By: Lucia Sarmiento Verano

^{Featured photo credit: Ramez E. Nassif}

I voted in the UKCP chair elections for the first time this year. I voted with one intention: not letting the alt-right, transphobe, anti-EDI, conspirationist candidate pass. It was a vote without passion and without hope. The other candidate is not “better” in my perspective. Actually, I don’t know her, she just looks like more of the same, EDI-friendly white woman, paying lip-service to equality, embodying all that I described as the tensions and contradictions of liberalism in my previous blog: speaking of equality while reproducing the oppressive violence of the system.

Liberalism like this is the key element that allowed far-right and fascist ideas become so entrenched in our society. So no, I do not think liberalism (or progressiveness) is good, sometimes it’s not even the better of two evils. It puts people to sleep. Liberalism (and EDI) is that insidious voice that will tell you repeatedly that everything is going in the right direction and that we are working for equality, while funding genocide and ecocide. We should see it for what is truly is: not the bulwark against fascism, but the bulwark against radical and meaningful transformation for liberation. Within this system, white women, who can sometimes be spearheads to the authoritarian far-right, are usually the main protectors and enactors of this harmful liberalism in many fields, including the therapeutic professions in which they are majority.

Speaking recently with a colleague of mine over zoom, made me think it was time to revisit what I had previously said about white womanhood, innocence and its harms in the profession. I wish to expand on it in light of recent events and making links with my thoughts about liberalism. As I will mention later, this is not a mindset or an attitude that is exclusive to women. However, given gendered norms, it is prevalent in fields where attitudes considered traditionally feminine, such as empathy and care, are encouraged. Male therapists are equally capable of what I am about to describe, but it is no coincidence that the therapeutic professions are largely populated by white women.

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The benevolent therapist

I have written about Benevolent Whiteness as a concept and its links to white womanhood in the therapeutic field elsewhere so I will not repeat myself here. But I’d like to slightly expand on that and link it to the liberal mindset of our system. As I stated before, Benevolent Whiteness (Bauer, 2017) and helper stances foster a good and innocent self image. Often this positive self-image is a core part of the therapist’s sense of self, and a need that defends against narcissistic wounds, conditions of worth, introjections, or however else we name what hurt and shamed us over the years.

Benevolent Whiteness has its gendered counterpart in what existential counsellor and Professor Clemmont E. Vontress named the ‘Great White Father Syndrome’ (1981). He argues this derives from colonial paternalism and the need of white therapists to retain power and dominance in the relationship with a Black client. A re-enactment of collective colonial relations of sorts.

Obviously, a self-image of innocence and moral purity cannot rest on our reality as human beings. We are imperfect, flawed and as capable of harm as of good deeds. Thus, this self-image is a construction, and it is fragile. It needs to be maintained, almost forcefully, as it does not rest on reality. This is often done through actions, and relies on feedback on those actions as well as external sources of reassurance. It also has its defence mechanisms to respond to challenges, as we will see in the next sections.

The actions and feedback needed to maintain the image of benevolence often relate to forms of unconscious or disavowed processes therapists may establish, beyond their awareness, with clients (or Others outside of a therapeutic relationship). This makes for highly ambivalent counter-transferential material and motives for working with marginalised clients. For example, seeking signs of acceptance, approval or even forgiveness from clients who hold marginalised identities, forms of absolution from of any guilt, real or imagined for being racist (Jones and Seagull, 1977) or otherwise oppressive. This, while maintaining a need for power as described above.

We start seeing now how these dynamics centre the therapist’s unconscious or disavowed needs instead of the client’s, becoming extractive. They encourage objectification of the client or Other who is then positioned as a mean to help the white subject develop her sense of self (Fanon, 1986). The counterpart of this objectification, what Fanon describes as the black man’s lack of ontological resistance in the eyes of the white man, is the solipsism of the white experience (Romdenh-Romluc, 2024), meaning its self-centredness.

Now let’s take this one step further. Given the power differentials ever present in a therapeutic dyad, could we consider that a version of this ontological power dynamic is reproduced in the therapeutic relationship? What are therapists without their clients?

As therapists, the dyad is a space where we can constitute our selves as healthy, regulated, bearers of knowledge and wisdom, and, most importantly, as benevolent helpers. This, in opposition to the vulnerable, dysregulated, lost, distressed person we have in front of us. An unconscious process of course, as we do care and empathise with our clients (for the most part, although at times, empathy seems to be conditional). However, this unconscious or disavowed paternalistic process is part of what makes Benevolent Whiteness such an appropriate concept to describe therapists. WE are not MAD after all. Working with people in distress reminds us of that, and of the position we hold with pleasure. What are the needs of the therapists that clients unwittingly come to fulfil?

This is part of what makes the therapeutic relationship fertile soil for power reenactments and reproduction of oppressive dynamics. I will take more time to develop this line of thought on a later blog, for now we’ll stick to the links to a liberal mindset and harm.

