Travis Heath Archives - Psychotherapy.net

Spitting Truth from My Soul: A Case Story of Rapping, Probation, and the Narrative Practices- Part II

Posted on February 2, 2023February 11, 2026 by Psychotherapy.net Team

Recapitulation

This is the second part of a two-part case story that focuses on a 24-year-old African American client named Ray who was referred to me (TH) by probation services. In this brief introduction I will try to summarize what transpired in Part I. Whenever possible, I will attempt to provide phrases or “pieces” of Ray’s language so the reader can begin to get a “feel” for him and our work.

Rap music was introduced as an entry point to our work. After our first session Ray could probably best be described as equal parts skeptical and intrigued. He enjoyed sharing rap songs that were meaningful to him as well as having the opportunity to create rhymes of his own.

We rather quickly discussed ways in which rap music was misunderstood (“Adults throughout my whole life telling me it’s violent and the music of the devil . . .”) and how others could not or were not willing to hear the important messages that can be contained within certain songs. We proposed a pair of magic headphones (“Magic Beats”) as a way to help those who would not listen begin to hear rap’s message. This idea will prove particularly important as our conversation progresses in Part II.

As our first conversation continued, we started exploring the sociopolitical implications of rap music and hip-hop culture. We framed rap as a kind of philosophy (“But without all the white cats . . .”) that served as a voice for the voiceless. We also stumbled across a connection between Ray’s grandmother and rap music (“I’m rapping about the same s**t she’s saying but in my own way . . .”). This struck him as perplexing (“That’s crazy bro . . .”) and also enlightening (“I never thought of it like that . . .”) given the disdain she had expressed for rap music throughout his youth. Our first meeting came to a close by having a conversation about our conversation.

We explored the difference between just talking and rapping, to which Ray responded, “It’s like when I rhyme . . . I spit truth from my soul.” We both agreed that inviting rap to our future meetings would be of benefit. More specifically, we discovered that rapping might serve as a pathway to liberation (“Remove the shackles from my soul . . .”). I invited Ray to consider composing a rhyme that paints the part of the picture that probation services doesn’t see. He responded enthusiastically but seemingly nervous that probation services would discover the way we were working and somehow veto it (“You’re the weirdest shrink they have ever sent me to. Not weird like bad, not bad at all, but does probation know you do this?”). We then decided that calling our work together a “studio session” was a better fit than therapy.

Ray picked up in our second meeting directly where he left off in the first. He came prepared with a rhyme that would be the foundation of a counter-story. He noted in that rhyme the importance of challenging rules (“Just because these are the rules you play the game by doesn’t mean these are the only rules . . .”). The conversation evolved into looking at whether or not Ray had found some ways of challenging rules more effectively than others. He then traced the relationship between rap and anger (“It’s like my anger would leave my mouth through my rhymes . . .”). Part I concluded with a pensive Ray searching for a rhyme that captured this most important function of rap music as an antidote to anger and aggression. The following rhyme picks up where our original story concluded.

An Antidote to Anger

Judicial system mad puzzling

DA presents two options
Jail cell or rat on my cousin
Death sentence if I’m released
Seen on the streets
All free
They’ll be like “who you dropped a dime on g’”
Obscene language make them ends
So I’m squeezing my pen
That’s mightier than the blade
Not trying to see death
Strategize and not be so impulsive
Quiet cats survive
Bullets for the ones boasting
Friday night drive on Colfax
Enjoying the madness
That was created by fascists
Reagan-nomics took our tools away it’s so savage
Regardless of politics
This my Mile High life
Shout out to my bail bonds-man.

Travis (T): What speaks to you in this verse?

Ray (R): The line, ‘So I’m squeezing my pen, that’s mightier than the blade,’ is the main one. I mean, the rhyme talks about the stress, the penitentiary, but then boom (begins rapping) So I’m squeezing my pen, that’s mightier than the blade.

T: Did you fight with your pen instead of your blade before you ended up on probation?

R: Usually, yes. But there are these times where I just lost it.

T: The pen was knocked out of your hand?

R: Yeah, you could say that.

T: What happens when the pen gets knocked out of your hand?

R: It’s like I’m a different person. I do these things I know are stupid, but I just do them, anyway. It makes no damn sense.

T: But when you have the pen?

R: I can do anything.

T: Would it be accurate to say that when you have the pen you can spit truth like you said in our last meeting and that’s when Ray The Philosopher comes out (I uttered the term Ray The Philosopher without giving it much thought and certainly without an understanding of how it would later be adopted in our work together)?

R: For sure. That’s kind of a dope name right there, brother… Ray The Philosopher (said with gusto)

T: Do many people in your life know Ray The philosopher?

R: My homies do.

T: Is there anyone else you can think of?

R: No, not really.

T: What do you think would happen if we introduced more people in your life to Ray The Philosopher and his rhymes?

R: I think it would be good, but like I said last time, nobody wants to listen. They think rap is corrupt.

T: What if we were to inform them that when you can think ahead and fight with your pen through rap it helps you avoid anger and thus probation? Do you think they know this about you?

R: Nah, they don’t know that. I still don’t know if they would hear me.

T: Even if they knew that it would help you avoid future relationships with probation, they still wouldn’t hear you?

R: (silence for 15-20 seconds) Maybe. I mean, I hope so.

T: What do you think your grandmother would think about rap as a way to fight with your pen instead of your fists? Have you spoken with her about how you and rap have this kind of relationship?

R: No. I’ve never spoken much about my rhymes at all with my grandmother. I’ve just always known how much she hates rap. Like if I bring it up, I know she’s going to roll her eyes at me.

T: Do you think the kind of rap she hates and the kind of rap you’re tight with when you’re fighting with your pen are different?

R: Oh, yeah! She thinks rap music is just about cursing, talking about hoes and drugs and shit like that.

T: If she truly knew how rap music unshackled your soul do you think she might begin to have a change of heart?

R: Yeah, I still just don’t know if she would listen, though.

T: What if we created a space in here where you could perform for her, and we constructed a marquee (points upward) that lights up and says Ray The Philosopher!?!

R: (Laughs)

T: If you rapped for her and she could feel the words instead of just hearing them, what do you think might happen?

R: I really don’t know.

T: Would you say that your grandmother’s wisdom finds its way into your rhymes?

R: Oh yeah, I know it’s in there a lot.

T: Can you think of an example in the rhyme that you shared with me at the beginning of our conversation today?

R: My grandmother has always wanted the best for me. That’s why I started out that first line with her. You know, (begins rapping) Grandma said I should reconsider law school. I was sampling from another rhyme that starts with mama instead of grandma, but it’s because I know she wants the best for me and that’s why she’s always bothering me about school.

The thing is, she also taught me to be street smart, which is why I like to challenge the whole foundation that student loans and shit are built upon. It’s like a scam for poor people. You know what I mean? I would have never thought about shit in these terms if it weren’t for her. I would have never looked deeper. And that’s what that second verse is about, too, with people on TV commercials acting like they can save your life and shit. You ever watched TV at like 2:00am?

T: I have a few times, yes.

R: Then you know what I mean, right? There’s these cats trying to sell hocus-pocus. They are saying shit like, (changes voice to that of a highly embellished television salesperson) “For 20 years now I’ve been helping people change their lives. For only three easy payments of $99.95 you can get the 7 secrets that will make you rich. Order now!”

(Both bellowing with laughter)

T: I didn’t know you were an actor, too, Ray?!

R: (Laughs)

T: In all seriousness, if I’m hearing you right, Ray, your grandmother’s wisdom is everywhere in your rhymes, and she doesn’t even know it?

R: Yeah, I guess you’re right.

T: Do you think we might be able to invite your grandmother to see, hear, and feel that rap can be a philosophy of street smarts and wisdom and not just a form of music that young people like to listen to?

R: I think so.

T: If we are successful do you think this would be sort of like putting the Magic Beats we talked about on your grandmother’s ears?

R: Yeah, but the rhymes will need to be just right.

T: Perhaps we should take some time in here to get them where you want them?

R: For sure.

Turn Up the Sound

Ray and I spent our next two conversations focused on taking the various rhymes rapped during our first two meetings and worked on creating a mega-anthology. It was a scintillating process that saw KRS-ONE, Tupac Shakur, and other artists rapping in unison through Ray’s mouth. I brought in my laptop computer to help with the process, and Ray made it do things I did not know it was capable of.

He turned my computer, and my office along with it, into a fully functioning recording studio. I even created a marquee (clearly the work of a second-rate artist) that read “Ray The Philosopher,” which always led to a hearty chuckle from Ray every time I hung it up at the beginning of our meetings.

“Yo, Travis. Turn up the sound a little bit,” Ray said as I scurried over to the computer. “Yeah, that’s good right there,” he reassured me making an ‘a-ok’ sign with the finger and thumb on his right hand. I watched, often in awe, as Ray meticulously perfected his craft. He was locked in his element, and I was an enthusiastic fellow traveler.

“Nah, we need to change up that baseline a little bit,” he said shaking his head and taking a swig of water. “It doesn’t quite pop. I need more time.”

I have had the great fortune of working on similar projects with people who had sought my counsel in the past, but this was among the most ambitious ventures I had encountered. As we started to make our way toward the end of our fourth session together, I started to wonder if perhaps we had bitten off more than we could chew. Now I knew that Ray had similar feelings. It wasn’t as though we hadn’t been aware of time but more like we had lost ourselves in it.

T: Ray, the last thing I want to do is rush you through this process.

R: But I only get to come here one more time.

T: Well, I know that’s the initial agreement you had with probation, but I can see you as many times as we think would be best.

