The Queer Arabs
The Queer Arabs
Alia, Ellie, Ahmed, Nadia and Adam
Episode 211 [in English]: Mental Health for Liberation
39 minutes Posted Nov 16, 2023 at 7:47 pm.
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Finlay Sarafa McHale is a queer Iraqi/Chaldean-American clinical social worker currently facilitating a free peer support group for queer SWANA people. They joined us for a wonderful conversation about how mental healthcare can be a tool for political liberation rather than means of detaching from it.  Finlay discusses censorship and Zionism in the mental health field, the challenges of developing culturally responsive practices in a profession with white-centric roots, and the myth of therapy as apolitical. They explain how traditionally strict expectations of “non-disclosure” regarding therapists’ personal or political perspectives can widen the power gap between therapist and client and…