Therapists Are Responsible to Speak Up
If you’ve ever been told that therapists should be “unbiased” or “apolitical,” it’s time for some clarity.
At Nido Individual & Family Therapy, we believe it’s important for clients and community members alike to understand that neutrality, when it comes to injustice, is not a therapeutic virtue — it’s a form of complicity.
In fact, therapists in California are ethically required to take a stand. According to the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS), all licensed therapists must adhere to the ethical codes outlined by their professional organizations, such as the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) or the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).
These codes don’t just give therapists permission to acknowledge injustice — they insist on it.
CAMFT’s Code of Ethics states that therapists are expected to:
“…be aware of and address the role of social, cultural, and political factors in the lives of clients and in the practice of psychotherapy.”
(Principle I, Section 1.1)
The NASW Code of Ethics is even more direct:
“Social workers challenge social injustice. Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people.” (Ethical Principle #2)
This isn’t a side note — it’s central to the ethical practice of psychotherapy. Our role is not just to help individuals “cope” with their pain in isolation, but to understand where that pain comes from, and to advocate for a world in which less of it exists.
We cannot call ourselves “trauma-informed” while turning a blind eye to the very systems that produce trauma: racism, colonization, anti-queer legislation, displacement, incarceration, poverty. These aren’t abstract issues. They live in the nervous systems, relationships, and survival strategies of our clients. They show up in the therapy room every day.
Therapists are entrusted with people’s most vulnerable truths. With that comes responsibility — not only to the person in front of us, but to the conditions that shaped their suffering. We don’t get to hear someone’s story and then pretend it has nothing to do with politics, policy, or power. To be a therapist is to bear witness and to respond.
At Nido, we hold this responsibility with deep care. Being ethically grounded means standing in solidarity with those who are most harmed by the systems we live in. It means practicing in a way that doesn’t just seek individual healing, but collective liberation.
So no, we are not neutral. We are therapists because we care about justice. Not in spite of it.