Well-meaning liberals have often been accused of paternalism, extractivism, and self-centredness. Benevolent therapists are not an exception to these disempowering attitudes. For example, much like in the drama triangle, the rescuer, here the benevolent white liberal, places themselves in a position of superiority, of “knowing better” how to help the victim. This robs the client from their own agency to determine how to heal and thrive. It also places them in an inferior position, not “capable” of knowing what they need, nor capable of enacting change themselves, and susceptible to be persecuted and punished for not conforming to their role of “good victim”.

Disobedience and trying to reclaim a sense of agency in the process will be labelled as resistance or acting out by a benevolent therapist, and will be dealt accordingly. We will speak about forms of punishment but before I will touch on how therapeutic practice is used itself, as a form of defence of this innocent self-image and as a barrier to challenges.

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Therapeutic practice as defence

Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi do a great job of problematising the notion of dialogue (2022). They remind us that “calling for dialogue” can serve to shut down dissent or disruption to the status quo and to reproduce harmful power dynamics. In situations of oppressive harm, and when this dialogue people call for does not explicitly consider, hold, and manage real power differentials between the two parties that are called into dialogue, it only serves to distract from oppression. It creates the illusion of equality where there is none, and it absolves privileged/powerful people of their responsibility in harm and repair. Often placing that responsibility on the oppressed or harmed people as a result. White solipsism demands absolution and forgiveness in these occasions, so it can feel better without accountability.

This happens in therapy too, sometimes verbatim, sometimes in slightly different ways. Therapists won’t often call for “dialogue” as such, but will use different language: empathy, open-mindedness, reflexivity or curiosity. The underlying dynamics are the same. Let me paint you a picture. One I have personally witnessed more than once.

A therapist who has significant experience, a good network and has held powerful positions within the profession posts about current situations on social media. She is called out by another therapist, who somewhat confrontationally perhaps, points out that her declaration is made from a position of privilege and does not leave space for marginalised voices. Being called out and directly confronted with the reality of her power and potential to harm or exclude, the first therapist responds by demanding “more empathy” and more attention to the “nuance of her own experience”. She denies her privilege by invoking her working-class background or the amount of work it took for her to get to her current position. Her identity as a woman in a sexist world and any other identity that fits the bill (or a combination of those) is also mentioned, as well as her initial intentions behind her post, which were good. Immediately other big therapy voices jump into the exchange forming a bandwagon of sorts, asking for attention to nuance, for increased empathy, for respecting and being curious about everyone’s experience and perspective. They directly call out the person who pointed out the power imbalance in the first place for their “bullying” behaviour and they make a point to remind us all that we should know better as therapists.

In this scenario (that is not invented), powerful voices have effectively shut down any possible and necessary conversations about power, privilege and harm before they could even occur. They simply did this by invoking therapeutic stances, skills and theory: empathy, curiosity, UPR, and whatever else they decide to add into this gaslighting and silencing mix. They have done so while maintaining, internally and externally, a “good” image and a position of moral superiority. The person who tried to open the conversation about power is now labelled aggressive, divisive, and publicly shamed.

Liberal defensive moves in therapy show up as seeking nuance and curiosity just in the moments where confrontation to the reality of power or harm is needed. Equally when seeking such nuance and curiosity is indeed needed, for example, attending to power differentials and experiences of marginalised people with care, it is often not done. As described in the previous vignette, marginalised voices are cruelly shut down.

Selectively affording care and curiosity like so reveals the sense of entitlement to space by white therapists. It is often done to centre themselves. It also reveals the sheer incapacity to centre Other voices, which corresponds directly to how colonial racism operates as described by Fanon. I hope these examples are clear enough in showing how therapeutic attitudes, curiosity, reflexivity or empathy are used as defence against facing our own harmful position in society. Not as a way forward. And this is why it is nearly impossible to have a discussion about oppression with a trained therapist.

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Specific Forms of Punishment

As specified in the first part to this blog, the liberal well-meaning mindset also includes classifications on who is ‘right’ and ‘capable’ (through ability or education) to decide and govern, or to uphold the ‘rule of law’. Similarly, in the mental health field, doctors, psychologists and therapists hold the right knowledge and skills to help, to cure, to diagnose or at least to determine what’s wrong, why it is wrong and what are the causes. Like I said above, therapists are not MAD, which makes them the ’right’ ones to determine what is going on with ‘lucidity’.

It is, again, a question of power. Power wielded through an image of benevolence. And despite what many practitioners will tell you, especially those working within a person-centred approach, power is ever present. It is never equalised. In the therapeutic relationship, power comes as the means to determine boundaries, hold space and hold thoughts based on theoretical knowledge on what the processes at hand are. As therapists, we also hold a certain idea of what the process ought to be, about the outcomes and about what needs to be addressed and how. Yes, the very person-centred notions of self-actualisation and the human as a potato (person-centred therapists will understand the reference) are also part of therapeutic power. Self-actualisation is a framework, an imagined way to depict and interpret human minds, experience and potentials. A construct that will then be used to understand clients’ experiences, and to punish those who do not fit it, for being different, holding some sort of deficit, being “resistant” or “difficult”.