R: What about you, though? I don’t want to be a leach?

T: What do you mean?

R: You’ve got to get paid, man. This ain’t no charity. This is your livelihood, bro.

T: I really appreciate you thinking of me, Ray. Tell you what, how about I give probation a call and tell them a bit about the situation and see if we can get some more time? In the past this is something they have often been willing to do.

R: What if they’re not?

T: Then we will see the work through to its completion anyway, Ray. As long as it takes. This is just too important. Don’t you agree? Besides, I have been thinking about something. Would it be okay if I shared it with you?

R: Of course.

T: I know your grandmother is going to come in at the conclusion of our work to celebrate with us. I was wondering what you thought about perhaps inviting other people to meet Ray The Philosopher? Is there anyone else you who you think it might be good to invite to wear the Magic Beats?

R: Hmm… I haven’t really though about it too much.

T: I’m just thinking out loud here, Ray, so stop me if this doesn’t make sense, okay?

R: Okay.

T: What do you think would happen if your probation officer were introduced to this idea of you fighting with your pen instead of your fists?

R: I mean, I’m sure he would like it. He just wants me to keep my hands clean for the next year.

T: What do you think would be the consequences of us not bringing him up to speed on this?

R: I don’t know.

T: As it stands now, do you think your PO views you as someone who is going to fight with his fists and get into trouble again or someone who is going to keep his hands clean?

R: (Laughs cynically) I damn sure don’t think he trusts me. I think he believes I’m going to be out gang-banging (a hip-hop term for engaging in violent acts as a member of a street gang), and I don’t even do that shit.

T: How has it come to be that you don’t even do that shit and yet your PO thinks you do? Do you think we should try and set the record straight and let him know how rap allows you to fight with your pen instead of your fists?

R: But he’s going to give me that same old bullshit about how I don’t take responsibility and blah, blah, blah (uses his right hand to imitate a talking mouth).

T: Do you think if you rapped for him and let him know how rap can strangle the advances of anger and aggression, he would look at you as more likely to keep your hands clean or less likely?

R: (Pauses for 10-15 seconds) More likely to keep my hands clean.

T: What do you think the consequences would be if we weren’t to set the record straight?

R: Yeah, I get what you’re saying now.

T: How do you mean?

R: Like, it’s not enough for just me to come up with this plan if he still thinks about me a certain way… like I’m a criminal.

T: Do you believe this is an opportunity for Ray The Philosopher to replace the other names that have been placed on you in the past like criminal?

R: Now that you mention it, yeah, I guess so.

T: Would you say that sometimes your PO is a tough nut to crack?

R: C’mon, now! That dude is like impossible to crack.

T: Do you think then that we might have to prove to him just how effective fighting with your pen can be?

R: Sure, but how the hell are we going to do that?

T: How long have you seen me for now, Ray?

R: (Pauses to think) Like about a month.

T: I know this is a tricky question because I’m asking you to guess what another person might be feeling, but do you have any sense for how your PO would say this last month has been for you.

R: I actually talked to him about this last week. I’ve been squeaky clean. Not one single issue, homie.

T: What do you think he would have told me about how things were going if I had talked to him prior to you coming to see me?

R: Man, he was always in my grill about shit saying I was defiant, I was going to go to jail, and this and that.

T: Fair to say then that he believes things are going better now?

R: No doubt.

T: Has one month been enough to convince him that you are on the right track?

R: Hell no! It’s like he’s just waiting for me to fuck up.

T: How many months do you think it might take to convince him that you are on the right track and ready to end your relationship with probation?

R: I mean, I still have over a year of this.

T: Do you think it will take all of that time to show him just how effective fighting with your pen can be?

R: Probably so.

T: What if we were to invite him in here, bring him up to speed on your philosophy of fighting with your pen and not your fists, and then make a commitment to this going forward?

R: I don’t know if he’ll believe it.

T: You make a good point. Like you’ve told me, he can be a bit stubborn and so can your grandmother! Even as tough as it is going to be, are you willing to fight with your pen and prove to your grandmother, your family, and your PO the true character of Ray The Philosopher? You already have one-month under your belt!

Ray paused after my question. I started to wonder if perhaps my query had pushed him a bit too far. His face remained stoic as the silence continued beyond 30 seconds. Just as I started to ponder my next move fearing I had lost him, he replied, “I’m down (a hip-hop term voicing agreement).”

After the conclusion of our fourth session Ray and I agreed that it would be good to check in with his PO together. We decided that in addition to talking about the need for more sessions, we would also let his PO know (a signed release was already in place) about how Ray had been fighting with his pen instead of his fists. The PO acknowledged that things were going better the past month, but he remained skeptical. He agreed to get payment covered for half of every session for the next month. The way the following month was structured it would afford us five more weekly meetings.

Two Different Stories

Ray seemed somewhat relieved that more sessions had been granted but also a little bit ticked that his PO was still unconvinced. He felt his PO was “playing games” and “testing me.”

Our next three meetings were spent wrestling with these feelings. Ray began discovering that restoring his reputation burned nearly as many calories as he was taking in. Instead of being consumed by anger towards his PO, Ray stayed true to his word to fight with his pen. He remixed a song by the artist Common:

We should name the block poverty
That rock stole our humanity
You hear that glock pop?
For dough we perform beastiality
“Fucking each other over
What you expect they animals”
Then act like they the ones offended
When TMZ release the audio
If life’s a game
They withhold that playbook
But playas make that scratch
We get the itch
Run your shit
This a jook
Or a lick
See that’s a stick-up if you down with my click
We starving in the darkness
Force upon us they man made eclipse
Is it a curse?
Mad poisons in our blood?
My pops tried to disinfect it
Chugging that rum
And I do the same (word?)
Like father like son.

Ray no longer waited for me to inquire about the lyrics. He would deconstruct them now almost as a natural part of our process. “See, this is what he (probation officer) doesn’t understand. I was born behind the god damn eight-ball. No father. Poor. I’ve always had to hustle to survive. He doesn’t know my pain. Does he even care to know it? But that don’t even matter. Is he testing me? I’m going to pass that test.”

Ray began rapping the second verse from this song:

To my reflection I scribed
What I be feeling inside
Can’t leave it buried in the dirt
Gotta breathe it and give it life
My neighborhood taught us no self-control
That boom-bap made us feel like it’s our right to explode
No positive role-model
The hustlers were our fathers
Rappers instructed us to spit rhymes
And don’t bother
With the life of an outlaw
It’s a trick to keep us blind
And deny our title as God
Preventing our rise
They been doing this for centuries
Stolen lands from our North and South American fam
Jews burnt
Japanese thrown in determent camps
Hatred can hide
Right in front of our eyes
But I flipped that same hate
Used it as fuel to survive
I’m of a mind that believes love will conquer hate
They be seeing black and white
While my crew is dazed by all the gray
So gather around the fire
Light it up
Continue the cipher
Cause in the darkness of nights
Our stars still shine brighter
This is my dream!

T: Ray, are there two different stories in the two beats you have shared with me today?

R: Yeah, the first one is the pain and strife. The second is what happens when I look ahead and fight with my pen.

T: Pain and strife and fighting with your pen… both of those are rhymes that you brought into our work earlier, right?

R: Yep.

T: Would it be right to say then that these last two verses are a sort of remix of all of the beats we’ve heard in here so far?

R: Pretty much.

T: Would these verses be good to share with the folks who join us for our final celebration of the work you’ve accomplished in here?

R: Yeah, but I might tweak them throw in a couple of other verses from different rhymes to get it just where I want it.

Our second to last session was a dress rehearsal. Ray came with the beats he wanted to perform and refined them. We also talked about how he wanted our final celebration to commence, what would happen, and who to invite.

He joked that it “would be kind of like a block party, but where a therapist lives in the house on the corner.” We also decided that those in attendance would have an opportunity to voice their support of Ray’s efforts over the past two months as well as hopes and dreams for the future. As this session came to a close I could detect a nervousness that was following Ray.

T: Ray, I could be wrong here, but I am wondering if some nervousness is hanging with us right now.

R: Yeah, I guess so.

T: Do you mind if I ask you what kind of nervousness it is? People I’ve worked with before have taught me that there are different kinds? Do you know what I mean?

R: You know, I’m not like a professional rapper or anything like that, but I’ve performed in my neighborhood before. It feels like that. Like, you think you have a good rhyme, but you never know for sure until you get on stage and the crowd is feelin’ it.

T: What gives you confidence that the rhyme you have created in our work together will deliver just the message you hoped it would?

R: I put my whole heart and soul into it. I didn’t leave one drop.

T: Do you think the people who are here with us next time will feel your heart and soul coming out through your lyrics?

R: (Pauses for 10 seconds or so) I really think so.

T: Do you remember when I first asked you about what would happen if you rapped for your grandmother or your probation officer?

R: Yeah, I said they wouldn’t hear it.

T: Are you saying that you feel differently about that now?

R: Yeah, I guess so.

T: What would you say has shifted?

R: These rhymes are me but just in lyrical form.

T: And you don't believe your grandmother or those who love and care about you would reject this gift that is a lyrical manifestation of you?

R: No, my grandmother always tells me that she’ll never run out of love for me.

T: Hey, something just struck me, Ray. Would it be okay if I share it with you?

R: For sure.

T: I wonder if you just discovered the Magic Beats?

R: What do you mean?

T: Do you believe that when you create a rhyme that fully represents you and comes from the deepest depths of your soul that even those who don’t prefer rap music could still hear it?

R: (A smile overwhelmed the now dwindling doubt on his face as he nodded affirmatively)

T: Ray! This is great! What an incredible discovery you have made!

