Exploring Racialized Clients’ Experiences of Oppression During Counselling With White Therapists

Authors

Abstract

Research focusing on ethnicity and race in cross-cultural counselling has pointed to concerns of oppression within counselling processes; however, an open exploration of oppression that may occur in session is not readily available from the client perspective. With the aim of deepening understanding of oppression and power in cross-cultural counselling, this study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of oppression of five racialized clients who engaged in counselling with white therapists. Analysis of transcribed interviews resulted in three themes related to oppression in therapy: whiteness of therapy, therapist cultural positioning, and therapist approach to therapy. Findings support emerging theoretical understandings of in-session cultural oppression, nuance existing descriptions of microaggressions, and inform practical considerations for counsellors and educators, in the hope of preventing occurrences of oppression with racialized clients and disrupting dominant white expert discourses that may subvert the lived realities of racialized clients.

Author Biographies

  • Whitney Reinhart, University of Ottawa

    Whitney Reinhart has an M.A. in counselling psychology from the University of Ottawa. She is also a registered psychotherapist in Ontario and the director of the trauma clinic at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships. Her main research interests centre on racialized clients’ experiences within the psychotherapy setting, with attention to the broader social and relational contexts in which therapy occurs. Her clinical work focuses on individuals with complex trauma.

  • Cristelle Audet, University of Ottawa

    Cristelle Audet is an associate professor of counselling psychology at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education and a registered psychotherapist in Ontario. Her primary research interests and writing involve centring under-represented voices in therapy processes, particularly those of clients, and fostering therapy practices that are culturally responsive and socially just.

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Published

2026-03-02

Issue

Vol. 59 No. 1–4 (2025): Regular issue

Section

Articles/ Articles

License

Copyright is retained by the Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy.