Our Values: Politics, Social Justice, and Therapy
Tribeca Therapy strives to be an expression of our shared values as therapists, most notably our belief that intimacy and emotionality have an important place in the project of social justice and that social justice has an important place in the project of therapy. We believe that decency, equity, and creating a good life are all central to the practice of therapy and that therapy has a role in questions of morality and political identity.
Pretending that therapy can exist without political and moral implications—that therapy can be somehow value-neutral—makes it impossible to address key political questions long ignored by the field of psychotherapy, especially those of race and equity. We believe that all therapists must be fluent in the complicated racial history of mental health treatment and be intent on changing it. We are committed to the affirmative inclusion of all gender expressions and sexual orientations. Our mission is to move beyond the rhetoric of tolerance and inclusion and towards the objective of being fluent in matters of clinical importance to marginalized people who seek our help.
Because many significant aspects of emotional life have so often been rendered taboo, we strive to speak to and build fluency in uncomfortable topics like sex and sexuality (including not having sex), bodies (including bodies of difference, as locations and storage centers of trauma, as harmed, discriminated against, or ignored, and as locations of beauty and pleasure), privilege, pain, and trauma.
Foremost in the execution of these values is respect for the intensive practices through which therapists become great therapists. This includes a primary commitment to self-work—the process in which a therapist confronts the challenges of the work, as laid bare in clinical situations and supervision, as opportunities to grow emotionally, intellectually, and professionally. At Tribeca Therapy, community and collaboration are central catalysts for self-work, with both peers and supervisors invested in identifying areas of development and acting as support.