It may seem odd to speak of punishment in therapy, but let’s remember it is a field guided by normativity, where ideas of healthy and unhealthy minds, relationship or processes are key. As such, therapy has its own version of the ‘rule of law’, what things are right or wrong, and it also has its forms of punishment. The most obvious ones are related to carceral forms of practicing therapy: diagnosing, sectioning, calling the police (Prevent), etc. But much more subtle forms of punishment are also to be found in therapeutic relationships.

They often happen in the encounters with the therapist’s defence mechanisms. Perhaps the client did not fit the projection of ‘the good client’ or the ‘due process’ of therapeutic work and this challenges the therapeutic framework. It is necessary as practitioners to reflect on the dynamics that unfold when our need to be helpers, or our need to feel like a good person, are not fulfilled. What happens when Benevolent Whiteness is not satisfied? When the therapists unconscious need for approval from a marginalised client is not fulfilled, when their hidden guilt, sometimes the driver for offering therapy to marginalised clients, is not soothed?

When the Other is resisting objectification either as racialised other, or as therapised other, or both, is does not allow the subject (white, therapist or both) to use them to construct a positive sense of self. Worse even, a client might confront the therapist not only to their own incapacity to be benevolent, to but their own madness.

One form of punishment was described in the previous section. It was unleashed when powerful therapists were confronted to their inadequate benevolence, and happened through their defence mechanisms. Silencing and shaming are a common result. We may also consider more profound forms of harm. When, through a benevolent therapists disavowed search for power or absolution, a client is robbed of their own power to develop a sense of self on their own terms. Depending on positionalities and possible colonial re-enactments within the relationship, therapy is susceptible to colonising the client.

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Confronting your shadow: enjoyment

Now, there’s one more point relating to benevolence and liberalism that needs to be made clear. I’ll say this in the only way I know how to, which is bluntly: there is a certain pleasure in feeling superior. Whether it is moral superiority, because we are “good” helpers, benevolent, empathetic and open-minded, or superior in our role and knowledge of the therapeutic process, or even because we feel we are not MAD when we are in the room… or a combination of all of these. To understand this, we might want to get acquainted with the notion of enjoyment, and with how natural it is in the human experience.

When I speak of enjoyment here, I refer to the definition given by Derek Hook in his analysis of racism: an excess of affect that is disavowed (but not repressed or unconscious), and is transgressive in relation to socially prescribed limits (Hook, 2017). The enjoyment of feeling superior transgresses liberal values of equality, which is why it is often difficult to name and confront. Hook adds: “our own enjoyment is, for the most part, repulsive to us, and needs to be kept at arm’s length” (Hook, 2017, 612). A situation in which it becomes explicitly visible is when liberals point fingers at the far-right (“THOSE racists over there”), or when benevolent therapists speak of “bad” and harmful therapists:

“First, the case of the morally outraged subject that, in taking exception to some or other deplorable state of affairs, experiences a giddying righteousness, a voluptuous contempt, in condemning what he or she sees before them.” (Hook, 2017, p.607)

The fact that this type of enjoyment is disavowed rather than unconscious or repressed means it is denied but still quite evident. And believe me it is evident to the people who are on the receiving end of that liberal moral superiority. Enjoyment is present when we hate another group whether is it a minority, or the group that hates minorities. It is also evident through the benevolent helper’s aid, the white saviour, the European liberal or leftist who knows “what’s right” because she is educated, rational, and well-intentioned. And she WILL know what’s right for you, even better than yourself.

I speak of the enjoyment of feeling superior without the intention to shame anyone. But I speak confidently and assertively on it, and decide to confront you on it, because I know it. I have felt it myself, in those times of educated liberal self-complacency, as someone who also holds privilege in many ways. I have bathed in it in the company of my fellow “like-minded” people and now recognise its putrid smell wherever I go.

As I said, my intention is not to shame, but you might still experience shame when confronting your shadow. It’s alright. We need more people confronting this reality with integrity, learning to bear the shame gracefully and practicing decentring from oneself. I have written more in depth about this as well. This is the only way to begin challenging and dismantling the oppressor within and without, so I trust you will respond to my invitation to examine the ways in which you have used innocence and punishment to preserve a benevolent sense of self.

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REFERENCES

Bauer, N.K. (2017) ‘(En)Gendering Whiteness: A Historical Analysis of White Womanhood, Colonial Anxieties, and “Tender Violence” in US Schools’, PhD Thesis, University of California, Berkeley. Viewed 15 February 2023: https://escholarship. org/uc/item/5732t2x2

Fanon, F. (1986) Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press.

Hook, D. (2017) What is “Enjoyment as a Political Factor”?, Political Psychology, 38:4, pp. 605-620

Jones A. & Seagull A.A. (1977) Dimensions of the relationship between the black client and the white therapist: a theoretical overview. American Psychologist. 32. Pp850-855.

Romdenh-Romluc, K. (2024), Fanon, the body schema, and white solipsism. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 62: 110-123.

Sheehi, L. & Sheehi, S. (2022) Psychoanalysis Under Occupation. New York: Routledge.

Vontress C.E. (1981) Racial and Ethnic Barriers to counselling. In P.B. Pedersen, J.G. Draguns, W.J. Lonner and J.E. Trindle (eds.) Counselling across cultures. 3^rd edn, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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