(HS 059261 Fielding 2023) Debunking the Safety Myth: A New Framework for Healing Amidst Uncertainty

Course overview

Psychotherapists often presume that most forms of deep healing can take place only after we support a client in establishing a sense of safety. However, insisting on establishing a sense of safety can be countertherapeutic and invalidating for clients who are members of marginalized groups. A reliance on feeling safe may set up an impossible expectation for our clients, namely, that they can and should be able to feel safe in a profoundly unsafe world. In place of the safety axiom, this workshop will propose engaging our clients, and particularly those from marginalized communities, in nurturing a sense of boundedness. I propose boundedness as a framework that is more culturally humble and allows us to support a client in sitting in the kinds of decidedly queer ambivalence, ambiguity, and uncertainty that are essential to growth, change, healing, and coming into relationship with our embodied selves.