Why Culture Matters in Healing Trauma (What Safety Really Means in Therapy)
- Dr Tiffany Leung
- Oct 8
- 6 min read
This article discusses trauma in general terms. If you need urgent support, contact your GP, 111/999 (UK), or your local crisis line.
Introduction
If you are coming to therapy after trauma, you want to feel listened to, held, and seen. That isn’t just a personal wish. Research and practice tell us safety is the foundation of healing. And safety doesn’t look the same for everyone; it is shaped by our culture, family, identity, class, gender, and sexuality.
Particularly in trauma therapy, if we are not easily understood, including the complexities of our different selves and identities, we can feel even more unsafe, sometimes retraumatised.
This article shows how cultural humility - the therapist’s ability to listen, learn, and adapt to your culture, can make therapy a safer space for healing.
“We Don’t Talk About Grief”
A young man once told one of my supervisees, after his father’s death: “In my family we don’t talk about grief.”
His mother was busy doing all the cooking; his relatives had a heated discussion around decorations for the funeral. No one talked about their feelings.
The therapist brought this to supervision, sharing the tension: as a white therapist, if he named the lack of emotional expression as a barrier, he worried he might disrespect the client’s culture. If he ignored it, he risked colluding with silence.
We explored a third way: therapy is not about replacing a client’s culture with ours. It is about expanding the space so action-based traditions and, if the client chooses, words and new meanings can coexist.
This is the heart of culturally humble, trauma-informed work: honouring traditions while creating room for the kind of expression that feels true to you.
Safety isn’t just about what is spoken; it is about being seen in the way that your culture carries pain and healing.
What Cultural Humility Means in Therapy
Cultural humility isn’t a checklist or a special technique. It is the therapist saying, “Teach me how to meet you.”
Therapy feels safer when your culture is not overlooked, but invited in. Therapists can show cultural humility through small choices like:
Curiosity: “What did your family teach about anger, grief, or asking for help?”
Fit the language: “Does this image or metaphor work for you? Is there a better word in your language?”
Pace and repair: slowing down when something doesn’t translate; owning misses: “That was my miss. How did that land? What would help now?”
Good therapy does not require a therapist to know everything. It requires a therapist who listens, reflects, and adapts, so you don’t have to leave parts of yourself at the door.
👉 Considering therapy and want to know what a safe first session can look like? See my step-by-step guide to starting therapy.
Why Culture Shapes Trauma
Culture, gender, class, and sexuality don’t just colour trauma; they shape what can be spoken, hidden, or silenced. Sometimes, they become part of the trauma itself.
Gendered expectations Some people grow up hearing: “Don’t cry, be strong.” For men, this can mean shutting down grief or tenderness. For women, it can mean being dismissed as “too emotional” when they show pain. Both leave little room for authentic expression.
Sexuality & LGBTQ+ experiences Many LGBTQ+ clients tell me they fear bringing their full selves into therapy, shaped by past experiences of judgment or misunderstanding. Sometimes silence feels safer than openness.
Class pressures Working-class families often carry unspoken rules: “Work twice as hard, never rest, don’t risk stability.” Trauma then shows up not just as anxiety or exhaustion, but as the deep belief that slowing down will cost survival.
Family / Intergenerational echoes Silence after war, shame tied to poverty, hypervigilance after migration: “e.g. We don’t talk about emotions.” There might be hidden rules about what you are “allowed” to show, hide, or stay silent about, while the ongoing trauma is passed on: guilt about rest, fear of letting family down, or pressure to achieve.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m carrying emotions that aren’t even mine. They feel like my parents’ emotions.”
This is why we talk about intersectionality. Culture is not one thing; it is the meeting point of all the identities you carry. Trauma is often embedded in those intersections: in the silent rules of gender, the hidden fears around sexuality, the daily survival pressures of class.
When therapy makes space for these intersections, you no longer have to split yourself up to be understood. Healing becomes about the whole self, not just the symptom.
👉 If you’d like to explore more about the everyday signs of trauma, see my guide: What Trauma Can Look Like Day-to-Day.
When Systems Hurt
Sometimes the harm is not only family or past trauma; it can also be about the very systems which are meant to help.
I remember when my service was told clients from non-white backgrounds had lower access. Instead of curiosity, my team's first reaction was defensive: “That’s just a coincidence. We treat everyone the same.” We never stopped to ask 'why'.
Later, I caught myself calling a client “impossible to engage,” and realised maybe I could be part of the problem too. When I recognise there is resistance due to mental health stigma, have I tried my best, from my side, to bridge the gap? That moment was uncomfortable, but it taught me cultural humility means holding ourselves accountable: asking not just what clients bring, but how systems (and therapists) may contribute to silence.
Clients often share experiences like:
A young refugee’s panic attack labelled as “behavioural.”
A working-class parent missing therapy because unpaid time off risks losing wages.
A Black woman’s anger described as “aggressive,” while someone else's is called “assertive.”
An LGBTQ+ teenager choosing silence because school doesn’t feel safe.
A patient told their pain was “all in your head.”
If you’ve ever felt unseen or dismissed by services, you are not alone. This is retraumatisation: when systems echo the same dismissals or silences that caused harm in the first place. True healing needs services that listen, adapt, and include.
Everyday Practices That Build Safety
Safety in therapy grows in small, consistent choices, rather than all happening in one big gesture:
Names & pronouns → “Could you share how you would like me to say your name?”
Language access → Offering bilingual resources or an interpreter.
Check metaphors → “Does that phrase fit, or is there a better word in your language?”
Name the context → “This isn’t just anxiety; racism or housing stress can also keep a body on alert.”
Repair → “Thank you for telling me. That was my miss. What would help now?”
These practices again remind you: therapy is about seeing the whole of you, not just your symptoms.
Questions You Can Ask Your Therapist
You deserve a therapist who is open to your culture, not one who ignores it. Questions you might bring into the room:
“How do you adapt therapy to my culture, identity, gender, class, or sexuality?”
“What happens if we have a misunderstanding?”
“What does safety look like in this space?”
Again, a good therapist won’t always have perfect answers. What matters is the willingness to pause, reflect, and learn with you.
Living Trauma-Informed Beyond Therapy
Healing also happens outside the therapy room, in the small ways we live with ourselves and with others. Living trauma-informed might mean:
Rest as recovery, not laziness.
Hope in community, not just alone.
Curiosity over blame when others react.
As one client told me: “For the first time, I felt like my struggles weren’t a flaw. They were my body’s way of protecting me.”
Closing
Good therapy does not ask you to leave your culture at the door. It makes room for it, so healing can happen in a way that feels true to you.
When therapy holds cultural humility, safety is not just possible. It is felt.
My practice specialises in culturally adaptive, trauma-informed care. If you would like support, you’re welcome to connect.
👉 If you would like a starting place, here is how I structure a first session and what you can expect.
Written by Dr Tiffany Leung, CPsychol | Culturally adaptive, trauma-informed therapy and supervision.
Culture and trauma therapy
Culture and trauma therapy
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