Ray often tried to minimize any expressions of emotion, but even he smiled loudly at this development. In our excitement we almost instinctively exchanged daps (gesture similar to a handshake) with our right hands before giving one another a quick hug. With this we had established an unspoken agreement that we were ready for Ray’s performance and celebration next week.

A Celebration of Hope

Ray and I agreed to meet about a half an hour before everyone else to prepare the room for the celebration. As we moved tables and chairs and geared up the laptop computer everything was coming together. “Alright, I think we’ve got it,” I said looking in Ray’s direction. He then shook his head ‘no’ and looked upward to indicate to me to direct my gaze towards the ceiling. “What?” I said with a perplexed look.

He nodded upward once more. I stared skyward still trying to decipher what Ray was communicating. Then I realized that in my haste to make sure there were enough chairs for everyone I had forgotten to hang up the marquee. Like a dog with his tail between his legs I went back to my desk in the back room and removed from the top drawer the “Ray The Philosopher” marquee. I dashed back out to the main office and hung it up in its customary location. “Now we got it,” Ray asserted.

Soon, Ray’s grandmother, his sister, and a few other people from his neighborhood began making their way into the office. There was a sort of nervous excitement that filled the room. Lost in conversation, time had escaped me. I

reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to take a quick look at the time. In doing so I noticed a message was waiting for me from Ray’s probation officer. Oh no, I thought to myself. He had left me a message stating that something had come up and he wasn’t going to be able to make it. Just as I was about to hold the phone to my ear to listen to it, he lumbered through the front door. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Did you get my message? I got caught up with a few things at the office.”

Relieved that everyone was now here, I looked at Ray to see if he was ready to go. Ray had asked that I start by saying a few words to give folks a sense of what today’s meeting was all about. After welcoming everyone and thanking them for attending, I began discussing a bit about Ray’s journey.

“During our two months together, Ray has reaffirmed how rap music can be an ally in helping him be the person he wants to be. He has composed a series of beats he would like to perform for you today. Ray suggested that

Spitting Truth from My Soul: A Case Story of Rapping, Probation, and the Narrative Practices- Part I

Posted on January 10, 2023February 11, 2026 by Psychotherapy.net Team

The Rap That Binds

“This kid really doesn’t get it,” a clearly frustrated voice blared so loudly that I moved the phone’s speaker a couple of inches from my ear to avoid any future hearing loss.

“He just won’t take any responsibility for his actions, and he doesn't give a shit…and he has 16 more months until he’s off probation! I just don’t think he’s going to make it. I don’t even think you want this one!” I recognized this voice as that of a probation supervisor I had worked with a number of times over the years, but never had I heard frustration get the better of him in such an obvious way. “I’d be happy to see him,” I said. “Send him my way.”

When I put the phone down, I wondered if my enthusiasm might have been misplaced and I would have been wiser to tell him I was overloaded and couldn't take on any more work at this moment. No more than 24 hours later I received a phone call from Ray, a 24-year-old young man who told me his probation officer had passed on my phone number to him. I was intrigued by how polite and soft-spoken he sounded over the phone, and we set up an appointment for later in the week.

My work with people involved with the justice system, whether on probation or otherwise, began nearly 13 years ago when I was just a 22-year-old graduate student in Los Angeles, California. After years of agency work, I now operate a small private practice where probation officers, schools, and word of mouth drive young people like Ray to my door.

In community agencies I had worked in the past, I met with people twice a week as mandated by their sentences. More recently, I have started getting short-term referrals, which often allow for between 4-8 meetings with people. In the case of Ray, we ended up seeing each other 9 times. Probation assumed responsibility for payment for 5 meetings only.

After that, our time was up. However, Ray indicated that he wanted to continue to attend on his own volition. This is something that happens with a surprising number of cases. I have learned that if we call the probation officer on the case, the Department of Justice will usually pick up at least half of the cost for the remaining number of sessions, something they were willing to do for Ray.

Three days after first talking to Ray on the phone, he walked into the office wearing blue jeans, a red hoodie, and had headphones dangling around his neck. As he sat down across from me, I had an intuition that he was not a stranger to this process often called “therapy,” a fact he would confirm as we began talking.

It was as if he was bracing himself for what was to come. He sat back in his chair, both of his hands tightly grabbing on to an arm almost as if he was at the mercy of a neophyte airline pilot preparing to practice landing a massive 747 for the first time. Perhaps he was expecting a barrage of advice disguised as “psychoeducation?” Or was he steeling himself for inquiries about what might be neurochemically “wrong” with him? Everything about how he was composing himself suggested to me that this young man had heard it all before.

My first query was clearly not one he was expecting. “Do you mind if I ask what you are listening to?” gesturing to his headphones. Ray raised his head up to look me in the eyes for the first time since walking into the room, his gaze a blend of skepticism and curiosity. “Styles P and Pharoahe Monch,” he replied.

“How old are you again?” I said as a smile crept on to my face.

“Why?” he inquired.

“It’s just that most 24-year-olds I have spoken with aren’t keen to the ways of Styles P and Pharoahe Monch,” I said still smiling knowing the album he was referencing was over a decade old and was not one many young men of his age were typically in step with.

“A lot of this new shit ain’t real. I can feel what Styles and Pharoahe are saying,” Ray declared.

And with this, we were off. I had been granted the great privilege of riding shotgun in Ray’s lyrical journey. For the next forty-five minutes we listened to music on his phone and critically examined the verses he found most meaningful. What follows is an example of one such verse:

I Supreme Lord and Master (ISLAM)
But at times,
The words ring empty
When I see another homie blood splattered
Dreams get shattered
Family fractured
Ugly reputations is what give television ratings
Problem story plastered
Learn the science of our plight
These depictions keep penitentiaries packed tight
But only God can judge me
Once I fade away from life.

Yet another example:

How many Super Bowls passed
My mind’s eye showing possibility so I grasp
Of a hood block,
With no patrolling cops
No empty baggies once holding rocks
Shells from a glock
But the wisdom I've acquired allows us to question what was taught
Pause in the moment
The impulse can be stopped.

During the conversation that followed I learned that not only did Ray have an affinity for rap music, but he also wrote some rhymes of his own.

A Voice to the Voiceless

Travis: Listening to you today, Ray, I have a hunch that you and rap music have been homeboys for a long time and you both share a long and storied history together. Am I right or wrong?

Ray: Yeah, I mean, I can’t remember my life without rap. It’s like it was with me from the moment I came out of the womb. You know, I’m sure that’s not true, but that’s what it feels like.

T: Wow! Are you telling me that no one has been a friend to you longer than rap has? (He nods his assent) This seems like a really important relationship. Would it be okay with you if I tried to understand the relationship you and rap share a bit better?

R: Sure, go for it.

T: I’m curious to know if anyone has ever asked you about your relationship with rap before?

R: (pauses 10 seconds or so) I mean, not really. My homies and I cypher back-and-forth about it, but… you know… I haven’t really broken down my relationship with it if that makes any sense.

T: It does make sense. Thank you. Other than your homies, does anyone else ask you about your relationship with rap?

R: No, except for like teachers and probation and other adults throughout my whole life trying to tell me it’s violent and the music of the devil (takes his index fingers and makes horns over his head) and shit like that (laughs).

T: So, if I’m hearing you correctly, Ray, those adults don’t really ask you about your relationship with rap, but rather tell you the sort of relationship you should have with it?

R: Exactly! It’s like they don’t know shit about it but want to tell you it’s the root of all evil.

T: This is really remarkable to me, Ray! Would it be okay if I asked you a few more questions about it?

R: Oh yeah, no problem.

T: If it gets boring to you or you would rather go in another direction just tell me, okay?

R: Word (a hip-hop phrase that in this context verbalizes agreement).

T: What do you think the adults you just mentioned, like former teachers or people involved with probation, could stand to learn from your relationship with rap?

R: They would never learn anything because they won’t listen. Their minds are already done made up.

T: Do you mind if I ask what kind of headphones those are, Ray? (pointing to his neck).

R: These? Oh, man, these are Beats (a popular brand of headphones).

T: Now I heard you say that those folks wouldn’t listen, and I want you to know that I absolutely believe you. Even still, I want to invite you to imagine for a second that we could take a pair of Beats, maybe even magic Beats, and slip them on to the people that can’t or won’t hear while they were sleeping, and the message would sneak through their ears and permeate their minds whether they wanted it to or not. Imagine now that they have woken up. What education would rap have given them?

R: Man, I wish you could pick me up some of those headphones (said laughing)!

T: That would be pretty cool, right? Maybe that’s a project we can work on later (both of us laughing).

R: For real! What I think they would learn is that there are a lot of people in the world who don’t have a voice. If you are someone in the world who does have a voice, you know, that’s great. Good for you. And by voice I mean, you know, we all have like a voice box that works. What I mean when I say voice is a voice that others can hear or will really listen to. My whole life I’ve never really had that voice because I’m poor and black… except when I rap. This is true, you know, for like pretty much my whole crew in my neighborhood, too. Rap is our voice.

T: Are you of the opinion that the people who won’t listen that you referenced earlier would learn from the “magic Beats” that rap could serve as a voice for the voiceless?

R: Exactly. I mean, if everyone listens to everything you say anyway, then fine, you don’t need something like rap. (Begins rapping):

The more I wild out
Allows me to achieve that street clout
While lives are turned into tools
Did dominant narratives actually raise a bunch of fools?
Our escape from a jumpshot or a hip-hop plate?
While theirs is school?
But either one of us can lose
Trying to chase what Lupe articulated as The Cool,
White men in suits don’t have to jump
Still a thousand and one ways to lose with his shoes

R: You know, that line, “White men in suits don’t have to jump,” that’s what I’m talking about.

