Bias has become a dirty word. Workplace implicit bias training has become ubiquitous in our growing effort to exorcise even unconscious motives from impacting conduct. Consider some of the synonyms that pop up when I look up “bias” on thesaurus.com: bigotry, favoritism, intolerance, prejudice, and unfairness. A litany of the most severe insults of 2024. The assumption is that bias is a universal disqualifier; that a preconceived idea is bad by definition.
It’s not uncommon for new clients to tell me they come to therapy to get input from an unbiased third party. In their efforts to address issues in their marriage, their family, their work, or their psyches, they want an impartial opinion or a neutral perspective.
I am happy to provide referrals if a client would like to keep looking, but they’re in the wrong office if they want to talk to a blank slate. I am not unbiased, impartial, or neutral. I’m not devoid of opinions or bereft of judgment. I do not think all roads ultimately lead to the same place and I do not endorse every life decision as equally valid.
Any honest therapist will tell them the same.
I think what a client means by a neutral third party opinion is they want to speak with someone who won’t take sides. They want someone who will listen without passing judgement or casting blame. That all seems reasonable enough. Effective therapy requires genuine curiosity. It requires a therapist to consider that whatever a client reports has a history, a reason for being there.
For example, I am not neutral on issues of marriage and family. I am distinctly pro-marriage and pro-family, which means my inclination, whenever possible to be done safely and in an God-honoring way, is to support repentance and reconciliation. This is not dogma; it is to say that God’s word upholds the virtues of fidelity and family unity, and my work as a therapist aligns with these values. I can hold the belief that infidelity is wrong and simultaneously care about the offending spouse and the context in which their infidelity takes place. What preceded it, what does it mean, what have been the repercussions, and how might I support the client now? My bias toward confession and healing does not mean I condemn the spouse who cheats, but it does influence my approach to working with a couple dealing with betrayal. My perspective informs how I invite them to explore ideas with me.
In some cases, clarifying my bias toward reconciliation may increase trust. It honors my client’s autonomy by offering the opportunity to consider different ways of seeing. I don’t need to knock them over the head with my opinions. But I don’t need to pretend I have no opinions at all. I can acknowledge my personal bias while upholding my client’s right to decide for themselves what they think and if I’m the right person with whom to explore these deeply personal issues.
To be human is to have values. Even to espouse neutrality as a therapeutic virtue is a value statement. The suggestion that bias should be removed from therapy is itself a biased statement that favors one perspective over others and passively coerces agreement when it is spoken as a given. The question How do we remove bias from the therapy office? is the wrong question. Bias will never be removed from human interaction. A more useful question is How do we own our biases in the therapy office for the benefit of our clients? In other words, how do we protect our clients from our own opinions masked as professional insight and honor their autonomy to adopt their own values, make their own decisions, and elevate their own priorities? To labor to this end is an honorable task indeed.
