Decolonizing Mental Health Through a Holistic Approach
July is BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month.
And this year, I want to use this month to have an honest conversation about something the mental health field has been slow to address: the fact that the system was not built with everyone in mind.
That is not an opinion. That is history.
And it is the foundation of everything I do as a holistic therapist.
What Does Decolonizing Mental Health Actually Mean?
When people hear the phrase "decolonizing mental health," they sometimes assume it means rejecting therapy altogether. That is not what it means.
Decolonizing mental health means moving away from a Eurocentric lens and recognizing that healing has always been holistic. It means being honest about the fact that the traditional mental health model was developed within a specific cultural, political, and historical context, and that context did not center the experiences, wisdom, or healing traditions of Black, Indigenous, and communities of color.
For too long, healing has been viewed through a linear, hierarchical lens. One that prioritized cognitive insight over embodied experience. That separated the mind from the body, the individual from the community, the clinical from the spiritual. That pathologized what it did not understand and dismissed what it could not measure.
Decolonizing mental health is the work of undoing that. Of expanding what healing looks like. Of honoring the whole person, in all of their complexity, across all of the layers of who they are.
The Roots of Holistic Healing
Long before the DSM. Long before the 50-minute session. Long before the waiting room and the co-pay and the six-week intake process.
People healed.
They healed in community. Through ritual, through movement, through song, through prayer, through story. They healed by tending to the whole person, not just the symptoms presenting in the office that day.
Our African and Indigenous ancestors understood something that the Western mental health model has been slow to catch up to: healing is not only clinical. It is sacred. It is communal. It is embodied. It is layered.
That knowledge did not disappear. It was suppressed, dismissed, and in many cases, actively erased from mainstream mental health care. But it has always been there.
Reclaiming ancestral healing practices is not about rejecting modern care. It is about completing it. It is about honoring what has always been true: that healing happens in the body, the spirit, the energy field, and the community, not just the mind.
The Five Layers of Holistic HealingThe Five Layers of Holistic Healing
The Holistic Therapist Method is built on this truth. It is a five-layer framework for whole-person healing that addresses every dimension of a person's experience.
The Physical Layer The body holds what the mind cannot always process. Trauma lives in the nervous system, in the muscles, in the breath. Holistic healing addresses the physical layer through practices like yoga, breathwork, movement, and somatic awareness — tools that help the body release what it has been holding and return to a state of regulation.
The Energetic Layer We are energetic beings. Our environments, our relationships, and our internal states all carry an energetic charge that affects how we feel, how we function, and how we heal. The energetic layer is addressed through practices like sound healing, Reiki, Human Design, and mindful presence — tools that help us attune to the energy we carry and create conditions for restoration.
The Mental and Emotional Layer This is where traditional therapy has focused most of its attention. Cognitive processing, emotional regulation, insight and reflection. These are important and necessary. But they are one layer, not the whole picture. Holistic healing honors the mental and emotional layer while recognizing that it cannot be addressed in isolation from the body, the spirit, or the community.
The Spiritual Layer For many of the people and communities I serve, spirituality is not separate from healing. It is central to it. The spiritual layer honors a person's connection to something greater than themselves, whether that is God, ancestors, nature, or their own deepest values. Holistic healing does not pathologize faith. It meets people in it.
The Communal and Relational Layer We were never meant to heal alone. Community is medicine. The communal and relational layer recognizes that healing happens in connection, in belonging, in being witnessed. It honors the ways our relationships, our families, our histories, and our communities shape who we are and how we heal.
When we address all five layers, we offer something the traditional model alone cannot: whole care.
Why This Work Matters Now
We are living in a moment of tremendous need and, I believe, tremendous possibility.
Mental health disparities in Black and Brown communities are well documented. Access to care remains limited. Cultural competency in clinical settings remains inconsistent. And for too many people, the experience of seeking mental health support has been one of being misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or simply unseen.
Decolonizing mental health is a response to that reality. It is a call to practitioners to expand their toolkit, examine their assumptions, and meet the people they serve with a more complete understanding of what healing requires.
It is also a call to the communities most affected by these disparities to reclaim the healing traditions that belong to them. To know that the wisdom of their ancestors is not primitive or unscientific. It is profound, time-tested, and deeply relevant to the mental health crisis of our time.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Decolonizing mental health does not look the same for every practitioner or every client. But here are some of the ways it shows up in my work and in the work of the holistic therapists I train and support.
It looks like bringing breathwork and somatic awareness into the therapy room alongside talk therapy.
It looks like asking a client about their spiritual life and honoring whatever they share without pathologizing it.
It looks like understanding that a client's so-called resistance might actually be wisdom, a body and nervous system that learned to protect itself from systems that caused harm.
It looks like creating space for community and ritual alongside individual sessions.
It looks like learning the history of the communities we serve and understanding how that history lives in the bodies and minds of the people sitting across from us.
It looks like practitioners doing their own healing work so they can show up more fully for the people in their care.
An Invitation
If you are a therapist, healer, or wellness professional who has ever felt like something was missing from your practice, this is for you.
You are not imagining it. The traditional model was never designed to hold all of who we are. And you do not have to choose between being a great clinician and a fully embodied healer. You can be both.
That is the invitation of holistic practice. That is the heart of The Holistic Therapist Method.
And if you want to go deeper, I have two invitations for you.
First, join me at the Omega Learning Retreat, August 23 through 28, 2026, at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Five days of immersive holistic learning, restoration, and community. This is an opportunity to step away from the pace of everyday life and go deeper into your own healing and your practice.
Visit Here to learn more and register
Second, join me at the Second Annual Holistic Therapist Conference, October 1 through 4, 2026, at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. Four days of holistic learning, community, and expansion alongside practitioners who are doing this work alongside you. Approximately 18 CE credits available. Early bird doors are open now.
Visit Here to secure your spot and save $200
LeNaya Smith Crawford is a licensed marriage and family therapist, yoga teacher, and the founder of The Holistic Therapist™. She created The Holistic Therapist Method, a five-layer framework for whole-person healing, and hosts the Holistic Therapist Podcast: Integration. Embodiment. Expansion. Learn more .