How Therapy Should Meet You Where You Are
Therapy is meant to be a space where every part of you is welcome — but not everyone has always found it that way. For some, therapy has felt like another place they’ve had to explain themselves, defend their identity, or filter their words to be understood.
That’s where equality, diversity, and inclusion come in — not as buzzwords, but as the practical way we build genuine safety.
What EDI Really Means
People often hear “EDI” and think of workplace posters or policy documents. But in therapy, it’s personal. It’s about who gets seen, who feels comfortable speaking, and who gets the chance to heal without performing.
- Equality is about fairness — making sure everyone is treated without bias or exclusion.
- Diversity recognises that people bring different histories, identities, and experiences.
- Inclusion is what turns both into action — creating spaces that adapt to those differences rather than expecting people to shrink to fit.
Those three together form the foundation of trust in therapy.
“Ultimately, whenever we talk about discrimination, we’re talking about a lack of respect. When we talk about equality and inclusion, we’re talking about respect made visible — valuing difference rather than just tolerating it.”
It says a great deal about society that we’ve had to enshrine such things in law just to remind ourselves how to treat one another.
Why Equity Matters More Than Equality
Equality treats everyone the same. Equity recognises that not everyone starts from the same place.
If two people arrive at therapy — one with decades of being dismissed, the other rarely questioned — offering them identical treatment isn’t fair. Real equality means meeting people where they are, which sometimes means adjusting the pace, language, or structure to make sure the work is accessible and safe.
That might look like understanding cultural silence as protection rather than resistance, or noticing how class, disability, or neurodiversity shapes communication. It’s about curiosity over assumption.
The Emotional Cost of Not Being Seen
When therapy fails to recognise difference, it risks repeating the same harm clients face outside. Being misgendered, misunderstood, or invalidated doesn’t just sting — it reopens the wound of exclusion. For people already carrying discrimination, those moments confirm the old fear: even here, I’m not safe.
Therapy that takes inclusion seriously works the other way. It listens for the story behind the silence, the strength behind the adaptation, and the survival behind the shame. It doesn’t pathologise difference; it learns from it.
Bias: The Quiet Barrier
Every therapist brings bias — shaped by their upbringing, education, and culture. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make therapy safer; acknowledging it does.
Good practice isn’t about being “bias-free,” but about being self-aware and accountable. When bias goes unexamined, it becomes invisible architecture — shaping who gets empathy and who gets scrutiny.
In supervision and training, therapists should keep asking: whose stories do I understand easily, and whose do I find myself explaining away?
The moment we stop questioning our perspective, we start centring ourselves.
By having a life, I’ve been exposed to experiences, media and more, which has given me my perspective, but that’s not the only one in the world, and being open and curious, keeps it balanced.
That’s the point at which inclusion quietly disappears.
The Law and the Spirit
The Equality Act 2010 outlines the nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
Those are the categories through which society legally recognises unfair treatment.
But inclusion in therapy goes beyond compliance. The law is the minimum. The spirit is care — recognising that not all forms of difference are listed, and not all harm is visible. Poverty, accent, education, neurodivergence, HIV status — they shape lives too, even if they don’t sit neatly within the Act.
Therapy as a Space for Equity
Therapy should be an equaliser, not an amplifier of social gaps. That means:
- offering access that works for diverse needs (online, flexible, sensory-aware),
- using language that reflects the client’s world rather than professional jargon,
- and being open to feedback without defensiveness.
Inclusion isn’t a one-off checkbox; it’s a practice of humility. It asks therapists to adapt rather than expecting clients to translate themselves.
When that happens, therapy becomes what it was always meant to be — a genuinely safe space, not just a quiet one.
The Weight of Representation
For some clients, seeing someone who shares aspects of their identity brings a sense of ease and belonging; for others, difference can be equally valuable. What matters is that the therapist doesn’t centre their own identity as authority.
Representation matters — but so does respect. A good therapist doesn’t assume understanding simply because of similarity, or distance because of difference. They listen, check, and learn.
Beyond Awareness
Awareness without accountability changes nothing. A therapist can read endlessly about racism, ableism, or LGBTQ+ issues — but if they can’t hold the discomfort of their own blind spots, awareness remains theory.
Inclusion is tested not by what we know, but by how we respond when we’re corrected. Can we listen without defensiveness? Can we say “thank you” instead of “I didn’t mean it”?
Therapy is one of the few professions where vulnerability isn’t weakness — it’s required.
Society and the Mirror
Discrimination doesn’t exist only in individuals; it lives in systems — housing, healthcare, education, media. Therapy can’t dismantle those structures, but it can name them, and help people see that their pain isn’t personal failure.
The therapeutic space becomes a mirror for society: how do we treat difference? Who feels safe here? Who’s missing from the room?
When therapy learns to answer those questions honestly, it becomes part of the repair rather than the repetition.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion – are just ways of saying be respectful
Equality, diversity, and inclusion aren’t about political correctness; they’re about respect. When we recognise someone’s dignity and difference, we acknowledge their humanity.
Therapy’s task is to hold that humanity without condition — to offer what the world too often withholds.
It can’t fix inequality alone, but it can model a different way of relating: one built on curiosity, respect, and care.
Inclusion isn’t a policy — it’s how we look at another human being and decide they’re worthy of our respect.
How would you like someone to dismiss your lived experience? I know – i’d hate it – i’d rather someone be open, respectful and curious – it doesn’t mean they have to agree/approve.
