{"id":314,"date":"2026-04-02T14:02:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/counsellingconcepts.ca\/decolonizing-health-healing-care\/?page_id=314"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:14:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T23:14:35","slug":"practice-14","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/counsellingconcepts.ca\/decolonizing-health-healing-care\/practice-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Practice 14 Relational Responsivity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Decolonizing<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Chapter 6.4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practice 14 Relational Responsivity<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>: Centring Client Worldviews<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By Sandra Collins, Melissa Jay, Ivana Djuraskovic, and Don Zeman<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book: Decolonizing Health, Healing, and Care<\/a>
Published: June 1, 2025
Publisher: Counselling Concepts<\/a>
Chapter DOI: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.71446\/yt48326546<\/a>
Book ISBN: 978-0-9738085-6-8
Format: ePub
Distributor: Vital Source<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Purchase your copy at<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Vital Source<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Abstract<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This chapter explores relational responsivity as a means of centering client culture, worldview, and preferences in collaborative healing relationships. By applying a Wise Practices lens to the co-construction of wholistic and culturally responsive counselling processes, practitioners are invited to create therapeutic spaces that honour diverse healing traditions and open further possibilities for integrating and adapting mainstream eurowestern practices through relational\u2013ethical engagement. Drawing on contemporary literature about common factors and the centrality of responsive relationships, the authors examine the synergy between Wise Practices and emergent scholarship in counselling and psychology. Drawing on the practice of Etuaptmumk, also known as Two-Eyed Seeing, they position Wise Practices alongside conventional \u201cbest practices\u201d as equally valid considerations in therapeutic decision-making. They offer a model of relational responsivity in practice that balances (a) traditional, cultural ways of knowing and client views of health and healing with (b) conventional psychological approaches and practitioner perspectives. Relational responsivity and Wise Practices are threaded through the themes of honouring client lived experience through cultural inquiry, co-creating cultural hypotheses using meaning-making and antipathologizing perspectives, way-making through conceptualizing change and setting therapeutic directions, and co-constructing change at multiple levels. A Wise Practices framework for therapeutic decision-making is proposed that offers a spectrum of choices ranging from culture-centred approaches to integration to suitable adaptation to eurowestern frameworks, all grounded in client cultural context and views of health and healing. The chapter concludes with an invitation to consider a Wise Practices lens as a foundation for ethical decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa and Sandra appreciate the stand-alone contributions of the following co-authors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n