Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This qualitative study was an exploration of the impact of classism in the therapeutic alliance, specifically from a power, privilege, and oppression framework, and with attention to participants’ salient intersecting identities. Twelve clinicians, who identified with working class backgrounds and who had engaged in therapy as both clinicians and clients, engaged in semistructured qualitative interviews. The findings indicated that classism was salient to participants’ intersectional subjectivities and to their experiences in the field. Significantly, participants all named experiences in which a systemic lack of attention to classism and/or social class identities led them to feel alienated and silenced as students, professionals, and clients. Participants linked their own classist experiences with stronger motivations to remain class conscious as therapists and to address class differences openly in order to strengthen their therapeutic alliances. Implications for future research, social work education, and clinical social work practice are discussed.
Author: Taylor Millard
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2751748706