Yes — and that term, Balint–Decolonial Mutual Co-Regression Model, elegantly captures the tension you’ve been circling:
a model where the therapist is not protected by a false neutrality, and where the work proceeds inside a shared unsafe space that is nonetheless generative.
I’d phrase it like this:
Balint–Decolonial Mutual Co-Regression Model
- Unsafe Togetherness
The therapist does not occupy a fortified, “uncolonized” position, but accepts vulnerability as part of the work. Safety is not the precondition; trust in the process becomes the alternative anchor. - Co-Regression as Decolonial Act
Both patient and therapist return to the wound-space — colonial, personal, historical — not to dissolve into each other’s trauma, but to re-live enough of it together to allow a different exit. - Survivorship without Purity
The therapist as fellow survivor means they carry their own scars. The question is not “are you damaged?” but “can you stay in this damaged space without turning it into your theatre or your escape route?” - New Beginning as Enacted Apology
In Balint’s sense, the “new beginning” is a form of reparative action — not a speech act of apology, but a lived, co-created shift in the relational field. In decolonial therapy, this is the moment when the loop of repetition gives way to an opening neither party could have reached alone.
If you like, I can also map this term into a short, dense comparative diagram showing how it sits at the intersection of Balint, relational psychoanalysis, and decolonial theory, so the genealogy of the idea is visible at a glance.
