Therapists Challenging Racism and Oppression

This thoughtful and reflective, intersectional book shares vulnerability and visceral experiences. A courageous, tangible plethora of voices previously hidden embody and analyse experiences that highlight the duality of being inside identity while in training and practice. This is a bold contribution that addresses resistance and liberation, freeing who we really are. Secrets are revealed and transparency and collective catharsis open wide systems of oppression. Silence about traumatic learning is broken to expose the rawness of racism. Decolonising and a breakthrough in personal, political and psychological aspects of therapeutic connection are encouraged. The authors question power relationships and hierarchies, racial dynamics and shaming in the field of counselling and psychotherapy. Most importantly, the book offers recommendations for safeguarding people of colour in the professions and institutional, personal and professional justification for more ethical training, practice and supervision. -- Dr Isha Mckenzie-Mavinga, psychotherapist, lecturer and author of Black Issues in the Therapeutic Process and The Challenge of Racism in Therapeutic Practice; Here is a book that is both timely and a treasure trove, full of lived experiences of therapists of colour in practice and training. Its chapters prompt reflections about anti-racist practices in the face of everyday experiences of racism that many black, brown and people of colour encounter in their training and, sadly, throughout working life. The editors and writers bravely and boldly speak truth to power and call powerfully for change to challenge the ongoing performative allyship across settings. This book generates necessary thinking about ant-racist practices and the importance of decolonising therapy, so it becomes truly inclusive and safe for all. -- Anthea Benjamin, group analyst, supervisor and organisational consultant; How I wish this book was around when I was training to be a therapist. I remember regularly feeling, after sharing my lived experiences of anti-blackness, difference and homophobia to others at this time, that they were being downplayed, discounted, gaslighted or ignored. Now I have a collection of fearless, incisive, forensic and necessary writing that proves that my feelings and thoughts are valid. I highly recommend this book to all students, clients, practitioners and supervisors who are committed to making their work, trainings, organisations and practice more robust and fit for purpose for life in 21st century UK. -- Dennis Carney, therapist, facilitator, trainer and member of BAATN Leadership Team; Therapists Challenging Racism and Oppression: The unheard voices is bold, passionate, clear and unapologetic in its challenge to oppression. It marks another historical turning point in the evolution and decolonisation of the psychotherapeutic profession. With each chapter illuminating lived experiences of racism, oppression or trauma through the authors’ personal stories in the therapeutic realm, the book inevitably takes a critical yet necessary stance. I found it gripping but also very painful to read. I have struggled to write praise for it not because I don’t think its brilliant but because the very fact that such a book needs to be published speaks to the pain of many (as well as my own). I wish things were different and that we didn’t need this book. But make no mistake – these voices will not remain unheard! The book’s value is not confined to just therapists interested in anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice within the profession. Rather, it speaks to all those committed to upholding the values of equality, social justice and human rights and combating both conscious and unconscious racial discrimination at a personal and a professional level. -- Divine Charura, Professor of Counselling Psychology, York St John University; This brave book boldly calls on us to summon the courage to speak out for ourselves as therapists and for our clients who suffer under oppression. Each contribution serves as a reminder that oppression is a global issue that affects the majority, and that it is imperative for us to respond holistically as therapists to a system that impacts nations, societies, and humanity as a whole. The book disrupts and unsettles the reader, encouraging us to collaborate outside of therapy through peer dialogue, advocacy, and allyship. And without explicitly stating so, it inspires our clients to become active citizens and change agents. If the writers are suggesting that authentic, empathic dialogue, guided by deep acceptance and a thirst for knowledge, is the key to defeating the systems of oppression, then we must take the necessary risks and engage in meaningful dialogues within our profession about race, racial difference, and intersectionality. This is essential for our personal growth as therapists and for the betterment of society as a whole. -- Rotimi Akinsete, therapeutic counsellor, clinical supervisor, training & organisational development consultant and mentor; These ‘unheard voices’ constellate a healing well from which readers can draw nourishment in the face of what ails when systemic oppressions intersect. Interwoven personal and professional reflections enable practitioners, trainees, training institutions, assessors and professional bodies to deepen dialogue and inform action in the cultivation of a therapeutic craft that robustly engages with social justice. Rather than offering performative, surface-level, dogmatic offerings about doing and saying ‘the right thing’, these authors courageously foreground the messiness and often-unresolved nature of meaning-making within psychotherapeutic discourse. Readers are invited to engage with rich opportunities for transformation that are evoked through supposed mistakes, rupture and repair, relationally and systematically. From the realms of silence, each reflexive chapter provides much-needed language to articulate unconscious, somatised states, re-imagining and renewing practice. Relevant, relatable and overdue, these unheard voices offer pertinent insight and challenge for troubling times. -- Joel Simpson, psychotherapist, writer, presenter and celebrant; Required reading for all counselling professionals, this is book that speaks from personal, political and psychological perspectives while also making it clear that racism is not a ‘private problem’ but a structural and societal encounter. Exclusion and marginalisation lurk in counselling training, practice and delivery in real-life situations. This is a vital and essential collection of work focusing on the authors’ journeys and the lived stories that provide us with constructive notes to inform our work towards anti-oppressive practice where action is needed. Each chapter focuses on the authors’ journeys, and neatly applies intersectionality as a lens for further examining all systems of oppression and how they operate in the field of counselling and psychology. The authors have provided us with powerful and disturbing descriptions that invite us to delve deeper and challenge previously held beliefs. These are stories we have not heard before, but they are stories we need to hear. -- Susan Cousins, author and Senior Advisor, Race, at Cardiff University