Who is this course for?

This course is for people who identify as white.  Some people advise that white people need to meet and ‘do their work’ before they can safely meet with others.  In part this is because white people have been known to be hurtful towards others in their attempts to do this enquiry.

Guiding aspirations:

belonging: to the earth, the ancestors, each other

non-harm: non-harming to self and other.  Being ‘trauma aware.’

nourishment: taking care how we take things in.  Caring for the body.  Digesting carefully.

joy: joy in our relating and mutuality.  The inclusion of creativity and song.

Aims

Learn some of the core skills of Core Process Psychotherapy.  This will include the capacity to cultivate a holding field, attention to the subtle, practising presence in relationship, an approach to trauma.

Begin, as white people, to be willing and able to enter this field of enquiry.

Learn to approach the territory of trauma with care and kindness.

Become aware of the extent of one’s own ignorance.  There will be the encouragement to bring curiosity to this rather than judgement.

Through creative presentations, begin to sense more deeply the burden of domination over the centuries.

Begin to sense the impact in our bodies of this centuries-held pain.

Building an increased capacity to be with joy and pain.

To bring an ancestral, spiritual and collective focus to healing.

Recognition of the collective (current and ancestral) on the psychological.[1]

Methodology

It is all-important how we do this work.  We will create a space of creativity and spaciousness. Each session aims to include input and practice from Core Process psychotherapy as well as input and enquiry around the theme of racial justice.  There will be periods of individual work/play and work in pairs or groups.

[1] I am grateful to BAATN – the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network – for these last two points which are included in their mailing of 26.12.22.