JOURNAL
Systemic oppression and personal agency: Balancing individual story work with social realities
Your hurt feelings about injustice? They make complete sense. Your anger at systems that seem rigged against you? Valid. Your exhaustion from fighting battles that feel impossible to win? Completely understandable. These aren't character flaws or signs of weakness—they're human responses to real social realities.
Yet here's where therapy gets complicated: How do we honor the truth of systemic oppression while still believing in personal agency? How do we validate someone's experience of discrimination without leaving them feeling powerless? This tension sits at the heart of ethical therapy work today.
Traditional therapy has long focused on individual change, often with the implicit message that if you just think differently, work harder, or heal your trauma, your problems will resolve. This approach can be harmful when it ignores the very real impact of systemic barriers.Research shows that treatment settings and clinicians can unintentionally create retraumatizing experiences when they fail to acknowledge the broader social context of a person's pain. When a therapist suggests that someone experiencing workplace discrimination simply needs to "reframe their thoughts" or "build resilience," they're essentially asking that person to gaslight themselves about their lived reality.
This approach can be particularly harmful for people from marginalized communities, who may already be questioning whether their experiences of oppression are "real" or if they're just being "too sensitive." The therapeutic relationship itself can become retraumatizing when it mirrors the broader social message that individual change is always possible and preferable to systemic change.
On the other side of this spectrum lies an equally problematic approach: therapeutic narratives that position clients as helpless victims of systemic forces beyond their control. While it's crucial to validate the reality of oppression, stories that offer no possibility for personal agency can leave people feeling hopeless and stuck.This is where narrative therapy's approach to collective trauma becomes crucial. Research on collective narrative practices shows that healing from systemic oppression often requires connecting personal stories to broader social narratives of resistance and resilience. When people understand their struggles as part of larger patterns—when they can locate themselves within communities of others who share similar experiences—they often discover both validation and renewed agency.
Narrative therapy offers a framework for holding both truths simultaneously: systemic oppression is real and devastating, and personal agency exists within that reality. This approach doesn't ask people to choose between acknowledging injustice and believing in their capacity to create change.Through narrative therapy's practice of externalization, problems are viewed as separate from people rather than as inherent flaws. This approach can be particularly powerful when working with systemic oppression because it allows people to understand discrimination as something happening to them rather than something wrong with them.
Instead of asking "Why am I so sensitive to racism?" narrative therapy might explore how "the racism" operates in someone's life, what strategies they've developed to resist its effects, and what values it challenges. This linguistic shift creates space for resistance while acknowledging the real impact of oppression.
Research shows that narrative practitioners use externalizing practices to politicize acts of social injustice, turning the gaze back on normative judgment and acknowledging acts of resistance, care, and protests to invite personal agency. This approach honors both the pain caused by systemic oppression and the strength people demonstrate in surviving and resisting it.
One of narrative therapy's most powerful contributions to working with systemic oppression is its focus on uncovering "unique outcomes"—moments when people's preferred stories shine through despite oppressive circumstances. These aren't stories that minimize injustice, but rather stories that reveal the ongoing resistance and resilience that often go unnoticed.When working with systemic oppression, unique outcomes are aspects of the person's story that contradict or don't align with the negative or problematic story imposed by dominant culture. These might include moments when someone stood up to discrimination, when they found community despite marginalization, or when they chose their values over social pressure.
Rather than focusing solely on the damage done by oppression, narrative therapy seeks to uncover the person's strengths, agency, and emotional vitality that are hidden behind a person's personal problem-focused narratives. This isn't about minimizing harm or promoting toxic positivity—it's about recognizing the full complexity of human experience under oppressive conditions.
Research shows that fostering critical consciousness through storytelling promotes personal empowerment, collective organizing, and advocacy for community needs; while resistance helps to reduce disempowering thought patterns, inertia, and systemic inequities. When people connect their personal stories of resistance to broader movements for social change, both individual healing and collective action become possible.
So what does this balanced approach look like in practice? Here are some ways therapists can work with systemic oppression while maintaining space for personal agency:
Externalize the oppression, not the person's response to it.
Instead of asking "Why do you let racism affect you so much?" A narrative therapist might explore how "the racism" operates in someone's life and what strategies they've developed to resist its influence. This approach honors both the reality of systemic harm and the person's ongoing resistance.
Map the landscape of resistance.
Work with clients to identify all the ways they've refused to let oppression define them completely. This might include maintaining cultural traditions, pursuing education despite barriers, or finding chosen family when biological family isn't supportive. These aren't small consolation prizes—they're evidence of ongoing strength and values in action.
Connect personal stories to collective narratives.
Help clients understand their experiences within broader social contexts. When someone struggling with workplace discrimination learns about others who've faced similar challenges and found ways to create change, they often discover both validation and renewed possibility.
Address both internal and external change.
Acknowledge that while individuals can't single-handedly dismantle oppressive systems, they do have choices about how to respond to those systems. This might involve developing coping strategies, building community, engaging in activism, or simply refusing to internalize harmful messages.
Validate anger as information.
Rage about injustice often contains important information about values and boundaries. Rather than pathologizing anger or immediately moving toward "acceptance," explore what this emotion is trying to communicate about what matters most to the person.
The most ethical therapeutic work with systemic oppression refuses to choose between individual agency and social justice. Instead, it holds space for both truths: systems of oppression are real and devastating, and people possess remarkable capacity for resistance, resilience, and change within those constraints.
This approach validates the exhaustion that comes from fighting battles that feel impossible to win while also honoring the strength it takes to keep fighting at all. It acknowledges that some problems can't be solved through individual therapy while still believing in people's capacity to author new chapters in their stories.
Your hurt feelings about living in an unjust world? They make complete sense. Your desire to create change despite the odds? That makes sense too. Both can be true simultaneously, and both deserve space in the therapeutic conversation.
When therapy holds this complexity, it becomes a place where people can process the real impact of oppression without losing sight of their own power to respond. It becomes a space where individual healing and social justice aren't competing narratives, but complementary chapters in the larger story of what it means to be human in an imperfect world.