Black Presence, White Fragility | Foluke Taylor and Robert Downes

#blacktherapy #trauma #psychotherapy #psychoanalysis #blackmentalhealth
Foluke Taylor and Robert Downes 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 share their practices and thinking about the nature of wake work for therapeutic practitioners this work addresses black presence and white fragility.
Taken from our 'Post Slavery Syndrome' Online Module:
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🇬🇧 conta.cc/3epcTQj
This module is about living and practicing psychotherapy in a society that is deeply damaged by the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Filmed at our 2019 conference, the discussion is premised on the theory that through the mostly unconscious transmission of intergenerational trauma, affect and narratives, we continue to perpetuate a destructive power disparity between today’s black and white communities; that we are locked into histories that we didn’t create but which control our thinking and which need to be continually challenged in order for us to grow emotionally as a society.
Foluke Taylor
Foluke Taylor is a counsellor/psychotherapist, writer and trainer. She comes with qualifying trainings in psychodynamic counselling and social work, an interest in narrative approaches, therapeutic parenting and black studies, and 25 years of clinical practice. Her practice experience has been gathered in diverse settings including primary care and community services, international development, and education. She is currently engaged in research into therapeutic applications of creative writing in exploration of ‘black being in the wake’ and ‘wake work’ as proposed by Christina Sharpe. She attempts, in therapeutic practice and in living, to meet the manifestations and effects of anti-blackness with curiosity, thought and feeling. And sometimes she takes days off.
Robert Downes
Robert Downes is a psychotherapist, supervisor, artist and trainer. His informal training as therapist began in his family of origin then more formally at the Chiron Centre for Body Psychotherapy in the 90s. This has been extended over the last 14 years through his studies of the Diamond Approach and through an ongoing 19 year dialogue with Foluke Taylor in the company of writers, critical thinkers, artists and more immediate familiars. He is currently engaged in integrating notions of white fragility and resistance into clinical thought and practice alongside the extension of the therapeutic curriculum - because we don’t have time to wait for institutions to do this work more rigorously. He is in daily practice of building up his capacity to be still and thinking in front of extreme practices of white fragility (and white rigidity) in himself and others.
Find the full Online Module for 3.5 hours of CE/CPD:
🇺🇸 conta.cc/2Qtu2k3
🇬🇧 conta.cc/3epcTQj