How We Support Rugged Individualism in Therapy

Image: A squiggle line drawn with a pen.

Source: Purchased by the author, Lyrica Fils-Aime

The United States and many Western countries support this concept of rugged individualism. It can be hard to see because it is so ingrained in the culture. That’s how something becomes the dominant culture— we don’t even notice it. Rugged individualism is an emphasis on self-reliance. Anthropologists recognize that we are social beings and that communal care and cooperation are what differentiate us from other species. But, we have strayed from this ideology and have become very individualistic as a society.

The "American Spirit"

Back in 1928, President-Elect Herbert Hoover gave a speech on individual freedom and hard work instead of civil services to reduce poverty. He spoke on the “American spirit” of self-reliance and aspiration that created constant progress in the United States, especially around westward expansion. This ideology was actually very harmful for many groups as we know that expansion took land away from the people who were on it. And, the ideology of self-reliance and ambition worked well for Hoover but is not a reality for most.

Because Hoover had been an orphan from rural Iowa and used himself as an example of a hard worker who became a millionaire, he made it seem like this was attainable for everyone, part of the “American Dream.”

Rugged Individualism in Therapy

This concept seeps into the therapy services I provide because of how I have unconsciously adopted aspects of it by living in the United States. I have a client who experienced foster care and is a mother to her two sons, alone. She works full-time and pays for daycare with a very small child-support stipend. She often is struggling to make ends meet and does not take a break. When I praise her or build her up, as needed, I applaud this independence and autonomy she has fostered. Because she has an unpredictable family with different values and lifestyles from hers, I unconsciously (and occasionally consciously) encourage her to maintain her proximity to a different social status or my own social status.

How do I do this? I validate that she wants to parent differently from her brothers and their partners; I work with her to plan how to get up early for her 9-to-5 job; I tell her she is right to be cautious around her alcoholic best friend with her sons. Even though I do need to acknowledge how she operates differently from her mother who used drugs, I am also teaching her to live in the way I understand. I am unconsciously teaching her the social standard that I respect.

Community Cultural Wealth

One way to recognize the capital that her childhood holds is to use Theresa Yasso’s Community Cultural Wealth Model. Yasso identifies the six forms of cultural capital that college students of color experience in order to recognize wealth we may not notice or often value. From the framework, we can hold true the changing of beliefs and values and lifestyles while still recognizing what a client has been offered in life.

With my client, I now see that I am helping her isolate, rather than acknowledging that these are the people who made her who she is and her familial, navigational, and resistance capital comes from them. My client also has linguistic capital that she is able to use with her own social service clients. It can be both. I can believe I am doing good work with this client, helping her attain her goals and also promoting rugged individualism. We both come from a collectivist culture, but we can elevate the individualistic as a way to reach our goals. We can miss the harm that this value causes.

Rugged individualism and this concept of “you get what you deserve” is not necessarily always bad, but when we pair it with the other characteristics of white dominant culture and the dehumanizing history we have, we have a recipe for white supremacy.