T: Right, there’s that old saying, “White men can’t jump,” when it comes to basketball. Did those lyrics do something clever with it?

R: For sure. White men don’t have to jump to make money and white men don’t have to rap to be heard. Don’t get me wrong, I write rhymes because I love to. Sometimes when I write it’s just about partying or females or something light. But I also write because it allows me to have a voice. You know, it’s like rap says to the world I’m going to say shit how it is whether you like it or not.

Of Protest and Freedom

It was becoming increasingly clear that Ray’s relationship with rap, and the hip-hop culture in which it resided, was one of protest, freedom, and inspiration. As our conversation continued to traverse the electrifying and winding roads of rap music, we alternated between listening to songs on Ray’s phone and discussing, almost philosophizing, at the conclusion of each. That served as inspiration for the following exchange:

T: Do you think rappers are philosophers?

R: No doubt. Rap is philosophy but without all the old white cats (said laughing).

T: Socrates is not the father or first philosopher of rap?

R: No! (Laughs harder)

T: Who do you think is?

R: Probably KRS-ONE.

T: What in your opinion is the job of a philosopher?

R: To make people think, like hold a mirror up to the world so they can see how foolish they are. (Begins rapping):

Peep the crucifix
Comes across mysterious
With I(j)ehova hanging from the partisan nails of politics
The origins
Governing men of Romans
Did agree to its means justifying capital punishment
For the minds
They despised
To keep all the sheep in line
While revolution sparked divine
Christ
But check the rhyme
What if they lynched him hanging from the branch of a tree
Then burned him half alive
Peep manipulation B
We would pray to a tree
Then human torching eventually
Fire associated with hell
Overstand irony
When a bullet burns its way into your brother's physical
Laid to rest in a wooden casket
Damned its cyclical.

T: What do you hear in these rhymes?

R: It’s like it exposes hypocrisy, you know what I mean? People believe things about God or religion or whatever without even opening up a book or thinking. They just accept a history they like or feel comfortable about or that some cat on TV tells them is right.

T: Are you of the opinion that there are multiple histories?

R: Oh yeah, no doubt. The history that you get in history books is the only one most people read, though.

T: Where do these histories come from?

R: Usually from your teacher and books in school.

T: Where does the information in those books come from?

R: I mean, that mostly comes from white people and their ancestors. You know, I took a philosophy class in college like 4 years ago and I don’t think we talked about one brother the whole time. That’s part of the reason I never fit in there.

T: And the fact that the only history that was discussed was from a white perspective, what does that mean for the other histories?

R: You see them in like Roots (a television mini-series from the 1970’s depicting the life of a black slave in the United States) and shit (laughing). We had to watch that in high school. That shit is so weak.

T: What would be a stronger portrayal?

R: You just heard one (in the previous rap). But it’s like I told you earlier, people don’t want to listen to those.

T: Do you believe you are a philosopher?

R: I never really thought about it like that. I know I’m a writer. But I guess that means I am a philosopher.

T: Do you mind if I tap into your own philosophical expertise?

R: Sure. I know what you’re go to say next (said with a wry smile). You are going to ask me about my philosophy on shit.

T: You know me too well already, Ray!

R: My philosophy is simple. It’s to see the truth even when they try and obscure it. It’s to go deeper. If you don’t, you’ll believe a lie.

T: How do you see deeper?

R: You have to do what my grandmother says: ignore the noise. You can’t believe everything you hear. You can’t even believe everything you think you see.

T: Is your grandmother a wise philosopher, too?

R: She’s the wisest person I know.

T: What has her philosophy taught you about the person you want to be?

R: She always says I didn’t raise no fool.

T: Would you say that your grandmother’s philosophy and the philosophy of KRS-ONE are similar?

R: Hmm… (pauses for 10-15 seconds) that’s crazy, bro. I never thought of it like that, but I guess so.

T: In what ways would you say they are similar?

R: Both of them are encouraging me to think in my own way. To be my own person. Basically, just be wise to the ways of the world.

T: Do you think that it would be helpful in our work to call on the ideas of great philosophers like your grandmother and also KRS-ONE as we try to navigate the situation that brought you to see me?

R: Yeah, it’s just crazy though because my grandmother hates rap. Like she thinks it “corrupts the youth” (fingers on both hands raised to make air quotes).

T: If only we had those “Magic Beats.” Do you think she would be more open to it then?

R: (Smiles and then laughs) Yeah, and maybe she would see that I’m rapping about like the same shit she’s saying but in my own way.

T: Have you ever thought that maybe the spirit of your ancestors and their struggles can be channeled through your raps? Maybe rap is like your history book?

R: I mean… that’s deep! I ain’t never thought of it quite like that, but yeah, my raps are about me, where I came from, and where my people came from.

T: Would it be okay if we cracked open your rap’s history book in our work together?

R: Yeah.

T: Do you think it might provide us with some stories that the regular history books miss?

R: Oh, no question! Stories that regular history books wouldn’t even touch!

So engrossed did we both become in the progression of this conversation that time itself seemed to melt away. Ray continued writing his own history through various rhymes and interpretations of them.

Removing the Shackles

At one point Ray could not conceal his enthusiasm for a verse he located on his phone. He said he had been listening to it for a few weeks with a great deal of frequency. It moved him so much that he immediately stopped the music after it had played and rapped the verse himself again.

With these I see
Crimson stains on this project concrete
Yellow tape barricade
Homie wrapped in white sheets
It's a struggle just to eat
So how the fuck do they rationalize judging me or my deeds
Grab a pen
Clear the phlegm
Then commence to bless the beat
Give ya'll a tour of my life
Without walking on my streets
It's my life!
Being scribbled on they college ruled pages
Escape when we cipher up
That type of freedom is amazing
My life!

I watched him intently and took a few deep breaths before breaking the silence we had both fallen into by my first query.

T: Ray, I noticed that you listened to this verse and then stopped the music and rapped it. Were you, by any chance, deepening your relationship with the lyrics by rapping it yourself?

R: I do this all the time. What I like to do is take a verse that someone else wrote and then just add my own flavor, kind of like sampling (a hip-hop term for taking an older song and mixing it with a new one) or remixing.

T: Do you mean that you take the original rhyme and add your own story?

R: Exactly.

Ray was so engaged that by the end of our conversation it was as if he were a different person than the one who walked through the door an hour before. Certainly he was a poor match for the description of the detached and uncaring young man who lacked any semblance of motivation that the probation officer had provided for me earlier in the week.

The fact there wasn’t much sand left in the hourglass of our first meeting had sneaked up on both of us. My mind was left spinning with possibilities for where our future conversations could go. With just five minutes remaining, I invited Ray to reflect with me on what had transpired which broke us both out of our enthrallment.

Travis: Would it be all right if I asked you a little bit about how our meeting today is going?

Ray: That’s cool.

T: Thank you, as I know I have asked you a lot of questions today. I appreciate you hanging in there with me. I’ve noticed that it’s very different when we are just speaking as opposed to when we invite rap to the party. Have you noticed this?

R: Yeah, for sure.

T: How do you understand this?

R: It’s like when I rhyme… I spit truth from my soul.

T: How is rapping with your soul different than talking with your mouth?

R: When I talk, I think. I thought that’s what we’re supposed to do in therapy, anyway. That’s what all those other fucking shrinks did.

T: Would it be all right if we made up our own therapy and put aside other kinds of therapy you have been through or heard about?

R: Yeah (said with a chuckle and skeptical eyes).

T: What can your soul rhyme that your mouth sometimes might have trouble saying?

R: Freedom. It’s like when I’m rapping I can feel the words come through my body. It’s natural, like I don’t have to think about it.

T: By that do you mean to say that rhymes remove the shackles that are attached to your soul?

R: Right (said turning his head to one side as if in deliberation and then nodding).

T: I saw your face light up. I wonder if inspiration is brewing in your soul this very moment? I know I am guessing so I could very well be wrong.

R: No, it’s just that I thought of a verse. (Begins rapping):

It's like we being played
When they say
Strive for a slice
Of they cake
They filthy hands holding hate
Choke out fate
But the rhyme melts the shackles
Oppression disintegrates
Even just for one moment
When we flowing on stage
It goes on and on and on…

T: Have you had shackles on your soul that rap music helps you break free from?

R: Yeah, sometimes it feels like rap is my only way to break free.

T: I notice when you rap that your whole body changes. For example, when we were just talking earlier you were kind of slumped down in your chair. But when you rap, your back straightens up, your face lights up, and your hands are active. It’s almost like I can see you breaking free right in front of me. What do you think would happen if rap made more frequent visits to your life?

R: I would feel more alive and like I have a voice, you know what I mean? Like being on probation it feels like I have no voice. I just get told what to do and it’s like they tell everyone the same thing and don’t really care what really makes someone tick. It’s like we are cattle just being pushed through the gates.

T: Do you think Rap music could be a great way for us to understand what makes you tick?

R: The best way!

T: I get the sense you have many important stories to rap about. Would you be willing to write a song between now and next time that paints the part of the picture that probation and maybe other people in your life don’t get about you?

R: (Nods affirmatively)

T: Do you know what I mean?

R: Oh yeah, for sure. I already feel a couple of ideas (pointing to his head). Like people automatically assume I’m stupid and like I’m some kind of bad person or criminal or something. They don’t even know me.

T: Might writing a rhyme about the parts they don’t know release the shackles from your soul?

R: Yeah, but not all the way.

T: It might take more than one rhyme to release them all the way?

