Reynolds, V. & Hammoud-Beckett, S. (2018). Social Justice Activism and Therapy: Tensions, Points of Connection, and Hopeful Scepticism. In Audet, C. & Pare, D. (Eds.) Social Justice and Counselling. NY: Routledge p. 3-15.

This writing invites a critique of the tenuous, strained, yet hopeful relationship between social justice activism and therapy (Reynolds & Hammoud-Beckett, 2012). It addresses the tensions of therapy replicating oppressive practices, and invites a critique of our practice with an aim to move us more in line with our collective ethics for justice doing (Reynolds, 2009; Reynolds & polanco, 2012). This critique entails addressing our positioning in relation to power, privilege, and disadvantage; resisting neutrality and taking overt positions for justice-doing; naming and beginning to respond to white supremacy and colonialism in our traditions f practice; problematizing our relationship to social control and social change in our work; and resisting competition as affronts to our solidarity. A critical engagement with reflective practice will be offered (Friere, 1970; Tomm, 1985), inviting a hopeful scepticism (Kvale, 1996; Ricouer, 1970) about our practice enacting the ethics we espouse. Our hope is to breathe life into our ethical engagement with practice, an move towards justice-doing in our work.

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