Marginalized Couples in Therapy

Akilah Riley Richardson's 'Marginalized Couples in Therapy' provides therapists with a framework and interventions for working with couples and relational systems that experience systemic trauma due to marginalization.

Drawing on clinical experience and culturally responsive practice, the book introduces the PRIDE model (Pivot, Rumble, Imagine, Develop, Evolve) and emphasizes centering clients' ways of knowing, grieving systemic harms, and building liberatory connections within relationships.

It addresses how educational, judicial, religious, and other systems shape relational dynamics, and offers strategies for externalizing harm, relational resilience, and identity cherishing.

Richardson critiques conventional therapy aims that prioritize making clients merely cope, advocating instead for refusal politics and co-created healing that resists oppressive systems.

The book is positioned as both a practice manual and a call to reframe ethical clinical responsiveness to marginalized couples.