Introducing ‘decolonisation therapy’, the pseudoscience that seeks to erase your Zionism

While this framework uses a social-justice framework, it labels Zionism – a key component of the Jewish identity – as a root cause of mental illness, despite its conspicuous absence in the DSM.

The increasing embrace of decolonisation therapy, especially in its anti-Zionist interpretations, is not only unscientific and unproven but also contributes to the rising tide of antisemitism in healthcare spaces. This must be addressed before more harm is done.

Zionism is the recognition that Jews are a people entitled to self-determination in their ancestral homeland of Israel. The Jewish people have more than 3,000 years of history in the Land of Israel, which decolonial therapy ignores or denies. It is impossible for indigenous people to “colonise” their ancestral homeland.

Furthermore, 85% of American Jews identify as Zionists; it is a core aspect of their identity. Similar to conversion therapy, decolonial therapy seeks to erase a core part of an individual’s identity under the guise of purported health care, and it does so when antisemitism is on the rise.

Therefore, just as society categorically condemns conversion therapy for erasing and denying the identity of members of the LGBTQ community, so, too, should we reject decolonial therapy’s effort to erase and deny Jewish identity.

While trauma-informed therapy is a crucial and evidence-based practice, decolonial therapy lacks empirical support and rigorous scientific validation. Instead, it often relies on political ideology rather than psychological research, making it an unreliable and potentially harmful approach to mental-health treatment.

Psychological therapy can have, broadly speaking, two goals: a reduction of behaviour or emotion or an increase in a skill or behaviour. Decolonial therapists aim to increase activism in their clients, and one aspect of this activism involves seeking retribution against innocent targets, sometimes resulting in guilty emotional reactions in a client.

Not only is this approach to therapy not evidence-based, but it is causing harm to clients. This approach forces Jewish clients into an impossible position: Either reject their historical and cultural connection to Israel or risk being cast as oppressors in the therapeutic setting.

For Jewish clients experiencing trauma related to antisemitism, forced displacement or intergenerational Holocaust trauma, such an approach is retraumatising rather than healing.

The therapeutic space should be one of safety, validation and healing, yet decolonisation therapy, as it is often practised, fosters an environment of exclusion and ideological policing.

Jewish clients who express any form of connection to Israel – whether religious, cultural or personal – risk being invalidated or labelled as colonisers, a deeply distressing and alienating experience that can further lead to traumatic invalidation.

When therapy sessions reinforce one-sided narratives that delegitimise Jewish history, identity and trauma, they cease to be therapeutic and instead become a tool for ideological indoctrination.

For example, at a professional meeting in November 2024, a presenter delivered a talk on decolonial approaches for a serious psychological disorder to an audience of some 900 mental-health practitioners.

In that talk, the presenter included slides for “the colonised mind” that equated Zionism with genocidal tendencies, misogynoir (hatred toward black women), rape culture, genocidal tendencies and fascism.

When confronted with the extensive and offensive inaccuracies in the presentation, this speaker recorded a response in which she portrayed herself as the victim.

A recent study showed that approximately 75 per cent of Jewish medical professionals encountered antisemitism at work in the past 14 months.

This rapidly growing trend comes from a false narrative that Zionism is a “settler-colonial oppressor” philosophy, which rejects the State of Israel, and its growth in medicine is alarming.

It has resulted in a book on decolonial therapy featuring images that equate the Jewish identity with fascism, misogyny, rape culture and genocidal tendencies, and Jewish patients being denied care or having it suddenly terminated. Many Jewish patients have begun carefully vetting their doctors for antisemitic attitudes

Unfortunately, antisemitism has become a central theme in the mental-health community, and it may get worse before it gets better.

The growth of decolonial therapy and its offshoots has led some mental-health professionals to openly advertise their services as “anti-Zionist,” intimidating colleagues and clients alike if they identify as Jewish.

Worse, the American Psychological Association (APA), whose former president demanded that leaders in the profession adopt decolonial therapy, just released its new ethics code, and it codifies the framework of “social justice,” which supports the anticolonial model that seeks to erase the Jewish identity, requiring psychologists to incorporate this model in treatment or risk ethical violations.

The mental-health community must take immediate action to address these concerns and restore integrity to the field. This includes:

Rejecting ideological coercion in therapy: Mental-health treatment must be client-centred and evidence-based, not driven by political agendas. Therapy should validate Jewish trauma, not erase it.

Protecting Jewish clinicians from discrimination: Health-care institutions and professional organisations must implement anti-discrimination policies that explicitly include Jewish identity and Zionist perspectives.

Demanding empirical validation: Any therapeutic model, including decolonisation therapy, should undergo rigorous scientific evaluation before being integrated into mental-health practices.

Addressing antisemitism in mental-health training: Graduate programs, licencing boards and professional organisations must educate mental-health practitioners on antisemitism, including its modern manifestations within anti-Zionist rhetoric.

Holding professional organisations accountable: Licencing boards, therapy associations and educational institutions must prohibit the imposition of ideological frameworks that invalidate Jewish identity and ensure that antisemitism is explicitly addressed in ethical guidelines.

Encouraging Jewish mental-health advocacy: Jewish professionals, allies and organisations must amplify their voices to challenge the harmful effects of decolonisation therapy and demand that therapy remains a space of healing, not ideological enforcement.

Educating the broader mental-health community: There must be increased awareness about the historical and indigenous roots of Jewish identity, countering the false narratives perpetuated by anti-Zionist rhetoric in therapeutic spaces.

Healing cannot take place in a space where Jewish identity is vilified. The infiltration of decolonisation therapy into mental-health practices is doing real harm, pushing Jewish patients and professionals to the margins.

It is time for the field to take a stand against this dangerous trend and reaffirm its commitment to ethical, inclusive and evidence-based care for all.