Middle-Class / White / Woman: The Unexamined Center in Expressive Therapies Education
Counseling psychology and the expressive therapies are majority-white, majority-female professions, and whiteness is the unnamed, normative center of expressive therapies and drama therapy education. As a middle-class white woman, I posit that by failing to examine this center we risk perpetuating the same systems that exacerbate our own and our clients' suffering. I review the available literature and investigate the socio-historical, cultural, and political significance of whiteness and the historical role of white women in maintaining oppressive systems. I then explore the identity reconstruction process for white people seeking to divest from whiteness, specifically looking at the key emotions of guilt and shame. I review how whiteness asserts itself in therapeutic encounters and discuss the need for further research. Finally, I advocate for increased support for therapists-in-training taking on this process.