.
So, I feel like this manifests in a few ways. One is Eurocentric worldviews, dominate mental health. So, they are prioritized and diagnostic models really dismiss cultural practices. Say for example, storytelling or even collective healing.
Then you have a pathologization of non-Western practices, which labels indigenous and cultural traditions as sometimes irrational, even primitive. These are excluded from mainstream care.
The other way it manifests is the individualization of trauma. So, it really isolates mental health struggles from systemic and historical oppression and invalidates the impact of colonization and systemic inequities. For example, racial discrimination can be treated as a personal anxiety rather than a response to systemic harm. And this is where it's removing the person from the systemic harm and saying, this seems like a you problem when it is a very valid response to what's happening.
Another few ways is a hierarchical power structure, which positions Western trained practitioners as experts and then silences participant knowledge and perpetuates mistrust in systems. And I also find that diagnostic models are used as control tools. So historically pathologize resistance to colonial systems such as pseudo-diagnosis and really justifies oppression.
I also find that structural barriers limit access to culturally safe care for marginalized communities. So, whether that's geographic barriers, financial barriers, or even cultural obstacles to those.
And then lastly, I find that there's an erasure of collective healing practices and individual therapy is prioritized over effective communal methods such as talking circles or group-based dance therapy, for example. So anti colonial practices require a recognition of colonial harm in the first place, but then seeks to uplift cultural practices and collaboration with communities to address systemic inequities in a way that creates inclusive and transformational systems that honor diverse ways of healing.
Kayla: I love that. So, we kind of talked about some ways that practitioners can include this into the practice. So many listeners here are creating their own private practices. So are there any specific, maybe even business-related models or anything that can be incorporated in the setup of their entire practice.
Mish: That's such a great question because, and I get asked this question so much. If we come back to anti-oppressive and anti-colonial practices are rooted in frameworks that seek to dismantle power imbalances, right?
The first way is through prioritizing intersectionality. So, we talked about examining overlapping systems of oppression, for example. And one of the ways someone can do that is within the intake form, when we're asking for histories, we ask it in a way that is intersectional rather than in a way that's around individual trauma. So, asking, are you connected to your cultural identities or your communities that you belong to? Another way of asking that is what are the different intersecting identities that you hold that impacts you, but is also impacted upon by systems around you.
So, one of the ways is that history taking intake stuff. The other way is Through feminist, therapy and theory, for example, that focuses on systemic oppression and power dynamics and gender inequities, and having on there, what is your pronouns? What is your gender? What is maybe your sexuality? What are your identities? How can I hold that within the therapeutic space to affirm your identity? So that's another way maybe some people have a 15-minute meet and greet session, and that's something that they can bring up during that session, right?
The other way is as a social worker, I have to mention systems theory. So, systems theory, it recognizes the interplay between individuals and broader societal systems. And one of the ways is during case conceptualization, looking at how are these networks relationally connected for this human? And what are the systemic barriers that this person is not only experiencing, but having to overcome on a daily basis because this fosters collective healing.
And then the last one I'd say is moving from a lens of self-care to collective care. So rather than speaking to people of how can you care for yourself, going towards how can you connect in with your community so that you care for others and they care for you. That is how we are embracing diversity of lived experiences, but this sense of community and collective care. And rejecting, which is a postmodern approach, rejecting universal truths that we need self-care. And we need to, I don't know, have a bubble bath and watch Netflix more, but really it's around coming to doing the hard work, which is authentically connecting with each other to heal. And you can really combine these frameworks by situating participants experiences within systemic context and collaborating on treatment goals rather than positioning yourself as the expert and telling people what they need and then also adapting protocols to honor cultural and relational needs. I think together these approaches create equitable, affirming, and transformational spaces of healing.
Kayla: That is so insightful. And you provided so many theoretical, practical, and even business-related strategies into today's episode. Do you have any additional advice or insights or even tips for listeners about how to have an anti-oppressive and anti-colonial approach in their practice?
Mish: Yeah. I actually have 10, so I'm going to go through them very quickly. But to adopt an anti-oppressive and anti-colonial approach is really a lifelong commitment. It is not a one and done. I go to one training or I listen to one podcast and then it's over. It really demands humility, reflexivity, as well as accountability.
Lifelong. In a lifelong way. So, practitioners need to focus on dismantling systemic harm, whilst also fostering equitable and affirming spaces for both participants, but also themselves. And one thing I want to really make clear is when I'm talking about these practices, I'm not just talking about these practices for participants. But also, for practitioners themselves to really reflect on how can I be anti-colonial and anti-oppressive towards myself. Right. And so, when I'm talking about these 10, I'm talking about them for participants, but also yourself as a practitioner.
So, the first one is humility and curiosity. So really recognizing your limitations and approach to participants experience with openness. I find so many practitioners say, I'm so scared of being in that room and not knowing what to say and not knowing what to do. And I say to people, voice that. Practice cultural humility. Say, I'd love to know more. Either you can tell me about it or point me in a direction and I can learn more about it so you don't have to do the work. Being really culturally humble and curious and open to feedback. So that's one.
