Black Identities + White Therapies: Race, Respect + Diversity PDF
Preview Black Identities + White Therapies: Race, Respect + Diversity
Colin Lago and Divine Charura 1 Praise for Black Identities and White Therapies This book speaks of the profound need to address the shortcoming of racial competency in therapeutic training and professional practice. It represents both a call and an opportunity to challenge the profession on its lack of awareness and inclusion. It offers contributions from Black, brown and people of colour, providing a range of thinking on race and ensuring this remains a fundamental element of professional practice. It offers us the opportunity to change, to progress, to recognise the vast gaps in our knowledge and to become anti-racist and fit for purpose. Integral to this book is a recognition of the role of intersectionality and how the lived experience is reflected in complex identities. This insightful book will hold its value and usefulness long after the first read, reminding us to challenge exclusion, reflect on our practice and address our own positions of power and privilege. Susan Cousins, author of Overcoming Everyday Racism Divine Charura and Colin Lago have brought together many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in multicultural counselling to review how we prepare ourselves to work with racial difference. The truth is that for many of us, this is the uncomfortable territory of power and privilege, of unsettling lack of knowledge and experience. As counsellors, we may limit our authenticity through fear of offending. As tutors, we may lack the sure-footedness to lead our students into this difficult terrain. This must change. Janet Tolan, counsellor/psychotherapist, supervisor, tutor and author This impressive book makes a major contribution to theory and practice in an area that has been ignored or neglected for far too long. It considers this systemic failure as well as suggesting ways forward for the profession. A wealth of experience, diverse trainings and experiences as counsellors/therapists and a multiplicity of helpful perspectives are presented. It will encourage debate, critical review and consideration of some long-held assumptions and contribute to ensuring that Black lives do matter in counselling and training. The book is packed full of information presented in a clear, accessible and informative manner. It should be on the bookshelf of every training institution and counsellor. Rachel Tribe is a chartered counselling and occupational psychologist and professor of applied psychology at the University of East London and Queen Mary, University of London This book carries a bold message that revolves around one word, ‘change’. The unique contribution of each author lies in the variety of practical, innovative, experiential and imaginative ways they offer, based on their own research and practice, to meet the varying needs of racially and ethnically different clients. The authors invite therapists, trainers and supervisors alike to reflect and question their practice critically, examine the roots of their values and beliefs and, most importantly, learn and unlearn continually to change their way of working. This exceptionally good book will be inspirational and beneficial to both new and 2 Black Identities and White Therapies experienced practitioners in the field of psychotherapy, a useful guide for individual therapists and a tremendous resource for trainers. Shukla Dhingra, counsellor, supervisor and trainer Black Identities + White Therapies speaks to the urgency of addressing the impact of racism when training counsellors and psychotherapists. Those who are racially marginalised are already over-represented as patients in the mental health system but under-represented as clients in counselling and psychotherapy. Racially marginalised communities have borne the brunt of the Covid pandemic. If the profession is to have any hope of meeting the needs of those who are grieving and suffering long-term illness, burn-out and severe economic stress, on top of the psychological stress that results from living in a hostile atmosphere, we need to knuckle down and do the work now. This book could not be more timely. Rose Cameron, author of Working with Difference and Diversity in Counselling and Psychotherapy What an emotive and thought-provoking read! The authors are unapologetic in their call for accountability, challenging colour-blindness, highlighting implications for therapists, trainers/trainees, supervisors and therapy organisations. We agree with the contributors that it would be grossly negligent for us not to critically explore issues of identity, oppression and race in all therapeutic relationships. These explorations call upon us to continually consider how we are with our own and others’ identities, and what this means personally, interpersonally and structurally. The authors give us guidance on how we might validate experiential realities as we work towards inclusive models of practice. Their guidance is peppered with examples and references that resonate on a personal and professional level while attempting to de-colonise and dismantle hierarchies with the turn of each page. The sensitive facilitation of these necessary conversations makes this book essential reading for practitioners. Kerese Collins, lecturer (counselling & psychotherapy), Keele University, and co-host of ‘My Wife is a Therapist’ podcast; Sally Chisholm, lecturer (counselling & psychotherapy), Keele University, and tutor, Metanoia Institute Yet another splendid book jointly edited by Divine Charura and Colin Lago and demanding not just a place on our bookshelves, but nothing less than the undivided attention of the therapeutic community. This book is testimony to the harm caused by the failure of therapeutic professions to adequately address the complexities of encounter with diversity in more than theoretical terms. Particularly those of us who are trainers have the option of jealously guarding our current mode of teaching or hearing the call of this book to think more broadly and act more creatively. Collectively, the contributors provide insight and encouragement to face uncomfortable encounters and difficult conversations in order to traverse a bumpy but promising terrain and also facilitate a more relevant training environment. Andrea Uphoff, primary tutor, Metanoia Institute Colin Lago and Divine Charura i Black Identities + White Therapies Race, respect + diversity Edited by Divine Charura and Colin Lago ii Black Identities and White Therapies First published 2021 PCCS Books Ltd Wyastone Business Park Wyastone Leys Monmouth NP25 3SR [email protected] www.pccs-books.co.uk This collection © Divine Charura and Colin Lago, 2021 The individual