OTS Workshops, Seminars & Talks For 2018
Now that we have a new therapy centre in Oxford (as well as our centre in Witney), we will be offering regular training workshops seminars and talks there. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter on the Right hand column to be kept up to date!
White Fragility in the Therapeutic Relationship
How we can begin to develop the kind of resiliency and sensitivity required to navigate the arena of race and the trauma of racism in the consulting room
Death and Dying - with Witness Theatre
explore your own feelings around death and dying and draw out unconscious fears/defences against the idea of death
OTS Meetings for this year
Come and meet us and find out more about OTS
White Fragility in the Therapeutic Relationship
Trainer:Robert Downes
Time:10:00 – 17:00
Date:Sunday, June 24, 2018
Venue:OTS-Oxford Therapy Centre
Fee:
£40 - OTS members
£50 - OTS affiliates
£75 - Non-members
About the training:
“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviours such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviours, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium”. Dr. Robin DiAngelo
I have been applying DiAngelo’s ideas about white fragility (alongside the work of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Franz Fanon, Reni Eddo-Lodge and others) to the race matrix of the therapeutic relationship and in my work training therapists and counsellors. Student, clients and therapists of colour frequently encounter this fragility and its formidable defensiveness.
I became interested in work that addressed how we can begin to develop the kind of resiliency and sensitivity required to navigate the arena of race and the trauma of racism in the consulting room, the classroom and beyond. One of the struggles I have noticed is the reluctance in therapists to be constructed as a ‘bad white object’ and I think white fragility provides a way into unravelling ourselves from such reactions that limit therapeutic potentiality amongst other consequences.
Whiteness as a social construction that resides within the psyche of the therapist (and profession), irrespective of race, seems to have been under examined in therapeutic training environments. The focus has traditionally been on diversity and multicultural approaches to the therapeutic project. The criticism of these approaches is that they make racism a little more palatable where racism can be constructed as something for people of colour to overcome rather than something for white people to deconstruct as part of a psychological and broader socio-political project. It can be argued that whiteness has not been placed on the ’couch’ for a thorough enough analysis.
If whiteness isn’t a physiological reality but a social construction that is internalised and lives in both the conscious and unconscious realms of the psyche, how do we engage with it in ourselves as therapists, in its manifestation in the clinical encounter and in our thinking and teaching within the profession.
This workshop will provide an experiential opportunity to examine white fragility as an embodied phenomena that requires many of the skills and methods of psychotherapy to engage with it creatively. There will be some preparatory reading and reflective practices to engage with prior to the day.
About the trainer - Robert Downes
I am a psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer in the field of psychotherapy. I have taught at a variety of institutions and services abroad and locally, including the Minster Centre and Metanoia in London. I am currently on the faculty at NAOS teaching on a trauma diploma course. I am the current Chair of The Relational School, a community of practitioners who are engaged in relational thought and practice. My training began at the Chiron Centre for Body Psychotherapy in the 90s. This has been extended over the last 14 years through my studies of the Diamond Approach. I am currently engaged in integrating notions of white fragility into clinical thought and practice. My background in youth and social work lead to my therapeutic work with young people as a school therapist as well as writing on therapeutic work with young people. I enjoy the potential of the learning environment for therapists and counsellors and bring to it a depth of experience gathered over the last three decades of teaching and facilitating learning. I run a private practice in South London. Beyond that I make art, do the chores and wander.
Click here to book a place or express interest
Or you can contact our CPD Coordinator Lizzie Cummings here.
Death and Dying - with Witness Theatre
Trainer: Ellen Carr and Kelli Jarlais
Time: 10:00 – 17:00
Date: Sunday, October 14th, 2018
Venue: OTS-Oxford Therapy Centre
Fee:
£40 - OTS members
£50 - OTS affiliates
£75 - Non-members
About the training:
This workshop will enable you to explore your own feelings around death and dying and draw out unconscious fears/defences against the idea of death. It will be an immersive experience.
Using stimulus material from Witness Theatre’s current production in development, “Dead Bird”, we will invite you to consider your own reactions and boundaries around death and dying. As well as responding to material we present, you will also be invited to work with writing exercises, embodied processes inspired by our physical approach to making work, visualization and abstract imagery (you will be moving and using your body, but don’t worry, you will not be ‘performing’ in any way!). Exercises will be designed to facilitate accessing unconscious beliefs and fears about death and the dying process, and create space for engaging with these. We have found that sometimes the best way to engage with this topic is not with words, but through the body and images.
Workshop material considers both scientific and spiritual sides to death and dying, addressing facts we often don’t talk about and things we just don’t know. We believe that creating a more open and honest conversation around death and dying and help us have a happier and healthier society.
About the traininers: Ellen Car and Kelli Des Jarlais
This workshop will be run by Witness Theatre Co-Artistic Directors Ellen Carr and Kelli Des Jarlais. Writer/Director Ellen founded the company in 2011 and has created six full productions since then. Ellen was joined by Designer Kelli in 2013, and the two have run the company together ever since. They are interested in collaborative creative processes, and the ways in which theatre can support and promote wellbeing. Witness Theatre creates work exploring contemporary taboos in our society, creating supportive space for dialogue and further engagement. The Witness Theatre stage is a space for revealing unspoken, marginalised or ignored stories and encouraging debate, questioning and change.
Click here to book a place or express interest
Or you can contact our CPD Coordinator Lizzie Cummings here.
OTS Meetings for this year
We have a variety of meetings throughout the year, which any practitioners who are interested in finding out more about OTS are welcome to come to. Just send us an email and let us know you would like to come! As part of our community culture of development, some meetings are member led on a subject of interest, and some meetings are just about getting together, having coffee and constructing the meeting together on the day!
Meetings for this year:
Additional events are planned from time to time where you can come and meet us and find out more about OTS - please email us for details.
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