R: Yeah.

T: Do you have many stories to tell?

R: Oh yeah!

T: I want you to know that I will support you in writing as many rhymes as it takes.

R: You’re the weirdest shrink they have ever sent me to. Not weird like bad, not bad at all, but does probation know you do this?

T: Do what? Ask people to rap?

R: Yeah!

T: They know I help people find the kinds of therapies that best work for them. Do you think this one we’ve come up with today might work for you?

R: Oh yeah, but I don’t even know if this is really therapy.

T: What would you call it?

R: It’s like a studio session where I’m making beats with my homies or something.

T: Should we have a studio session once a week together?

R: (Smiles and laughs) For sure.

Spitting From My Soul

Ray returned for our second conversation with his black New York Yankees hat turned to the side looking somewhat, but perhaps not yet completely relaxed as he sat down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper as his right leg bounced up and down. He quickly unfolded it and scanned over its content. “Here are a few lyrics,” he said quietly but with conviction as he handed the document to me. I was feeling a bit caught off guard that Ray had picked up so quickly where we left off in our last conversation.

T: Ray, I have to be honest, I feel so privileged to hold this is my hand right now. I wonder if I am holding a gift from your soul?

R: You could say that (kindly smiling at me).

T: I just had an idea and I’m curious if it would be okay if I shared it with you? (Ray nodded in the affirmative). Last week you told me that rhymes come from your soul when they are rapped. I could be wrong here, but I’m just wondering if I read the rhyme on the paper if it might lose some of its soulfulness? And the last thing I want to do is strip the rhyme of its soulfulness.

R: I’ve got a baseline for this (pointing to his phone). It’s dope (a hip-hop term that means good or of high quality) You want to hear it?

T: I would be honored, Ray.

As the music percolated through the small speakers on his phone I noticed I couldn’t help but bob my head. I looked up and Ray was doing the same. Our eyes caught and Ray smiled slightly with the left side of his mouth. In this moment I pondered whether or not I should invite him to rap, but I hesitated not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable in our second conversation. A few seconds later, Ray reached his hand out indicating he wanted the document with the lyrics on it back from me. I obliged. Ray bobbed his head a few more times and said, “This still needs a little more time in the lab, but…”

What happened next as Ray began to “spit truth” was almost like a detonation. The words rhythmically rolled off his tongue with an intensity that made me suspect something important was transpiring. I didn’t just listen to what he said, I felt it. Ray’s passion was palpable, and I could feel its infusion through my body. We now bobbed our heads in unison and for a brief time it was as if the world had shrunk and we were the only two people that now could fit in it. It was the kind of attunement and connection with another person that was equal parts mysterious and exhilarating.

Grandma said I should reconsider law school
That means I wear a suit and bend the truth and feel awful
Hell no, got a degree but what that cost you
You make a good salary just to pay Sallie Mae
That's real as ever
Ducking bill collectors like a Jehovah's witness
When they showed up at your door at Christmas
Praise God it's hard to stay spiritual
How they got these people on the TV selling miracles
You mean to tell me everything gonna be fine
If I call your hotline and pay 29.99
Well damn, why didn’t you say so
Take this check and ask God to multiply all my pesos

T: I am so captivated by what just happened, Ray! Would it be alright if I tried to understand your rhyming genius a little better?

R: For sure.

T: May I ask what is it about this rhyme that reveals a part of yourself that other people often fail to get?

R: People think that because I don’t have a college degree I’m stupid. They make that judgment up front. Now I’m not trying to say that college is always a bad thing (said looking at me knowing that I’m also a college professor), but, you know, sometimes it’s like a scam. Like, I'm a poor kid. Think about how much debt I would rack up by going to college. Dude, it’s astronomical. I tried community college for a year. Is that even a good investment? You know, I think a really good rhyme exposes the way people think. So that first part is just like a challenge. You know, just because these are the rules you play the game by doesn’t mean they are the only rules.

T: Do you think rhyming helps you create your own rules while also challenging the rules people tell you that you should follow?

R: No doubt. And sometimes you challenge rules in rhymes just to make people think.

T: Is that like what you were saying last week about rap as a philosophy (I asked Ray this very much hoping the conversation meant as much to him as it had to me).

R: Exactly, like KRS-One!

T: (Feeling relieved that we seemed to be catching up right where we left off last week, I continued) Can I tap a bit further into your rhyming knowledge here, Ray?

R: Sure.

T: Are you of the opinion that challenging rules is a good thing? (Ray nods in the affirmative) And why do you think it’s a good thing to challenge rules?

R: If no one challenges rules, shit gets stale. You know what I mean? Like people start to take things for granted. Sometimes a good rhyme is just like grabbing someone and going (pretends like he’s physically shaking someone). It’s like, wake up, yo!

T: Do you believe there are different ways to challenge rules?

R: A lot of different ways.

T: Are some ways of challenging rules more effective than others in your experience?

R: Yeah, I mean, look how I ended up here on probation.

T: How do you mean?

R: Ever since I was a kid, I would find myself in certain situations where I would get angry and step (a hip-hop term that means to challenge someone physically, often to a fight) to someone. Yeah, and it’s stupid, I know. I’ve been getting that lecture my whole life.

T: How do you understand the relationship between rap and anger?

R: When I would write rhymes, they would keep me out of trouble. Like if someone was pissing me off, I would just go home and make a beat about it. It’s like my anger would leave my mouth through my rhymes.

T: Let me see if I’m hearing you correctly, Ray, because I don’t want to get this wrong. Are you saying that rap is able to put anger in its place?

R: Yeah, I don’t end up doing something stupid.

T: Maybe this is a long shot, Ray, but do any rhymes come to mind that capture what we are talking about here?

R: No, not really… (pauses in a pensive fashion for 30 seconds or so)…actually, yeah, one does (he composes himself and then begins rapping):

References

Travis Heath on Psychotherapy as an Act of Rebellion

Posted on December 8, 2022February 25, 2026 by rezendevknowfully.com

An Act of Rebellion

Lawrence Rubin: Hi Travis, thanks for joining me today. I first became aware of you and your work after reading “Reimagining Narrative Therapy” that you co-edited with Tom Carlson and David Epston. There you said that therapy is, or at least should be, an act of rebellion?

Travis Heath: I wrote that, huh? It’s always interesting to reflect on one’s own words. Should it be an act of rebellion? Maybe it shouldn’t be in every case. Yet, I think there could be therapeutic advantages to therapy being an act of rebellion. What I mean is that sometimes, usually unwittingly, therapy can become an act of reinforcing normative ways of being. What we might describe as “mentally healthy” may actually be a normative societal way of behaving. So then, an act of rebellion is when people move against the norm, right? To go against the status quo. And there could be — whether it be in therapy or elsewhere — immense therapeutic value when that rebellious act is consistent with who the person most knows themselves to be. Now, I’ll say that an act of rebellion for the sake of rebellion, like a contrarian act of rebellion around every turn, may not always useful. But one that is truly consistent with who a person is can have a positive impact on one’s mental health.

LR: And sometimes people come to therapy not sure of who they are, or which story is the one that is the healthiest for them to live by. Are you suggesting that for some people a therapeutic relationship allows them to rebel against norms that are oppressing them or holding them down?

TH: I think a therapeutic relationship can help with that, although I don’t know if that is enough alone. As someone who is informed by narrative ways of working, therapeutic questions are very important to me. Most of my questions are average at best and probably don’t lead to much change in people’s lives. But all I need is one really good question. Not one that I’ve conjured up, but one that just comes up quickly in the moment from the relationship I am having with the person that I just throw out there. A good question can open up a way of living that a person hadn’t articulated in a particular way before. Maybe they felt it somewhere or tried to imagine it, but now they’ve put words to a particular direction.

LR: This may be a tough one to pull out of your hat, but can you give me an example of a client that you recently worked with, or that stands out in memory, where you came up with the right question at the right time?

TH: Yeah, that’s a good question. I was working with a women-identified person in her 40s. In our culture, there are certain ideas about bodies — how they should look, and how bodies should and shouldn’t be shaped. I think this is especially so for women. That pressure seems to be increasing for those of us who are male-identified as well, but it’s been very tough for women for some time. She was really distressed when she came to me and was talking about eating peanut butter. Like, “I’m really distressed because I’m eating peanut butter.” And I remember saying to her, “Okay, I hear you and I want to understand what’s distressing about this?”

I remember saying to her, “Can I share something with you? I eat peanut butter too sometimes.” And she kind of smiled, but added, “No, I mean I eat too much peanut butter.” And I said, “Okay, again, I hear you. Help me understand. What’s too much peanut butter?” She said, “Well, I might eat a spoonful or two spoonfuls of peanut butter.” And I said, “Hey, I won’t want to tell you how to eat or what you should or shouldn’t be eating. I’m just really trying to understand. And I wonder, is it possible that you could eat a spoonful or two spoonfuls of peanut butter and that might in some way be okay? Now, if you told me you ate the whole jar or something and you were doing this nightly, I would understand how that would be distressing. But do you suppose it might be okay that you eat a spoonful or two of peanut butter?”

With that question, she burst into tears. It was a simple question, not something you’d see in a textbook as an exemplar. But it was really just a question that in some small way, maybe larger than I initially realized, invited her to think about how she came to understand what’s too much peanut butter and what’s not enough peanut butter. The question was asking her to consider how she came to understand that eating peanut butter might begin to define her as not a good person. How did she come to understand that process? And we really had a session just about peanut butter, which sounds sort of wild, but it wasn’t initially an act of rebellion. It became an act of rebellion for her because she was resisting some of these discourses about food and about her body.

