Unlearning, Remembering, Becoming: A Decolonial Workshop for Healers

Workshop Overview:

This interactive workshop invites clinicians, therapists, and healers into a grounded, embodied exploration of what it truly means to decolonize a therapeutic practice, starting with The Self. We will begin with a concise and accessible look at the history of colonialism and coloniality, tracing how these forces have shaped the theories, norms, and power structures embedded within the mental health field.

From there, participants will explore four core areas of practice that can be actively decolonized, examining where colonial patterns show up in their clinical decision-making, therapeutic stance, institutional contexts, and relationships with clients.

A central focus of the workshop will be identity work: understanding how our own identities, lived experiences, and internalized hierarchies shape the way we show up in the room.

Through reflective prompts and guided discussion, clinicians will begin to unlearn inherited colonial frameworks, reconnect with their own sources of knowing, and practice the kind of self-decolonization that allows for more liberated, relational, and culturally rooted care.

By the end, participants will leave with a clearer sense of their own decolonial path, practical starting points for transforming their practice, and an expanded orientation toward justice-centered healing.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this HIGHLY workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify key ways colonialism and coloniality have shaped contemporary mental health theories, practices, and power structures.
• Describe the four core areas within a therapeutic practice that can be actively decolonized (self, theory, relationship, and structure.)
• Engage in decolonial identity work by examining their own positionalities, internalized norms, and lived experiences.
• Begin to apply decolonial principles to their clinical practice through reflective, relational, and justice-oriented strategies that center client autonomy, agency, and cultural rootedness.

Fees & Logistics:

• The workshop starts at $50. This rate is intended for BIPOC participants, students, interns, and unlicensed community workers. We operated on equitable basis, we encourage those with more privelege + power to pay at the higher tiers.
• The workshop will be recorded, participants will have access to the recording for 90 days. Live attedance, while encouraged it not mandatory.
• This workshop is open to international audiences.
• No CEs will be offereds due to the nature of decolonizing.

LWN Group Agreements:

1.Take Space, Make Space:We come as humans first, ready to unlearn, learn, and be held with humility. No one is the expert in this space. Contribute to the collective, not from a place of extraction. Practice Take Space, Make Space to balance voices in the room.

2.Honor Lived Experience:Lived experience is sacred knowledge and holds equal, if not greater, value than degrees, certifications, or titles. Ancestral, somatic, spiritual, collective, or individual—every path to healing is valid. There is no “one right way” to care for ourselves or others

3.Acknowledge Power and Privilege:Recognize how power, privilege, and access show up in the room. Decenter yourself when needed and amplify voices often silenced or overlooked.

4.Address Harm with Care:Mistakes will happen. When harm occurs, approach it with care and accountability as acts of love and repair, without shame or punishment.

5.Be Real and Human:Show up imperfect, messy, and authentic. This is not a space for performative healing or professionalism. Show up as you are, honoring your needs...eat, drink, or turn off your camera as needed. Assume others are coming from a place of good intentions.

6.Align with Liberation: This space is rooted in radical values like liberation, disability justice, abolition, and anti-Zionism. Respect these principles.

7.Maintain Confidentiality: Protect the confidentiality of any clients or personal stories shared in this space.