Coloniality and psychotherapy: Discussing a journal special issue

This article discusses how psychotherapy addresses coloniality and how this topic is explored in a special issue of a journal devoted to the subject. It argues that psychotherapy cannot be separated from global dynamics of inequality, necropolitics, and epistemic domination that shape both therapists and clients. Drawing on thinkers such as Quijano, Wallerstein, Fanon, and Mbembe, the authors situate current psychotherapeutic practice within the neoliberal capitalist process of the widespread colonial commodification of humanity. Reviewing and discussing the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling special issue on decolonising psychotherapy, the article highlights contributions that expose racism, coloniality, and exclusion in training and clinical practice. These works propose decolonial, intersectional, and culturally grounded approaches that challenge Western epistemological dominance. While acknowledging the issue’s value, relevance, originality, and reflexivity, the authors note its limited critique of psychotherapeutic theory and practice, scarce engagement with Indigenous or non-Western knowledges, and omission of the connection between capitalism and colonialism. This omission, they argue, prevents us from recognizing what Mbembe described as the ‘becoming-black of the world’.