President's Message — Jennifer Calderon, LMFT, LPCC

Beyond Allyship: Why I Strive to Be an Accomplice in Psychotherapy

As psychotherapists, we are often encouraged to be allies of marginalized communities. Allyship matters. It reflects awareness, empathy, and support for individuals impacted by systemic oppression, discrimination, and exclusion. Yet over time, I have found myself questioning whether allyship alone is sufficient within the therapeutic profession. Increasingly, I believe our work calls us toward something deeper and more active; something more like an accomplice.

To me, an ally is someone who expresses support. An accomplice is someone willing to share risk, challenge systems, and actively work alongside marginalized individuals in ways that disrupt injustice rather than simply acknowledging it. In psychotherapy, that distinction matters. It changes how I conceptualize treatment, advocacy, supervision, consultation, and even my own professional accountability.

In clinical settings, it can be easy to unintentionally remain in the safety of allyship. I can affirm a client’s lived experience, validate the impact of racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, poverty, or religious discrimination, and still avoid confronting the institutional structures contributing to their distress. I can empathize without examining how systems—including mental health systems—have historically harmed the very populations I aim to support. Accompliceship requires more from me. It requires movement beyond passive affirmation into intentional action.

This shift has fundamentally changed the way I approach therapy. I no longer view many client struggles solely through an intrapsychic lens. When clients from marginalized communities present with anxiety, hypervigilance, depression, shame, or exhaustion, I must carefully assess whether these responses are symptoms of pathology or adaptive responses to chronic oppression and systemic threat. Too often, mental health professionals have pathologized survival responses without adequately contextualizing them.

Being an accomplice means I actively examine power dynamics within the therapeutic relationship itself. As clinicians, we inherently occupy positions of authority. For clients who have experienced institutional betrayal, cultural invalidation, or discrimination by helping professionals, trust cannot be assumed. I have learned that cultural humility is not a destination or competency checklist—it is an ongoing practice of self-examination, accountability, and repair.

Accompliceship also requires me to tolerate discomfort. It means recognizing that I will make mistakes, hold biases, and occasionally fail to fully understand experiences outside my own lived reality. Rather than becoming defensive, my responsibility is to remain open, repair ruptures, and continue learning. In my experience, clients are less interested in perfection than they are in authenticity, accountability, and willingness to engage difficult conversations honestly.

Importantly, being an accomplice extends beyond the therapy room. It affects the professional choices I make within agencies, schools, organizations, and professional associations. I must ask difficult questions: Who has access to services? Who is excluded by cost, language, transportation, documentation status, disability barriers, or cultural stigma? Whose voices are missing from leadership? Which policies unintentionally perpetuate harm? Advocacy becomes part of ethical clinical practice, not an optional extracurricular activity.

This perspective is especially relevant when working with historically marginalized communities that have understandable mistrust of mental health systems. In my own clinical and supervisory work, I have seen how stigma, intergenerational trauma, immigration experiences, systemic racism, and economic inequities shape whether individuals feel emotionally safe enough to seek help at all. In these moments, therapy is not merely symptom reduction—it becomes relational, cultural, and sometimes political work.

Accompliceship also challenges the myth of therapist neutrality. While therapists should avoid imposing personal beliefs onto clients, neutrality in the face of oppression can unintentionally reinforce harmful systems. Silence itself communicates something. When clients disclose experiences of discrimination, violence, or systemic harm, they are often assessing whether the therapeutic space is truly safe enough for honesty. Naming injustice appropriately can itself be clinically meaningful.

At the same time, I believe accompliceship requires nuance and humility. It is not performative activism, or speaking over marginalized voices. It is not about centering my own guilt, virtue, or political identity. Instead, it involves listening deeply, amplifying client autonomy, remaining accountable, and using whatever privilege or influence I hold to reduce barriers and increase safety for others.

Ultimately, becoming an accomplice is not a professional title I can claim permanently. It is an ongoing ethical practice. It requires continual reflection about how I show up for clients, colleagues, supervisees, and communities whose experiences differ from my own. For me, the work of psychotherapy is not only about helping individuals survive painful systems, but also about refusing to ignore the systems contributing to that pain in the first place.

As therapists, we often ask clients to move toward courage, vulnerability, and authenticity. Being an accomplice requires the same of us.

Jennifer Calderon, LMFT, LPCC Jennifer joined SFV-CAMFT in 2022 and served as Vice President of Programs from 2023–2025. She brings over 26 years of experience in community mental health and private practice, is a CAMFT Certified Supervisor and AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona, as well as a Professional Clinical Counselor in California. She currently serves as Chair of the CAMFT Certified Supervisor Program Committee, and offers both clinical supervision & clinical consultation services regarding highly traumatized populations, family systems, foster care & adoption experiences, and clinical burnout.