Beyond awareness of ‘difference’ and towards social action: ‘Solidarity practice’ alongside young people

Abstract

Who I am as a working-class black African woman cannot be disconnected from how I work. It shapes my lens with regard to power, difference and liberation. It is not surprising that I have been drawn to social justice approaches to psychological intervention, such as Narrative Therapy, Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), social constructionist systemic therapy and liberation psychology. These practices involve taking up the cause of the oppressed in ways that respect them as agents of their own liberation. In this article, I describe what I term ‘solidarity practice’ with young people and their families as a counter force resisting the increasingly blaming and individualising discourse of mainstream psychology, psychiatry and social policy.