‘Other-Wise’
White Psychosis and The Wake
Complicating the White Therapist
Navigating the Shadows of Shame
Sat 25th of January 2020
It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
That now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
In an all-embracing mind that sees me. . . .
Rainer Maria Rilke speaks to the need for an all embracing mind in our encounters with shame. To find ourselves and each other again amongst the shadows of shame requires an embracing mind that draws from a variety of traditions and practices: mindfulness, object relations, embodiment theory, radical acceptance, attachment theory, trauma work, sensorimotor psychotherapy, critical theory and humour – we will explore the practices and understanding that optimises an embracing mind in the face of shame.
This workshop will be an experiential as well as theoretically reflective exploration of shame and how we can best engage with it in ourselves and in our work as counsellors and psychotherapists. There will be some preparatory study as well as handouts, a workbook and CPD certificate.
Some topics and themes we will explore through presentation, reflection and inquiry into our own experience of shame:
- The purpose of shame – as a manifestation of the self-care system
- Exploring definitions, descriptions and experiences of shame
- Some of the useful theory
- Building shame resilience – how do we go about this?
- What lies beyond shame and how might we get there?
- Therapeutic skills and capacities for being with states of shame
- Encounters with the hidden self, the deficient self, the one hiding out in our psyche
- Shame in relation to identity, discrimination and oppression – shaming of the ‘other’ and the shame of ‘othering’.
Time: 10:00 a.m. and finish at 17:00 p.m. Lunch break at 13:00 p.m. Please bring your own lunch. Tea and coffee will be provided. The venue is accessible. Venue: Kings Cross Business Centre, 180/186 Kings Cross Road, London WC1X 9DE. Costs: £100.
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About The Bodies – Embodiment in the Therapeutic Relationship
Certificate in Embodied Therapeutic Practice – beginning Sept 2019 At The Albany Centre, St Albans.
“..the lived body cannot be understood apart from the system ‘‘mind–body–world.’’ Where there is a body, there is a personal world, an opening upon the world which is unique.” – Jennifer Burlington.
Each of us has a unique embodiment and it is through our embodiment that we are shaped by experience and come to know ourselves, each other and the world. Body psychotherapy offers a route to this opening to the world by addressing our embodiment directly with a range of understandings and practices that can inform and extend your work with your clients. This experientially and theoretically alive course will offer an opportunity to integrate some of what body psychotherapy has to offer. We will consider ways of being in and understanding the therapeutic relationship as an embodied relational phenomena where we learn to make more use of our felt experience. All bodies and modalities are welcome.
The course will run for one weekend a month for 5 months Sept 2019 – Dec 2020
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Confer Conference – Post-Slavery Syndrome:
Intergenerational PTSD in the Consulting Room Today
With Dr Aileen Alleyne, Robert Downes, Eugene Ellis, Wayne Mertins-Brown, Judy Ryde, Foluke Taylor, Lennox Thomas
Friday 22 March (eve) + Saturday 23 March 2019 – London
Foluke Taylor & Robert Downes presentation:
Black Presence, White Fragility: aka a Complex Situation aka Babylon aka The Great Shenanigans aka What do reparations look like in the world of therapy? aka How much time do you need for your progress?
Foluke and Robert will bring their explorations around black presence and white fragility via their engagement with the works of Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism. They have been in dialogue for 19 years about these realities and are not done. Through the use of Sharpe’s notion of wake work (taking care in the ongoing wake), the wake being the afterlife of slavery and all its ramifications, they will share their practices and thinking about the nature of wake work for therapeutic practitioners that addresses black presence and white fragility.
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Embracing Shame for Oxford OTS
Time: 10-5pm
Date: April 7th 2019
Venue: OTS-Oxford Therapy Centre
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A Day on Shame for ITD – feedback
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A Day on Shame for Surrey and Kent CPD Group
Sevenoaks Wellbeing Centre
34, St John’s Road, Sevenoaks
Kent TN13 3LW
Saturday 2nd June 2018
AN INTERACTIVE ONE DAY WORKSHOP
HOW TO WORK WITH SHAME IN A THERAPEUTIC SETTING
Given the challenges of shame, we need an orientation and capacity that is informed by a range of approaches and understandings: mindfulness, object relations, embodiment, radical acceptance, attachment theory, trauma work, sensorimotor psychotherapy and humour are some of the resources and practices we can draw from.
Shame can be such an inhibitor to learning, being in the world, relating and the therapeutic project itself. Our clients often feel shamed by us, we shame our clients, we feel shamed and are shamed by them. So what do we do with the shame matrix when it arises? How do we navigate our way through it to gather the riches that are revealed when we meet shame more optimally?
This workshop will be an experiential as well as theoretically reflective exploration of shame and how we can best engage with it in ourselves and in our work as counsellors and psychotherapists.
Some topics and themes we will explore through presentation, reflection, inquiry and discussion:
- Exploring definitions, descriptions and experiences of shame.
- Some of the clever stuff we need – useful theory.
- The purpose of shame – as a manifestation of the self-care system.
- Building shame resilience – how we go about this.
- What lies beyond shame and how might we get there?
- Therapeutic skills for working with shame.
- Shame in relation to identity, discrimination and oppression & being human.
This workshop will start at 10:00 a.m. and finish at 17:00 p.m.
Lunch break at 13:00 p.m. Lunch is not provided so please bring something along.
Tea and coffee are provided free of charge
Cost for this workshop is £75.00 per person
A Day on Shame for ITD
Saturday April 21st, North London. 
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I am an experienced teacher and facilitator of learning. I have taught counselling and psychotherapy to a range of practitioners. I have experience of running training events for social workers, youth workers, and others in the helping professions.
I have provided a range of CPD events to practitioners:
Engaging with the body in the counselling and psychotherapy relationship.
Working with the super ego.
Engaging with touch in the therapeutic encounter.
Diversity and difference – race, gender, sexuality, disability as they enter the consulting room and the dynamic of the therapeutic relationship.
Teaching experience:
- NAOS Institute London – Teaching on the Trauma Diploma Course
- Metanoia – visting lecturer on the MSc in Humanistic Psychotherapy
- The Minster Centre – Teaching the Body in Psychotherapy Module to second year psychotherapy students.
- Centre for Counselling & Psychotherapy Education (CCPE) MA in Transpersonal Child, Adolescent & Family Therapy.
- Centre for Personal & Professional Development (CPPD) on the Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling
- The Whittington School of Psychotherapy – co-facilitating with Bernd Leygraf the Intensive One Year Course on Object Relations and Gestalt.
- Hungarian Gestalt Association in Budapest.
I am a returning trainer to Off The Record Twickenham, providing training to their newly recruited volunteer counsellors each year.
I co-wrote and delivered training packages for managers around working with conflict in team and organisational settings.
I have presented workshops at a range of conferences and currently sit on the executive committee of The Relational School where I contribute to workshops, conferences and seminars.
Publications:
I co-wrote and delivered the ABC Accredited Advanced Certificate in Counselling Young People and the accompanying publication: Listening in Colour: Creating a Meeting Place with Young People Robert Downes, Sue Lee, Foluke Taylor-Muhammad. Published by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence.
You can see a range of training and consultancy commissions that I have delivered here recent contracts.
Robert Downes 