Land and Cultural Acknowledgement

At the Canadian Association for Psychodynamic Therapy (CAPT), we acknowledge that our association exists and operates across the traditional territories of many Indigenous Peoples throughout Canada.

Our administrative office and much of our community activity takes place on the traditional territory of Indigenous peoples, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, Williams Treaties, Anishinaabe, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat peoples, on which the region’s cities are located, lands now known as Greater Toronto.

We recognize the land is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, and that our members, supervisors, and clients live and work across diverse regions, urban, rural, and remote, and on lands that have long been places of gathering, healing, and exchange.

We honour these lands and the Indigenous Peoples who have cared for them for millennia. We also acknowledge that the systems within which psychotherapy has developed, including our own psychodynamic traditions, have often been shaped by colonial histories that continue to affect access to care, definitions of wellness, and understandings of relationship and identity.

As psychodynamic therapists, we recognize that history, culture, and psyche are inseparable. The work of healing unfolds not only within the individual, but also within the collective and the land itself. To this end, CAPT is committed to deepening our awareness of the ongoing impacts of colonization and to cultivating practices grounded in cultural humility, ethical reflection, and relational accountability.

We honour the diverse cultural identities, languages, and stories that shape our membership. Our community includes Indigenous, settler, and diasporic therapists whose lives intersect through complex histories of migration, displacement, privilege, and resilience. We see this diversity as central to the vitality of the psychodynamic field and to our ongoing evolution as a professional body.