I remember asking her, “Okay, so how often do you do this?” She said once or twice a month, so I said, “All right. Let’s just say that you stopped doing that. Do you then think your body would, over time, or maybe quickly, begin to conform to this body that you’ve been told you should have?” She really thought about that and said, “No, it probably wouldn’t.” “Well, what kind of acts of torture or anything else could you put your body through to make it look like these bodies you’re telling me would make you a good person?” In that moment, with that question and the questions and answers that followed, it was essentially about, “If I looked this way, I’d be a good person.” But she couldn’t initially articulate that. It was the question about “peanut butter” which enabled her to communicate those feelings of insecurity that she constantly experienced yet couldn’t ever explain. In that way, our conversation about eating, and even just existing in her body, became an act of rebellion against normative prescriptions of what society tells women is a good body.

LR: You know, Travis, I would imagine at one level you were very aware that you weren’t really talking about a spoonful of peanut butter. Instead, you were creating a space in which she could really question the legitimacy of her rigid thinking, and maybe even dive more deeply into a conversation about self-worth, body image, and perhaps gender with its discontents.

TH: Lawrence, I might say it just a little bit differently. Not so much her own self-talk, but the talk of the culture that she had adopted and the cultural meaning of “self-talk.”. Because when people say “self” in front of anything — self-talk, self-esteem — I get skeptical. Self-talk isn’t really her talk, although it may feel like her talk because Lord knows how long that talk has been kicking around. But she didn’t come out of the womb with that talk. That talk came from someplace, and now it’s become a part of her. So, I think that this act of rebellion you’re talking about, when it is really shining, can help people see that and say, “Oh gosh, I didn’t come out of the womb with this. Actually, these aren’t my ideas.” Then that can lead to, “And I don’t even have to subscribe to these ideas,” which can be very liberating.

Confessions of an Anti-Manualist

LR: So, you created a space in which she was given permission to rebel against certain language that has been forced on her or force-fed to her. Shifting gears a bit, has traditional therapy’s search for the grail of evidence-based techniques enhanced or diminished the craft of psychotherapy?

TH: I like the question, and I think it’s an important one. Without trying to be too long-winded, I do think that historically the idea of “evidence-based techniques” came from a good place. By that, I mean hey, there was a time when psychotherapy was viewed in a certain kind of way—the work of charlatans. Hell, there were psychologists, not clinical psychologists, but there were psychologists — I think Cattell and some of those other folks — that weren’t necessarily huge fans of psychotherapy. And so, I think there was a time when it was important to show that there was some kind of scientific evidence base, that therapy wasn’t just akin to palm-reading. Maybe I shouldn’t dismiss that out of hand, but that’s a different conversation. The point being, there was a real reason for attempting to create psychotherapeutic techniques with evidence as their primary foundation.

At some point, this idea of evidence-based practice got tangled up with late capitalist ideas, and people discovered that you could sell a hell of a lot of workbooks. You could also bring a hell of a lot of legitimacy to what you were doing, and it helped your personal brand that was tangled up with the brand of your therapy. That’s where I think it started to become problematic. So, the idea of having evidence is not necessarily bad. But when it’s done for these sorts of capitalist reasons, I become concerned about it.

Now to your question of the art, if you will, of psychotherapy. I’ll share a quick story from a class I was teaching probably 10 years ago. It was an undergraduate intro to clinical and counseling class, and as we discussed I have never been too keen on these evidence-based models. So, I started the class by bringing in treatment manuals and handing them to everyone. “All right class let’s look these over. What do you think about them?” Most of the students, and I think this says a lot, were comforted by this. “Oh, great. I could do this. I could follow this script.”

Then one intrepid young woman who sat in the front of the class asked, “Well, what happens if you’re using this and it doesn’t work with someone?” And I said, “Well, okay, that leaves us at a bit of an impasse, doesn’t it? I personally don’t believe there are just two ways to do therapy. But let’s just look at two possibilities. So, one possibility is we use this manualized approach that we’re looking at. And it works to a certain degree for some people, maybe even most people. And you do a mediocre, good enough job, your whole career. And then, every now and again, you find someone it really doesn’t work for, and I guess you just abort mission. Or another option — it’s not the only other option — is that we learn how to do this on sort of a moment-to-moment basis. We’re really being in touch with the other person.” I said some other shit, too, but the students almost universally agreed that one sounds better, but it also sounds scarier. It sounds like a lot more work. And how do I know if I’m doing it right? They had all these questions, which were all very fair.

My worry is that somewhere, usually early on in people’s formal training, without even realizing, without even really being presented it, they’re nudged to make the choice of one manualized treatment over another. They’re nudged to go down one of these pre-determined roads — and they’re sort of nudged often. And then if you’re trained in that way, it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle. It’s not really that one way of doing therapy is superior, but if you’ve worked with enough people, you come to understand that you aren’t going to be able to take the same damn thing and apply it to everyone who walks through the door, or even most people.

LR: So, would you say that you are an anti-manualist, or that you practice an anti-manualized form of therapy? I know Narrative Therapy is, by definition, an anti-manualized intervention.

TH: I have never heard it put that way. I like the term. I accept the term. I don’t know if I always live up to that as much as I could. I mean look, there are certainly patterns to my work. And people who know my work well and who have watched it behind mirrors or whatever they’ve done over the years, could point to patterns in my work. I don’t know if patterns are manuals because I’m not necessarily adhering to a prescriptive one, two, three, four, this is the order of how you do things. But there’s a certain soul to the way that I work. And there are patterns in how I work. I won’t deny that. At one point, however many years ago, I said, “Well, I never do the same therapy twice.” That feels a little self-aggrandizing. Like why am I saying that? Yes, there are elements that overlap. So, to be an anti-manualist, yes. I like that idea. And, I have to acknowledge that not everything I do with every single person is completely new and creative. There are some patterns that you see.

De-Colonializing Therapy

LR: There are likely many clinicians in our audience who are really into manuals. It seems that once a therapy has an acronym, a workbook, and a “seal of approval” by some credentialing body, it becomes the stuff of grail. In this vein, and based on our conversation and my reading of your work, are we speaking about detraditionalizing therapy practice?

TH: Thanks for asking these questions. To detraditionalize, for me, is something that if it doesn’t happen, then a therapy dies. But let’s get outside of therapy for a moment. I think almost anything dies. Maybe some of the folks who would frequent this interview may not be sports fans, so excuse the sports analogy, but I’m a big basketball fan — played basketball my whole life. And people will watch the modern NBA and they’ll say, “these guys shoot too many three-point shots. Back in my day, we never shot 30-foot shots.

That may be true enough, but the game has to evolve. It must evolve. It cannot stay stagnant. Now, did it have to evolve in the way it did? Maybe not. But it must evolve, or it dies. And I think it’s the same with therapy. So, to detraditionalize, it’s not that we can’t do it with intention, we can. But I think for an approach to therapy to remain viable over the years, it must change and evolve. A lot of psychoanalytic psychodynamic approaches are probably misunderstood in the modern world. But the best practitioners I know who appreciate and look through that lens, they’re not doing the same shit Freud was doing. They might have taken some of those ideas and some of those cues, but they’ve detraditionalized them. In a way, they’ve modernized them. So, that’s the first thing I want to say.

The second is, like in my work, I think traditionally there is a healer and a person to be healed. And then the person that’s the healer is somehow supposed to have the answers or write the prescription. And to me — I’ll take a line from my mentor friend and colleague David Epston — a lot of Narrative Therapy is about elevating the knowledge of the other. And so much of my practice, and a part of it that I think is maybe detraditionalized, is not to rely on psychological knowledges, or psychiatric knowledges or descriptions, but to try to elevate the knowledge of the other.

And the other doesn’t just include the person who’s in front of you. There’s a whole ancestral presence that often comes with that person who sits in front of you. Whether they realize it or not, it travels with them, it informs them with insider knowledge about how they may approach distress or problems that they’re up against in the world. And even so with therapists that would make the claim, “Well, I’m client-centered, I focus on the client.” Yes, but if you actually watch it unfold, it’s still based on a counseling prescription or a psychiatric or psychological prescription about how the session should go. It isn’t necessarily elevating the knowledge of the other.

LR: You said something earlier, and I don’t necessarily want to skip around too much, but it seems like we’re entering a cross-conversation about multiculturalism. When we talk about “elevating the other,”, are we getting at your ideas about working with “the other,” and what you have referred to as “decolonializing” psychotherapy?

TH: The phrase I’ve liked most recently is “anti-colonialize.” De-colonialize is fine, but I don’t like post-colonial, because post-colonial implies that somehow, we’ve moved past colonial logic, which we haven’t. Anti-colonial to me just seems like a little bit of a stricter stance against past, present, and future colonial logic and colonial attempts at living. So, I’ll start with that. But de-colonial is fine. I like that word, too.

You’ve heard me use the phrase “colonial logic,” but I’d like to weave in yet another term here: “multicultural.” If we look at the term “multicultural,” and a multicultural approach to therapy or counseling, often what that is saying is, “Hey, those of you from non-European descent, you can come, we welcome you. You can come and heal in these Eurocentric mediums of healing.” On the surface of it, that’s a nice offer. But it doesn’t make a ton of sense. And really what it’s doing is replicating colonial logic in that, “Hey, these European ways of being, behaving, and these European standards of living, these are the right standards. And we’re going to help you through therapy live up to these standards and these ways of being.”

