This article critiques the ways mainstream psychotherapy participates in the “ally–industrial complex”, a term coined by scholars and activists to describe performative allyship that reinforces existing hierarchies. Drawing inspiration from G. Patterson’s (2018) critique of cisgender scholars in transgender studies, I explore how psychotherapy – particularly as practiced by cisgender therapists – often recentres professional authority and individual virtue while masking the field’s complicity in trans and queer marginalisation. Grounded in feminist, queer and narrative therapy frameworks, this article examines how the discourse of allyship, when divorced from material risk or structural accountability, can collude with neoliberal and cisnormative forces. Drawing on narrative therapy practices, this article offers a call to move from allyship to co-conspiracy: a praxis of shared risk, decentred expertise and ethical solidarity.

Key words: ally–industrial complex, co–conspiracy, queer, trans, transgender, feminism, anti-oppressive, neoliberalism, cisnormativity, therapeutic ethics, narrative therapy, narrative practice

Nylund, D. (2026). From allyship to co-conspiracy: Disentangling psychotherapy from the ally–industrial complex. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (2), 73–84. https://doi.org/10.4320/WWBH9633