The Role of Feminist Therapy in Healing Trauma
- Ariel Seale
- Oct 7
- 3 min read
If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to understand the deeper meaning of your experiences, you may be asking the kinds of questions that feminist therapy is built to explore. That’s because feminist therapy is grounded in the idea that personal healing requires a good hard look at the world around us. It’s a client-centred approach to therapy that considers how gender, power, and systemic inequality impact all of us (and I mean all of us) in different ways.
So, if this speaks to something you’ve been wondering about, I invite you to keep reading.
Understanding Feminist Therapy
Feminist therapy isn’t necessarily defined by a set of practices, it’s defined by perspective. A perspective that systems of power – like patriarchy, racism, classism, ableism, and other forms of oppression – shape our personal experiences and our wellbeing. As a therapeutic approach, feminist therapy challenges the idea that trauma exists in a vacuum and instead recognizes that trauma often stems from social and cultural environments that devalue or marginalize people based on aspects of their identity.
You might be asking, how exactly does this work in therapy? In practice, feminist therapy involves exploring how trauma is connected to social messaging. A feminist therapist supports their clients to identify what they were taught to believe about themselves as a result of trauma. That might include internalized shame, guilt, or self-blame. So, feminist therapy doesn’t just focus on symptom relief, it’s all about helping people to build a more conscious and empowered relationship with themselves and the world around them.
Application in Trauma Therapy
Feminist theories had a big influence on early understandings of trauma, so it can be said that trauma treatment implicitly includes feminist principles. That said, there are some key techniques and benefits when it comes to feminist approaches to healing from trauma.
Let’s look at a few:
Empowerment focus: Individuals are viewed as the experts of their own life, leading to a more empowered, collaborative healing process.
Contextualizing trauma within social, political, and cultural systems allows individuals to see that their challenges aren’t a result of personal weakness.
Cognitive reframing: This component of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be used to help individuals to replace harmful, self-blaming internalized beliefs about their trauma with more self-compassionate ones.
“The believing game” describes the process of deeply hearing and validating those who have experienced trauma, helping them to reclaim trust in their own voice.
Together, these techniques create space for individuals to understand and reshape their story in a way that honours their identity and their strengths.
How Bold Lotus Implements Feminist Trauma Therapy
If this sounds relevant to you, or you are seeking feminist trauma therapy in London, Ontario, look no further. At Bold Lotus Trauma Therapy, feminism is more than just theory, it is a guiding framework. We believe that healing from trauma is most meaningful when we understand the social context in which it occurs.
Our team of trauma-informed therapists embody feminist principles in every aspect of care, offering therapeutic support that is:
Individualized to each client’s unique identity and experience;
Evidence-informed, including use of modalities like CBT, DBT, and EMDR; and
Validating: A supportive space where power dynamics are explored, not reinforced.
At Bold Lotus, healing means being seen, believed, and supported in ways that honour your past, present, and future.
Healing Through Empowerment
To sum things up, healing is deeply connected to how we understand ourselves in the world, and feminist therapy provides an avenue for this kind of exploration. Feminist therapy doesn’t just help people to heal, it helps them to transform. By centring gender, power, and social contexts in the therapeutic journey, together we can remember that trauma is not a result of personal weakness, but of deeply unjust experiences.
Whether you’ve experienced trauma yourself, or someone exploring therapy, feminist therapy offers a path to meaningful, lasting empowerment. If you are interested in learning more about how our therapists can support you on this path, click the link below.