To me, an anti-colonial approach would seek to first try to find the colonial logic that’s at play. And nobody bats a thousand at that, I would argue. But because it’s so embedded in the culture, we don’t think to critique it, although that has been happening more in the last couple of years. Anti-colonial, then, talks about culturally democratic approaches to therapy. A friend of mine, Makungu Akinyela in Georgia, has a type of therapy called “Testimony Therapy” which he equates to being next of kin to narrative therapy and African-centered therapy approaches. He says that a culturally democratic approach is to invite people to speak on behalf of their own healing.

And so, if we hope to practice an anti-colonial approach, which to me is like the big umbrella term, then a culturally democratic practice seems important because people are allowed to speak on behalf of their own healing. Speak in their mother tongues. Speak through the cultural knowledges that they have come up with.

One thing about psychiatry and psychology, if we’re not careful, is we can get a little too big for our britches. We can think that healing’s only taken place in the last century-and-a-half, or whatever it’s been. No, it’s like, hey, come on, you think just because we’ve now labeled these things as depression or anxiety or PTSD, people haven’t been up against these things throughout time?

LR: Like we invented these afflictions.

TH: Right. And did these people with depression and anxiety all just curl up in a ball and not live their lives? No, people have experience with healing. And they have knowledge about healing. It doesn’t have to exist in a Eurocentric way. And often what therapists are doing — almost always unwittingly — when they’re reproducing colonial logics in their practice is recolonizing people. And often the therapist doesn’t realize this is happening, nor does the client. And yet, this process is playing out. It’s assimilation. We talk about, should people assimilate when coming to a new country…Well, really that’s what therapy has often been doing, again unwittingly. I don’t think this has been done with malice.

LR: This is psychiatric assimilation.

TH: Right, exactly. And so traditional therapy reproduces this colonial logic, which then sometimes — again, completely unwittingly almost always — is reproducing internalized racism where people might already experience feelings of inferiority. It doesn’t always have to be around race, of course. It could be any number of other factors. So, I hope that there’s some justice to your question.

LR: So, traditional multicultural counseling, if I’m hearing you right, is, “Sure, come into my session, wear your native garb, let me learn a couple of buzzwords that are unique to your culture. And sure, tell me your story. But in the end, I’m going to lay some ACT on you.”

TH: Yeah. And again, almost never is this done with malice. But that’s some of the demanding work I think we have to do. And another thing is like, okay, I am of mixed racial background. I have the blood of the colonizer and the colonized that runs through me, which is a complicated place.

One of my colleagues out here in San Diego now, Vid Zamani, he was the first one I heard say that if we are reproducing traditional Eurocentric ways of doing therapy, then we are a de facto White. And I really appreciated that, because it was like, well, just because of my own background, that doesn’t make me immune from practicing colonial logic. And he said, of course, that makes total sense.

But if we’re not careful, then what happens is in the field’s attempt to diversify—sure, we might look diversified on the surface, but our practices aren’t that diversified—we’re still practicing the same colonial logics. The practice really isn’t changing, even if superficially the people doing the practice look different.

LR: So, until the psychotherapist recognizes that they are colonializing their clients, until the traditional colonializing psychotherapist rebels against their own inherited narratives of what psychotherapy is, they will continue to colonialize their clients. And colonialize the psyches of their clients.

TH: Yes. And this is, I’ve found, a largely unpopular idea. Especially among folks who have been doing this for a while. I’ll share this story that I think drives home your point. I was doing a job interview. Not for the institution I’m currently at, but for a past institution. I was doing a presentation that talked about some of this stuff that we’re talking about now. And when I got to the end of it, a dude says to me — an older white man in his 60s, “Hey, I’m going to throw you a softball question.” And right away I was like, okay, yeah, what’s this guy up to? And then he says, “Well, what am I supposed to do when you tell my students that I am practicing a therapy that’s colonizing folks?” And I thought about it for about five seconds, and then respectfully I said, “Well, if I can share something with you, I can guarantee you I’m practicing in colonizing ways. And in fact, I can guarantee you I’m doing it in ways I’m not yet aware of. So, in that sense, I wouldn’t be asking you to do anything that I am not practicing myself.” But I found that there are folks that are resistant to the fact that their work could be colonizing at all.

Communities of Care

LR: In the context of this thing called multicultural practice and colonization, what do you mean when you talk about the dignification of the client? I think that was your word.

TH: No, it’s David Epston’s word, although I might have used it. What’s interesting about that, Lawrence, is that I met David in 2015, so that’s seven or so years ago. I had been out of graduate school a good six, seven years at that point. I had been practicing in the community for the same amount of time. I had been a university professor for seven or eight years. I had been around this a minute, and I had never — and I mean literally never — heard a person use the word “dignity” regarding clients in therapy. I was taken aback by the word the first time I heard it in this context. Dignification is even a little better than dignity.

When someone’s up against something, some kind of distress — I’ve worked with a decent number of people in the criminal legal system — they are often stripped of their dignity. And so, dignification is really an effort to afford the person that dignity within the conversation. And when we engage in dignification and people can feel that they have dignity, that helps to open additional stories in their lives. And maybe those stories were already there, but if they don’t feel as though they have dignity, then those stories are inaccessible to us. Even if they’re there someplace.

I noticed this with people in the penal system—it doesn’t happen after one meeting and could actually take months — but when they really started to feel dignity, and that they were living a life with dignity, and respected as a person with dignity, we would start to see a turning point in what we were doing. Because there aren’t many systems that are practicing un-dignification more than the criminal legal system. And so, it was actually a great place for me to see that juxtaposition of when people are afforded dignity. And these probation officers would ask me, “Hey, how did you get this young man to take responsibility for his actions?” And I said, “Well, first by never mentioning the term ‘personal responsibility.’ That’s probably not a great way to go, even if that’s what you’re hoping for. And secondarily, by taking them seriously. Treating them with dignity. Listening to their ideas. Taking that insider knowledge they have and really using it as something that could move us forward in a way that would make sense in their lives.

LR: Your dislike of the notion of “personal responsibility” brings me to something you said about the difference between self-care and communities of care. What is that difference?

TH: Well, it depends. What’s the goal? If the goal is to make money and sell lots of products, then we’re not moving in the wrong direction at all. I think Ronald Purser is the dude’s name, he wrote the book “McMindfulness.” He articulates this as well as anybody I’ve heard. It’s worth the read.

Look, self-care is another one of those things I feel like came from a good place. And when I talk about my issues with self-care, I preface it by saying, if you want to take a bubble bath, that could be lovely. If you want to watch a movie or do whatever, great. I’m not against that. Where I find this to be problematic, and our field has done this as much as any that I’ve seen, is a student, for example, in a master’s or doctoral training program in our field starts struggling. And often the response by those in charge has been, “Well, are you doing your self-care? What are you doing to take care of yourself?” But then you look at a PhD student. They come here, work 18 hours a day, doing all their school stuff. We don’t pay them enough to survive, we give them a small stipend. Now they have to go work another job. But we remind them “please don’t forget to take care of yourself.”

Essentially and systemically, we outsource the responsibility for the oppressiveness of the system and then turn around and say, “It’s your responsibility.” As opposed to a community of care — and this is something I try to think about in my role as chair now of an academic department — which is, “Okay, if we have faculty that are drowning or students that are drowning, what are we doing to do to help, rather than lay the responsibility on the student to adapt to a system that is rather oppressive?” So, do we need to scale back some of what we’re requiring? Do we need to change the ways that the system operates? What can we be doing, other than once a school year bringing puppies in? “Hey, that’s lovely.” Or they’ll have a little massage chair set up. Fine.

I was talking to someone this morning, and the language that she used was so passive. We say, “I’m experiencing burnout.” And my thought about that is, no, you’re being burned out. That’s not the same thing. It’s about experiencing burnout versus being burned out. Our systems are burning us out. And so, if our systems are burning us out and we’re asking people to handle this individually while the system that’s doing this for its own gain takes no responsibility, well, then this is just going to keep repeating.

And I’ll come full circle to say that I think, not individual people, necessarily, but folks with something to sell don’t mind that. Because if the person is continually being burned out, guess what? They’re going to consume more of the product that we want. So, the system is actually set up beautifully for making money. I don’t necessarily think it’s set up good for quote-unquote “mental health.”

LR: So, in a sense, graduate trainees, like therapy clients, are typically colonized and oppressed by structures of authority. What do you mean when you say that therapy — and graduate education in the context of this conversation — should be an act of shared humanness?

TH: Yeah, I think again, the culture that we’re in is so ruggedly individualist, that often the human experience gets defined solely within the individual. And I worry about that. And to me, therapy at its best is shared humanness. I used to do this early on when I was a therapist. I came up for my first master’s class in 2002 with all these journals under my arm. I was going to save the world by going into these communities in South Los Angeles. And it didn’t take me long to figure out that shit wasn’t going to work, and I had to do something else. I learned that quickly.

The way I think about the shared humanness now is, we can’t be doing what we’re doing right now in this conversation without shared humanness. The same goes for a therapeutic conversation. When there is shared humanness and it comes together, something exponential is possible. But I would not be able to say everything I’m saying today during our time together without your questions. Your question takes me somewhere that I couldn’t have gone just by myself. Maybe I could have generally gone there, but something about your questions and the give–and-take transports us there. And the shared humanness in therapy is exactly the same. You bring these two people together. And what we could each accomplish on our own could be fine, or even good. But what we can accomplish in this shared human way is exponential.

Wholehearted Therapy

LR: Very similar to what Irvin Yalom refers to as the here–and–now—that the therapeutic relationship is lived in the moment — the fruits of psychotherapy grow from the back and forth. Is this related to what you describe as “wholehearted therapy practice?” And what does a therapist look like when they’re practicing halfhearted therapy?

