I attended the Justice in Therapy un-conference last year run by the admirable Black Psychotherapy. I was nervous to go as I was afraid that my whiteness would negatively affect the people of colour in the space, who were there to think together about the oppressions inherent in the psychotherapy profession. I needn’t have worried at all as the people holding the space role modelled inclusion and I was greeted with the conscious grace that is not always offered in return to minoritised colleagues in white dominated spaces.
This un-conference, so named as it deconstructed the typical conference format of ‘expert’ speakers and centred the wisdom of the attendees, was a pivotal and impactful experience for me. I was exposed to insights that, as the white Principal of a psychotherapy training school, I really needed to hear. I heard what training to be a counsellor or psychotherapist was like if you were racially minoritised. It was sobering and, frankly appalling, to hear of the harms people of colour experience during a training that should be life enhancing, not soul destroying, in a profession that is supposed to be about improving the human condition not perpetuating discrimination. I remain deeply grateful for being allowed to attend the space where these conversations were being held.
At the end of the conference we were invited to write a dream on a post-it note and place it on a dream tree. People in the room started to busily write their dreams down on multiple colourful post-it notes and the tree soon became full of beautiful, vibrant, radical, limitless hopes and desires for a better life and a better profession, with an evident focus on expansion, hope and joy.
I sat there as one of the most socially privileged people in the room and I had no dreams for the dream tree. I had no idea until I received and turned down the invitation to dream for our profession that my characteristic optimism had been so badly eroded. Where everyone around me was energised, I felt flat and sad. I wondered how these lovely people who had been so badly treated could be so hopeful. Seeing that I had no dreams for the dream tree, a person near me lent in closer, looked me in kindly in the eyes and said, ‘we have to dream, we beat oppression by dreaming, they win if they stop us dreaming, dreaming is anti-oppressive’. If my mind had not already been blown by the spirit of this space it was now thoroughly - blown.
My loss of hope came with a loss of innocence. I was innocent when I came into this profession. I believed people who wanted to help people would be good people and that I would finally find my tribe. I had been safe enough in life to believe in the goodness of everyone and realising that this was not only a fiction but was also a dangerous way to approach life, had been hard sharp lesson to learn. My innocence was a privilege. Some people know this from the start of their lives because of the ‘unkind eyes’ they are viewed through by others, to use Camille Sapara Barton’s touching words.
I sat there as one of the most socially privileged people in the room and I had no dreams for the dream tree.
So here I was, a privileged white woman in a room full of minoritised people and I was the one with no dreams. It took weeks for me to unpack and process this experience and I am working through it still. Although still weighted down with the horrible realities of how people can behave towards one another and the knowledge that kindness and love is not enough to secure safety from others, I started to search for my optimism and relocate my hope.
We had heard at CICS around the time of this un-conference that our professional body was changing their qualification pathway. Although I didn’t disagree with the changes, the prospect of creating a new course when we hadn’t budgeted the time and resources for it was part of the weight I carried into that un-conference day. With the message that dreaming is powerful, I started to turn the worry about creating this course into an opportunity to dream …. and to dream big. If we were required to develop a general counselling qualification it would be the best we could create, taking all of the learning from the people in that un-conference and combining it with our guiding principles of inclusivity, relational warmth and uncompromising quality, to create a course centred on anti-oppressive practice, anti-oppressive teaching and community learning. The full potential of our Diploma in Pluralistic Psychotherapy was formed in the space where I could not dream.
I have my dream tutors leading this course, Loki Grey and Kim Loliya. Loki has psychotherapy principles in his bones and, as a queer man, has lived experience of discrimination. He is a qualified teacher and has worked with neurodivergent people for many years. Kim is the Director of Black Psychotherapy, the very person who, with her team, held the Justice in Therapy un-conference where I realised the importance of dreaming. They are an integrative psychotherapist specialising in trauma. Together, Kim and Loki are my dream team.
We are now welcoming applications for our Diploma in Pluralistic Psychotherapy. Please join us in making our dream a reality.
