Speaking of Racism: Policing in the Mental Health Industry [MAY 2021]

Audio Collection

Jan 10

Written By Ji Youn Kim

Podcast: Speaking of Racism

Episode: Policing in the Mental Health Industry

Episode Host: Gabes Torres

Episode Published: May 19, 2021

Duration: 64 min

Listen: Apple Podcast, Spotify

Read: Episode Transcript

I joined one of my beloved kin, Gabes Torres, on the Speaking of Racism Podcast as she was taking over the platform for the month of May 2021 in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month and Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

She invited me onto the podcast for a conversation about policing in the mental health industry. At the time, we were both deep in and new to the study of abolition which has been primarily pioneered by Black women and femmes in the so-called United States. Despite our newness, we wanted to specifically focus on the mental health industry’s complicity in the Prison Industrial Complex as it is not yet a part of standard industry discourse.

Topics of the episode include:

patriarchal, white supremacist histories of the mental health industry
the colonial beginnings of social work in so-called Canada
implications of mandated reporting in ongoing colonialism
therapists’ complicities in the capitalization and commercialization of healing
mental health industry as an extension of the state
the importance of envisioning alternatives and community-based, deinstitutionalized care
and more…

The episode also includes snippets by Gabes’ practitioner friends Ellen Cline and Bryan Brown, on how they practice anti-racist, anti-colonial approaches to healing.