The second one is reflexivity and self-awareness. So regularly interrogating your privilege, and we all have privilege, and biases, and reflecting on how they shape both your interactions, but also the way you see yourself and your position within the therapeutic space. So really being self-aware of, am I positioning myself in a way that makes me the expert or am I making this a collaborative approach to therapy? And that is from the way we practice modalities, but also the way we set up our therapeutic spaces, like the literal rooms having furniture for different people and abilities and body shapes and sizes to the heights of furniture and stuff like that.
The third one is building relationships with communities, rather than just looking at therapy as an individualistic one on one space, really engage with cultural leaders, grassroots organizations, and advocate to deepen your own understanding of marginalized realities. But your own reality and your own intersecting identities within this space and then being able to, from an authentic place, connect with people. So, this is where I say, which is the next one, when I'm supervising people, they come in and they say, okay, I've built rapport and I say, but have you built connection. Because when I'm making friends with someone, or I am going and saying hi to a new neighbor, or I am meeting with a new family member. I'm not going in going, okay, I have to build rapport. I have to build rapport. I have to build rapport. I'm going in to build connection. And that is how we can then build these authentic spaces of healing.
The fifth one is centering participants experiences and sharing power. Which I've already touched on, but being really intentional about that and not for an optics point of view. So really empowering participants to define goals and guide the interventions based on their body and their brain and how they see the world.
The next one is adapting protocols. I know modalities such as EMDR can seem quite fixed, but integrating cultural practices such as rituals or storytelling or spirituality, walking, nature can be so transformative to so many people and really avoids pathologizing behaviors that are then shaped by historical and systemic oppression.
So, then there's addressing structural inequities. Again, we've talked about this. But looking for funding so that you can offer scaling, say, services to people, writing position papers, as I talked about advocating for change and being able to Offer concessions, for example, to certain community groups through funding or even partnering with different organizations, which again, comes back to that collective care rather than self-care. For us here, but also for you in Canada and across the Americas is honoring indigenous sovereignty and acknowledging the land you work on and supporting indigenous led initiatives.
And then committing to learning and unlearning with others. So, I think historically we've committed to. What's the next new modality I'm going to learn? And what I say to people is, how are you going to unlearn and learn together? Maybe setting up journal clubs, maybe setting up book groups or whatever, or sharing with others. I've really learned this. And then sharing, I've learned this. How can we learn or unlearn together?
And lastly, which is the hardest one is embracing discomfort. And so, accepting critique as an opportunity for growth and then doing the inner work to say, why is this critique causing me discomfort? How can I grow in a way that I can have an open dialogue and connection with people and my supervisor so that if harm does occur, we can take accountability and work to repair that trust because that is showing participants you can do that in the therapy room and you can do that outside of the therapy room. That is healing in itself.
So, I've given you a lot to kind of think about.
Kayla: I love those tips and they all were like chronological. Structural in a way that we can actually put these into our practice. And one thing that you commented there, which I don't think I've ever talked about on the podcast. If I did, I can't remember, is you mentioned about finding funding that can help you with some of these initiatives. And I love that because I know here in Canada, there are different types of funding working with Indigenous populations, working with domestic violence, working with different populations across Canada.
And as a private practitioner, obviously, your living is income. But if you can receive some type of funding to help you with these initiatives so that you can still make a living, but be able to make change while you're doing it.
Mish: Absolutely. And I can give you an example, if that is helpful. So, we here work with an organization called GenWest, which is a local family violence organization. And the funding we receive from GenWest pays for someone's session, where someone might not be able to access EMDR to be able to work through, say, the trauma from family violence. But also, if the funding doesn't quite meet our fees or our payment needs, we then can get funding just to cover the outsourcing bit, or the participants themselves often can say, hey, I can afford that $20 or the $15 or whatever that is. So not only is it one making it more accessible, it's also empowering participants to say, I am prioritizing this. It's $10 or $20 or it's no dollars, but it just removes some of those systemic barriers that we talked about before. And we have partnered with a few organizations that fund us to deliver these services and really address those barriers, those financial barriers or geographical barriers that people experience.
Kayla: I love that. Mish, if a listener would like to connect with you, how can they?
Mish: I am on LinkedIn and Instagram. So, on LinkedIn it's Mish Kumar-Johnson, and on Instagram it is the Neuro Queer EMDR Therapist. There's a dot in there somewhere. I think it's neuro queer dot EMDR therapist, but y'all can have a play around with that.
But also, by email you can reach out to me via the Iceberg Foundation.
So that's [email protected].
And yeah, please reach out. I'd love to chat more about this. It's a big passion of mine.
Kayla: So, to connect with Mish, head to theicebergfoundation.org or you can email them at
[email protected].
Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.
Mish, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to have an anti-oppressive practice and anti-colonial approach in our practices.
Mish: No worries at all. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really great.
Kayla: Thank you everyone for tuning in to today's episode and I hope you join me again soon on the Designer Practice Podcast.
Until next time. Bye for now.
