Psychoanalysis, Race & Culture The Race & Culture Committee - The Guild of Psychotherapists

In this episode of The Race & Culture Committee podcast we explore the history of the group itself. Although this is a personal and particular testimony it highlights the familiar and painful experiences of race and racism within the Psychoanalytic organisation. Alongside this the guests consider what grounds have been made and what work there is to do to have a more diverse and inclusive profession. 

Bios 

Dr. Stuart Stevenson, PFHEA, is MA Programme Lead and Senior lecturer in Social Work at the University of East London. He is a group analyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and an organizational consultant in private practice. He consults on strategic and service development, conflict resolution, team processes and the impact of trauma and risk on team dynamics. 

Charles Brown is a UKCP Fellow, a senior psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor with an interest in identity and meaning. 

Marie Maguire qualified from The Guild in 1985. She was on the Training Committee for 18 years and designed, set up and ran the Guild Supervision Course, She has published numerous books and journal articles on gender and sexuality, race and class. These include Men, Women, Passion and Power: Gender Issues in Psychotherapy (Routledge,1995, 2004). 

Marion Gow is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, a member of the Guild of Psychotherapists and UKCP.  She has worked both privately and in the voluntary sector including Women’s Aid, Family Welfare Association, The Women’s Therapy Centre, The Guild Clinic as Chair, The Guild training committee and trainer for other organisations. She is a pluralist by persuasion with special interest in Laplanche and all contemporary theories that can assist in interrogating all forms of psychological difficulties including Race Class Gender and Sexuality and all matters critical to understanding oneself and others . As a psychotherapist and feminist and now older woman she has a critical interest in the intersections social political and psychological and how they affect our conscious and most significantly unconscious lives. 

Ann Hughes is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor in Cambridge; member of Guild of Psychotherapists and BAPPS.  She has worked both privately and in higher education institutions for the last thirty years in London and East Anglia.  She has particular interest in developmental processes of adolescents and young adults, and working with adults struggling with inhibitions or losses in their early years which have led to a poor quality of life experience or persistent mental health problems. An appreciation of race, culture and class differences and consequent issues inform her therapeutic work. Racism and Psychosis: 

Whose Madness is it Anyway; Jean White The paper was originally written in 1989 and given at the inaugural conference of Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere, organised by Free Associations (the journal) and the University of East London. Over the years it was revised, later presenting it at Guild Annual Lecture 2007. 

Guild Website - www.guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk For latest news and to get in touch with the Race & Culture Committee please follow/message us via twitter - @GuildRCC

Welcome to our first episode of the podcast, a wonderful discussion with Dr Stuart Stevenson. Drawing on Stuart's experience as both an individual and group analyst, the conversation touches on themes of intersectionality, positionality, homophobia, racism and trauma.
Your host for this episode and series editor is Anshu Srivastava, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in training at the Guild.
Stuart Stevenson, PFHEA, is MA Programme Lead and Senior lecturer in Social Work at the University of East London. He is a group analyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and an organizational consultant in private practice. He consults on strategic and service development, conflict resolution, team processes and the impact of trauma and risk on team dynamics. Stuart trained at the Tavistock Clinic, The institute of Group Analysis and The Guild of Psychotherapists
Show Notes: 
Stuart's paper discussed in this episode: Stevenson, Stuart. (2020), "Psychodynamic intersectionality and the positionality of the group analyst: the tension between analytical neutrality and inter-subjectivity" Group Analysis 53 (4)  p.1-17 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0533316420953660 
Books & texts also discussed: 
Cummins, Jeanine. (2020). American dirt. London, Tinder Press. 
Ignatiev, Noel. (1995). How the Irish became White. New York, Routledge. 
Keval, Narendra. (2018), "Racist States of Mind. Understanding the perversion of curiosity and concern. London, Routledge 
Lorde, Audre. (2007),  “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. p110- 114.  
Lowe, Frank. (2014). Thinking Space. London: Routledge - Chapter 9 - Lucey, Aideen. "Paradoxes and blind spots: an exploration of Irish identity in British organizations and society" 
Wilkerson, Isabel. (2020). Caste: the origins of our discontents 
Documentary - Beyond 'There's always a black issue dear' - https://beyondtheresalwaysablackissuedear.com/