DISMANTLING POWER & PRIVILEGE

Dismantling Power & Privilege is a space for non-BIPOC students to do the work of identifying and rooting out the many ways in which we participate in and benefit from racism and white-supremacy. Blind spots, missteps, fears, ignorance’s, privileges and places where we are conflicted will all have a place here. The goal of the group is for each person to feel seen and heard from a non-judgmental place that can allow the group to have difficult discussions about privilege, internalized racism, and how we unconsciously cause harm to clients of color and/or clients with other marginalized identities. Self-awareness is the foundation upon which systemic change can occur. We are committed to growing in anti-racism and creating accountability and healing spaces where we’ve caused harm. This group facilitates a space to process other areas of power and privilege, including but not limited to: ableism, sizeism, gendered power, heterosexism, etc.

MONTHLY MEETINGS

This group is for current MFT students and alumni of the program.

As of September 2024, group meetings are currently on pause while we welcome our new group leader. Please check back for more information.

To join or inquire further, please email mfth@plu.edu

GUEST SPEAKERS: (TBD)

Colleen Young - MA, LMFT Group Facilitator

As cofounder and clinical director of Liberating Jasper, an eating disorder outpatient clinic in Tacoma, Colleen is able to bring a systemic social justice lens to the deep work of body liberation therapy. Colleen believes that in working to heal our relationship with food and body, we are working to free ourselves from the internalized systems of oppression that keep us small, complicit, and lacking a liberatory consciousness that leads to ultimate freedom and expression. Until all bodies are free, no body is free. Colleen works with folks who are living in the most marginalized bodies and for whom body liberation can be both a foreign and a life-saving concept. Facilitating the Dismantling Power and Privilege group is an exciting opportunity for Colleen to work with students in addressing the many ways our unacknowledged privilege plays a role in the marginalization of others. A self-identified radical therapist, she has always believed that therapy has the capacity to shift existing paradigms and be a vehicle for dismantling systems of oppression, both internal and external.