TH: I think halfhearted therapy, or quarterhearted, or two-thirdshearted could happen for a lot of different reasons. But to me, wholehearted therapy is bringing all of yourself to the practice. One of our students asked a fair question just a couple of weeks ago; “How do I know how to be in therapy relative to how and who I am out in the world?” They asked it a little differently, but basically what they were asking was based on their feeling, “I don’t know how to not bring all of who I am into the room.”

And so, I think halfhearted therapy can happen when we think that there are parts of us that somehow can’t come into the room. Now, what I’m not saying is that there are certain topics we might not talk about in the room. Now, I would even question some of those and whether they are truly off limits, and I do frequently. But obviously there would be some topics that would be off-limits for us. Therapists could decide that. But I’m not so much talking about the topics of discussion. I’m talking about how much of themselves that they’re bringing. And I fear that therapists are often taught not to bring important parts of themselves.

With regard to halfhearted therapy, they could be doing therapy in a system in which they’re chronically underpaid and overworked, and their spirits are just really sucked dry. And then they just don’t have that spirit to bring. In no way would I blame the therapist for that. But if I think about the times when I’ve engaged in halfhearted or quarterhearted, or however much hearted therapy practice, it’s often been for those reasons. Now, earlier on in my career, it was because I was asking myself, well, can I be this in the room? And of course, that’s a ludicrous question, because I am this. So, one way or another, the person that I’m in conversation with starts to deduce that anyway.

LR: In the recently released “Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice, Stories, and Autoethnography,” you wrote a chapter entitled, “Maybe We Are Okay: Contemporary Narrative Therapy in the Time of Trump,” in which you narrated the therapeutic interaction you had with a person whose political views, specifically, their Republican views, clashed very dramatically with your Democratic views. So much so that the conversations about who you voted for 2016 became part of the therapeutic relationship. And in that relationship, you nicely demonstrated how you can disagree with someone’s political views, but still respect them as a person. Was that an example of wholehearted practice?

TH: It was interesting how that chapter came about. You know how therapists can get together and start talking in between seeing clients. Well, I noticed a lot of my colleagues saying something like, “Well, if Trump came to therapy, would you work with him?” I didn’t say anything when my colleagues were saying, “NO, I would never do that! Who could do that?” But then, I thought about it, and I was like, yeah, I think I’d work with him. I don’t know if he’d want to work with me. Maybe he’d tell me to get lost, but I think I’d try.

I just remember how outraged they were. And when they asked the question of how I would do that, I would say, “Well, I haven’t worked with Trump, but I’ve worked with plenty of people who have views that are very different than mine.” So, that was the inspiration for this, to try to explain shit to myself. Even after writing the chapter, I’m not sure I understand how I always engage in this work. But, to go back to bringing one’s full self into the room, we didn’t get deeper into the party politics in that chapter. But if we happened to in our sessions, I wasn’t super-enthused about voting for Hillary. I felt like a lot of people — like I have to decide between two people that I’m not really enthused about. Okay, I’ll take the one that I’m a little more enthused about. I’ll engage in a minimization-of-harm vote, is kind of how I felt.

But clearly, in the chapter you’re describing, my client and I voted for different people. When that moment came up, the question was, “Do I talk about it or do I not?” And the thing about that is, okay, I could decide not to talk about it. I could decide to do the thing as, “Oh, that’s an interesting question. I wonder why you’re asking?” But she knew. She had a sense of this, of who I voted for. And I’ve heard people say this kind of thing who haven’t read the chapter, but have said, “Well, you know, you’ve got to be careful. You’re pressing your political views on them.” But I disagree. What I’m doing in therapy is I’m simply showing up as I am, and she can show up as she is. And then we have to figure out how that meshes, and how we do the work together that we’ve been charged with doing with one another.

And that doesn’t require me being neutral. And by the way, I’m not neutral. It’s just a matter of whether I admit I’m not. I’ve seen a lot of discourse around this lately about neutrality and people debating what it means and all this kind of stuff. But to me, it’s an impossibility. We are not neutral. And so rather than try and pretend as though I am — not unsolicited would I share such a thing, but when it works its way into the session — when she brings this up, it’s like okay, let’s talk about the shit that we’re not supposed to talk about. Let’s talk about religion. Let’s talk about politics. To me, therapy seems like a great place to do that. And not just in the sense of me just passively listening or looking for pathology in the patient and how they talk about this. But rather, let’s have an actual conversation with two wholehearted human beings about the thing that we’re not supposed to have a conversation.

LR: In a sense, you are co-rebelling against the mandates of traditional therapy with a client by self-disclosing and by being fully present.

TH: And neither of us has to change our political party. Although for me, I’m not that enamored with the Democratic Party, either. But I’m not sure I have a party that represents my interests, to be honest. I certainly wouldn’t say I’m an Independent. That has its own set of connotations. But I don’t feel like I have a party that represents my interests. And I didn’t say that explicitly. At least I don’t recall saying that in my work with her. But perhaps it came out. Perhaps this is more complicated than we give it credit for.

And to me, probably these last two or three years, I’ve constantly been on the lookout in my therapeutic work for people with binaries. Because our culture relies so heavily on them. And I often find that when people bring those up, that’s at the root of something that they’re really struggling with. And it’s built into our language, Lawrence. We say, “Well, I need to hear both sides of the story.” And to me I’m like, I’d like to hear all the sides of the story that I could hear. I’d like to hear many sides of the story. I found that often people are thrust into these binaries, and it almost feels like there’s not another option. So part of my job is to have these discussions and then look outside of those binaries for what could be there. And I don’t think therapists do this on purpose, or clients do it on purpose. It seems to be a real cultural thing.

LR: I used to joke with my classes — sorta — by saying, “There are two types of people in the world. Those who believe there are two types of people in the world, and those who don’t.” Does this wholeheartedness, the kind you described in your work with this particular client involve what you refer to as “radical respect?”

TH: I can tell you the story about where that term came from. I don’t know if we mentioned it in the book, but it came from Art Frank, a brilliant writer. He’s not a therapist but when he would read transcripts of sessions or watched sessions, he said, “When I see David [Epston] practicing, Tom [Stone Carlson] practicing, what I see is radical respect.” And so that term actually came from someone outside of the therapeutic community altogether, which I think is worth noting.

I think part of what he’s getting at is there is that no matter where the person moves, no matter where they might take the conversation, no matter what the stories are that they might wish to live through, or that are living through them, that narrative therapy endeavors — it isn’t always successful — but endeavors to hold this deep respect for people and why they are behaving the way they are. Why they’re living through the stories that they are. Why they’re feeling the way they are. And that radical respect then to me promotes curiosity.

So, in the chapter that you were referencing, the Trump chapter as it’s getting to be called, I hope there were some examples of radical respect in there. I’ll give you an example from the chapter of my attempt at it. When I came to realize that by completely dismissing her perspective — which I don’t think I did, but I could have because I found a lot of things Trump did objectionable — I might have been engaging in some sort of erasure of her family. And that would have been highly disrespectful. And so even when it was something that I fundamentally disagree with, there was still a way I could practice respect. This was opposed to going, “Well, but you’re on the wrong side of history.” I also think radical respect is a feeling that both the therapist and client experience, sometimes without words.

Art Bochner talks about “evocative autoethnography” which is not about the therapist simply being a fly on the wall, but instead being moved by the client’s story, their narrative. Let’s say you were reading that chapter about me and the woman, and you had never seen either of us before, and then you see us walk out of a room. You’d know it was us. But the point is, that’s what we’re endeavoring with autoethnography. We get out of the world of jargon so both partners in the therapeutic moment can feel and experience it.

LR: As we near the end of our time, Travis, I want you to know that I’ve had a lot of fun in this interview. Do you have any questions for me?

TH: No, but I will say one thing quickly, though. If therapy is really an act of rebellion, then there has to be something at stake, there has to be risk involved. It has to mean that you could be out of compliance in some way — with tradition, with certification standards, with accreditation expectations. And if we’re not doing anything, if what we’re doing is completely devoid of risk, or we’re afraid to take any of that, then we won’t move any of these things forward. And I know plenty of people who are, in their own ways, challenging these different systems. And this is not to knock the accrediting bodies. They have their role. But we have to take some of these risks. To detraditionalize, as we were talking about earlier. Risk is inevitable, right?

LR: On that note, I think I’m going to say goodbye. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, Travis. It reignites me.

TH: Stay in touch. Holler at me with whatever.

QUESTIONS FOR CLINICAL THOUGHT

How does Dr. Heath’s description of his work resonate with your own therapeutic approach?
Which of his concepts strikes a particular chord with you and why?
How might you have worked with the client who struggled with peanut butter consumption?
How do you engage in radical respect with your own clients? Do you have difficulty doing so with a particular type of client?
Can you think of a client with whom you have worked, or continue to work, wholeheartedly or halfheartedly?
What about Narrative Therapy interests you and challenges you to learn more about the model?

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Category: Travis Heath

Spitting Truth from My Soul: A Case Story of Rapping, Probation, and the Narrative Practices- Part II

Recapitulation

An Antidote to Anger

Turn Up the Sound

Two Different Stories

A Celebration of Hope

Spitting Truth from My Soul: A Case Story of Rapping, Probation, and the Narrative Practices- Part I

The Rap That Binds

A Voice to the Voiceless

Of Protest and Freedom

Removing the Shackles

Spitting From My Soul

Travis Heath on Psychotherapy as an Act of Rebellion

An Act of Rebellion

Confessions of an Anti-Manualist

De-Colonializing Therapy

Communities of Care

Wholehearted Therapy