CRSJ Counselling

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the revised approach to CRSJ counselling as the conceptual framework for the book, Decolonizing health, healing and care: Embodying culturally responsive and socially just counselling. The authors acknowledge that there is no singular pathway for decolonizing counselling, psychology, or other mental health services. Instead they share one vision, in this moment-in-time, contextualized by their personal and professional experiences, and the knowledge and wisdom gifted to them by the many co-authors of the book. Sandra and Melissa map out a vision for new pathways to health, healing, and care that emphasize cultural responsivity, intersectionality, and social justice. They describe how the revised CRSJ counselling approach has emerged in, and through, relationship and reciprocity. Decolonizing is, at its core, a centring of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, which led the authors to draw on the nêhiyaw (Cree) Medicine Wheel to visualize CRSJ counselling along eight pathways to health, healing, and care. Within these pathways, they offer 18 practices to support decolonial, anti-oppressive, culturally responsive, and socially just care. What they offer is not a new theory of counselling, but rather a metatheoretical lens to guide practitioner thinking, doing, and being. This approach opens the door to infusing CRSJ counselling at the program level, as well as in individual courses. Finally they reflect critically on the focus on cultural competency, conventionally an individualist process of accumulating knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Alternatively they amplify the Indigenous concept of cultural humility as an other-oriented concept that invites honest self-reflection, unlearning, and lifelong learning.

Elder Dr Albert Marshall (Moose Clan of the Mi’kmaw Nation from Eskasoni in Unama’ki, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) opens the chapter with a Teaching about collective care as our inherent responsibility as human beings. 

Co-Authors

Sandra Collins is a recently retired professor of counselling psychology. She writes from the perspective of a feminist, lesbian, cisgender, woman with an invisible disability, who is semiretired, white, and inhabits a privileged social class. She is also positioned by her European heritage and consequent colonial/settler relationship to Indigenous peoples. Over the 25 years of her academic and professional career she focused her research, writing, and teaching on cultural responsivity and social justice in counselling and psychological theory, research, and practice. She is currently a consultant, writer, curriculum designer, and artist.

Melissa Jay is a cisgender nehiyaw (Cree) member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and lifelong student of yoga philosophy. She is a cisgender, able-bodied woman who moves through the world with white-passing privilege. She is a psychologist and associate professor at Athabasca University. Her work is centred in reciprocal relationships, decolonized healing, anti-oppressive practices, and the integration of ancient wisdom and psychology. Her intention is to share trauma-informed, culturally responsive care.

Elder Albert Marshall is an Elder and a member of the Moose Clan of the Mi’kmaw Nation in Eskasoni, Unama’ki, known as Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He is a fluent Mi’kmaw speaker and a survivor of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. He has dedicated his life to bridging Indigenous and western knowledge systems. He was deeply honoured to receive the Order of Canada on October 3, 2024 as recognition for coining the term, Etuaptmumk. As a tireless advocate for reconciliation, sustainability, and Indigenous knowledge, he advises numerous organizations.

Citation

Collins, S., Jay, M., & Marshall, A. (2025). Applying a decolonial lens to CRSJ counselling. In S. Collins and M. Jay (Eds.), Decolonizing health, healing, and care: Embodying culturally responsive and socially just counselling (Chapter 0.2). Counselling Concepts. https://doi.org/10.71446/sk84560924