The Liberation Psychology Program at Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research, has published a new article titled “Colonial Structures and the Collapse of Ethics in the Therapeutic Space: Reading a Lived Experience from a Liberationist Perspective,” authored by Najla Athamnah, psychotherapist and supervisor, and lecturer at Birzeit University.
The article, published also in Arabic in November 2025, critically examines a psychoanalytic relationship from the perspective of a Palestinian psychotherapist living in Israel, reflecting on her own experience in undergoing psychoanalysis with an Israeli therapist. She approaches it as a clinical space in which the personal intersects with the collective, and the internal with the external, in a context that is politically and ethically charged.
The article starts from the premise that the therapeutic space is not an isolated sphere, but is influenced by broader power structures. It proposes an analytical approach that draws on the intersections of classical psychology, liberation psychology, and feminist and postcolonial critiques, in order to reveal moments of collapse within the therapeutic space. It demonstrates that such moments illuminate professional, ethical, political, and social structures that have not been adequately addressed within psychoanalytic and therapeutic practice.
This article interrogates foundational concepts in therapeutic practice, such as neutrality, listening, containment, and the safe space. While these concepts are often presented within classical psychology as purely therapeutic tools, this article argues that they may be deployed in ways that, often without practitioners’ awareness, reproduce structural violence within a presumed safe space.
To read the full paper in English, click here.
To read the full paper in Arabic, click here.
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