Radical Aesthetics and Radical Praxis
When Therapy’s Branding Outpaces Its Ethics
Let’s talk about the dissonance between what therapy claims to be and what it often is. You’ve seen the posts - the Instagram grids adorned with phrases like “decolonize your practice!” right next to prescriptivist advice about mental health. The TikTok rants about “systemic harm” that never mention the insurance companies causing that harm. The LinkedIn essays on “neurodiversity” that still treat divergence as a checklist to manage.
When “radical” becomes a branding strategy rather than a daily practice, we have to ask: Who benefits when care is reduced to aesthetics?
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The Chasm Between Claims and Action
Here’s the thing: Radicalism isn’t a font choice. It’s not a muted earth-tone palette or a perfectly curated reel about “burning down systems.” It’s the unglamorous work of interrogating where our frameworks come from - and who they exclude.
Take ongoing informed consent. Of course it’s essential. But when therapists act like it’s a revolutionary act to tell clients, “You can say no,” it reveals how deeply the system has gaslit us. Consent isn’t radical - it’s relational hygiene. The real question is: Why did we ever treat it as optional?
This isn’t about clinicians “failing.” It’s about a profession that:
- Trains therapists to pathologize “noncompliant” clients rather than approach them with care and curiosity.
- Equates “expertise” with authority, not collaboration.
- Rewards performative allyship (hello, diversity statements) over material change.
When we applaud ongoing informed consent as “brave,” we’re praising the system for letting us crumb-share humanity.
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The Real Work Happens Offline
Let’s be clear: I’m not against aesthetics. I love a good infographic! But when our posts about “systemic change” outpace our policies, we’ve lost the plot.
For example:
- The clinician who charges $200/hour but calls their practice “accessible” because they donate 1% to a mutual aid fund.
- The “trauma-informed” intake form that still demands clients relive their pain in bullet points.
- The “neurodivergent-affirming” therapist who pathologizes PDA as “defiance” but uses ADHD-friendly transitions in their reels.
These aren’t moral failings. They’re symptoms of a system that incentivizes optics over ethics. We’re all just trying to survive a machine that conflates “care” with “compliance.”
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The System’s Playbook
Therapy’s industrial complex thrives on three lies:
1. Burnout is your fault (and not the result of unsustainable caseloads/wages).
2. Neutrality is ethical (ignoring that “neutrality” always benefits the status quo).
3. Self-care can fix systemic harm (as if bubble baths solve insurance reimbursement rates).
When clinicians internalize this, it’s because the system is designed to keep us too exhausted, indebted, and isolated to fight back. We’re not failing - we’re being farmed.
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So Where Do We Start?
1. Audit, Don’t Aestheticize
- Audit your practice: Does your “neurodivergent-affirming” label align with your policies? Do your sliding-scale slots actually slide?
2. Name the Systems, Not Just Symptoms
- Swap “client resistance” for “logical responses to oppressive structures.” Reframe “noncompliance” as “boundary-setting.”
3. Mentor (and Learn) in the Mess
- Share your uncertainty. Normalize saying, “I don’t know - let’s figure this out together.” Model imperfection as a form of resistance. Therapists discussing and questioning our profession is important, and change is messy and essential.
4. Redirect the Rage
- When you feel guilty for “not doing enough,” aim that fire upward. The system wants us too drained to question it.
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A Note to the Weary
This isn’t about purity. It’s about showing up messy, inconsistent, and relentlessly human. I’ve billed insurance codes I hated. I’ve used jargon that made me cringe. I’ve recycled trauma tropes before unlearning them.
We don’t have to romanticize reimaginings of client care to implement them. We just have to stop mistaking hashtags for change.
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Final Thought:
Therapy’s redemption won’t come from aesthetics. It’ll come from clinicians and clients conspiring - one unglamorous, imperfect, system-defying act at a time.
I got pushed out of the field and I needed to or I felt like I was going to die. I fully agree with providers trying to be more true to their values and what they market themselves as focusing on. But sometimes that can lead to appeasing the client and becoming self sacrificing. That’s the issue. It’s hard to find a balance between being over or under boundaried in this niche when you’re a ND and disabled clinician yourself. Shout to you and all the clinicians who make it work. I couldn’t do it. 2 years later and I’m still so incredibly sick from working in that system. It was traumatic for me in every way possible. The expectations put on me systemically and the trauma based ones I put on myself weren’t reasonable. I tried to change them but it was too late. My last boss said I wanted to have too many boundaries with clients and that it wasn’t possible in my work. I really hope for collective healing, for ND therapists and their clients. But it’s tough for all involved… it can be so rewarding to work with people who identify and struggle how you do. At other times it can be debilitating..