chapters © the contributors, 2021 All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. The authors have asserted their right to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Black Identities and White Therapies: Race, respect and diversity British Library Cataloguing in Publication data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBNs Paperback 978 1 910919 89 7 ePub 978 1 910919 90 3 Cover design Jason Anscomb Colin Lago and Divine Charura iii Contents Preface ix Colin Lago and Divine Charura 1 Race, culture and ethnicity: A systemic failure of attention in the 1 psychotherapy profession? Colin Lago and Divine Charura 2 The cultural complexity of training counsellors abroad: The case of 18 Afghanistan Lucia Berdondini, Ali Ahmad Kaveh and Sandra Grieve 3 Can you talk about race without going pink or feeling 27 uncomfortable? Delroy Hall 4 Exploring the racial self in counselling training 38 Billie-Claire Wright 5 An anti-racist counselling training model 52 Courtland C. Lee 6 ‘Look in the mirror... and just below the surface’: Critical reflection, 65 personal stories and training implications Valerie Watson 7 ‘Where are you from?’ The effects of racism and perceived 77 discrimination on people of colour Priscilla Dass-Brailsford 8 Re-imagining the space and context for a therapeutic curriculum – 88 a sketch Robert Downes and Foluke Taylor 9 Twin tribes: Exploring unconscious privilege and otherness in 98 counselling and psychotherapy Dwight Turner 10 Lifting the white veil of therapy 107 Neelam Zahid 11 The legacy of colonial history and the ongoing challenge to 119 therapist training and practice Vedia Maharaj iv Black Identities and White Therapies 12 Towards the re-emergence of meaning: Existential contributions to 128 working with refugee clients Benjamin Mark Butler 13 Who is transforming what? Ideas and reflections on training, 140 practice and supervision in radical mode Carmen Joanne Ablack 14 Negotiating the Faustian pact: A psycho-social approach to 152 working with mixed-race people Yvon Guest 15 Developing a diversity-sensitive psychoanalytic and 163 psychodynamic psychotherapy: Personal and professional reflections Lennox K. Thomas 16 Colour blindness as microaggression: Perspectives on race and 174 ethnicity in counselling and psychotherapy training and practice Mark Williams 17 Towards a decolonised psychotherapy research and practice 185 Divine Charura and Colin Lago 18 Religion, therapy and mental health treatment in diverse 199 communities: Some critical reflections and radical propositions Rachel-Rose Burrell 19 Race and cognitive dissonance: Could supervision be a way of 213 connecting tutors to students? Fiona A. Beckford Postscript 224 Divine Charura and Colin Lago About the contributors 234 Name index 241 Subject index 248 Colin Lago and Divine Charura v Dedication This book is dedicated to the memory of Lennox Thomas, who sadly passed away while it was still in preparation. Some months previously, Lennox had enthusiastically responded to our invitation to contribute a chapter and, right on time, he delivered a first draft, professional as ever. As his chapter in the book demonstrates, from a young man onwards, he was always deeply motivated and concerned that all psychotherapists – indeed, all caring professionals – should pay great attention to their work with people from all communities. He was one of the early pioneers in the UK to stimulate thought, reflection and, subsequently, training in this arena. He is sorely missed. vi Black Identities and White Therapies Colin Lago and Divine Charura vii Acknowledgements Our thanks go to Catherine (Jackson, our commissioning editor), who has been an enthusiastic and committed supporter of this book, to Pete and Maggie (Sanders, of PCCS Books), who have long championed the publication of critical texts in counselling and psychotherapy, and to all the PCCS Books team. As you will have noticed on the Dedication page, we were deeply saddened by the passing of one of our chapter writers as we were preparing the final text. Lennox Thomas has been a distinctive voice in the professional field of counselling and psychotherapy for more than four decades and we both deeply respected and valued his continued commitment to effective and sensitive therapeutic practice with clients of all diversities. He is sorely missed by his family, friends, immediate colleagues and all those privileged to have been taught and known by him. We are, of course, deeply grateful to all the colleagues who have contributed their thoughts and experiences to this volume. While committing enthusiastically to the project, some authors remarked on the anxiety and fear they experienced in writing their critiques and developments. Growing beyond our inherited theoretical models and daring to envisage and publish modified and radical developments based on our own clinical and life experiences is a courageous and valuable act. We thank you, the authors. Colin writes: Working with Divine on this project has been such a source of stimulation and joy. Since first meeting at a weekend training seminar in 2006, we have co-operated on several training programmes, various writing projects and even made an academic visit to Cambodia in 2019, where we lent support to the first university-based, two-year counselling training programme there. At the time of writing, Divine has recently been appointed to a Chair in Counselling Psychology at York St. John University – a position that fully reflects and merits his professional commitment and passion to the mental health and therapeutic needs of others. I am deeply grateful for his friendship, support and enthusiasm. He is a joy to be with and to work with. Thank you, Divine. As always, I am continually grateful to my wife, Gill, who puts up with my absence on many evenings while I am trying to write. To my immediate family – James, Rebecca, Martin and grandson Luke – I am indebted for their support, love and care. In the preparation of this project, I have inevitably cast my mind back to the early days of my career (the 1980s), in which I became involved with dear colleagues like Jean Clark, Joyce Thompson, Roy Moodley, Josna Pankhania, Bill Hall, Shukla Dhingra, Christine Rowe, Shantu Watt (and many more), in the Race and Culture Sub-committee of what was then the British Association for Counselling. Since then, I have enjoyed co-operations with many colleagues in the field committed to diversity sensitivity. I hope they forgive me for not mentioning them all by name, but their spirit, dedication and commitment continue to sustain me in this pursuit of enhancing and improving our therapeutic activities across the wide range of diversity within society.
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