网爆门

鈥業 can鈥檛 breathe!鈥� by Dr Dwight Turner.听Each year on 25 May I do a ritual to remember the sad murder of a 46-year-old restaurant security guard. I sit. I read out a message to the ancestors. I breathe. And I cast my words of thanks into the sea.

That there was such an outpouring of love, pain and anger post his murder said so much about the experiences of Black peoples around the world. As we protested, as we gathered, as we watched while others tumbled statues of colonisers, as persons of difference woke up from the unconsciously internalised scripts which they realised had left them adapted and silenced since birth, people found their voices. They could breathe. And in their vocality, people expressed the emotional depth of the wound of colonial adaptation they suddenly realised they had within them.听

The voice sits central to the decolonisation of counselling and psychotherapy. The voice, and the stories of the other. Stories which previously in our profession have largely been silences or shuffled towards the sidelines as our courses have struggled with simply tacking onto our profession issues of diversity. A tokenistic gesture leaving our practitioners ill equipped in working with the myriad cultures that make up so many of our client bases.听

That our work is colonised, this is without doubt. That our profession is embedded within a hierarchy and that this hierarchy works to silence those who are outside it in favour of certain, more privileged, more often systemically white, patriarchal voices.听

That this in turn leaves so many students and practitioners of difference feeling unsafe to express themselves, so they code-switch or they perform to be seen as acceptable. So that they struggle with performance anxiety and imposter syndrome, their experiences being so misunderstood that they are often pathologised. Or when they do find their voice, being overtly told that their interactions are too aggressive, too frightening, too dominant for their peers (and their lecturers in turn).听

So, decolonising our trainings, and therefore our work, when considered through the unique lenses our profession holds, it is important to recognise that this means so much more than just the addition of books of the other onto reading lists. It involves the recognition that our profession, like many others in the UK, sits within a system of political, social and cultural ideologies which marginalises and silences the other. It is about working through the structural inequalities, which means minorities who are often from working-class backgrounds are rarely afforded the opportunity or have the finances to train to become psychotherapists. Alongside this, it is about recognising that even our founding fathers had their work sanitised in their attempts to have it accepted by the societal聽mainstream, a form of colonisation in itself.¹ It recognises that in order to redress this imbalance and to challenge the colonial narratives that riddle our work, we need to not only reintroduce the historical experiences of those whose work we so valorise, but also provide spaces for the words and the experiences of those who populate our courses and our profession in this modern era of psychotherapy, no matter where they are from.

Yet there is one aspect of decolonisation that is unique to our profession, and which the death of George Floyd has led a number of writers to turn their attentions to; that is the personal. We are the system. It is not separate from us. As hooks said, patriarchy is not about gender, and as I frequently state, race is not about colour.^2,3 So if we are going to look at decolonisation, we need to look at how we, as students and practitioners, deal with the fact that we are embedded within a system that would not function without us. That there are a growing number of writers, from Mullan onwards, writing about this topic, gives me hope for the future.⁴ That is the work we have to do, exploring how we have each of us 鈥� whether we鈥檙e women, persons of colour, from the LGBTQIA+ communities, the neurodiverse or any other marginalised group 鈥� been muted into compliance. This is one of the sad gifts that George Floyd鈥檚 murder gave our profession: the right to excavate and disempower those internalised structures that dominate and silence us. The right to breathe, to speak, to tell our stories. To feel free. That is what he gave us. And each year, when I do my ritual on the beaches of East Sussex, I remember that this is what he gave me.听

Eurocentric bias by Eugene Ellis

If you had never thought about racism before and watched the video of the killing of George Floyd, and observed the subsequent gathering of diverse groups of people in solidarity around Black Lives Matter, you may have started to understand what the stakes are for Black people and what it means to be Black. The 鈥榬ace construct鈥� had become glaringly evident in our collective, heightened state of awareness, and there was an outpouring of empathy towards racialised people. We were also reminded once again to be cautious of being seduced by the Western post-racism narrative.听

This seminal moment stirred immense distress for many. Personal and intergenerational race trauma were activated on a global scale, resonating deeply with the African proverb: 鈥業f you are not well, I cannot be well; if you are hurting, I am hurting.鈥� If one of us is hurting, we are all hurting.听

Personally, I felt my body bristling under the collective weight of this distress, and I knew many others who shared my experience. Each of us was challenged, even in a small way, to reflect on the question: where does race position me within the system, and what is my connection and commitment to the 鈥榦ther鈥� and to each other?聽

As Director of the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN) for more than 20 years, I have consistently heard trainee students express their engagement with the spirit of enquiry encouraged in counselling psychotherapy training. However, when they attempt to engage with their racial experiences they often encounter silence, anger or denial. They describe this experience as if a huge hole has opened beneath them, leaving them feeling as though these uncomfortable moments are somehow their fault. Their dilemma becomes whether to say nothing 鈥� focusing instead on working through their racial wounds outside their training 鈥� or to insist on having their voices heard, risking being labelled trouble-makers and potentially jeopardising their training due to the emotional toll.听

Before George Floyd鈥檚 murder these experiences were seen as isolated and disconnected from the broader global context. After his death these experiences became more collective, bringing both difficulties related to the pain of increased awareness and valuable opportunities for healing.听

As a profession we have observed some workplaces and training institutions endeavouring to better understand and address how race plays out institutionally, prompted largely by their racialised employees and students, who have collectively and forcefully made their feelings known.听

Having recently written a book about the challenges of race conversations following George Floyd鈥檚 death, I was approached by various therapy training institutions to provide training and support. Despite years of formulating ways to engage in these discussions, I was still struck by the profound influence of the racial hierarchy and its power to shape our internal experiences, how racial hierarchy filters our perceptions of racial wounds and influences our responses, and how individuals are conditioned to do almost anything except turn towards the racial distress in front of them, even when it is clearly expressed. It was also more evident than ever how unconditioned our bodies are to holding racial distress 鈥� how simply the very act of turning towards racial distress is so embodied as taboo.听

Dr Dwight Turner

Assessing the growth in understanding of 鈥榦thering鈥� by Banjo Aromolaran

The murder of George Floyd highlighted an age-old US problem that came to have international resonance, not least because it was recorded, thereby giving a harrowing audio-visual of the stark reality of police brutality that Black people experience in the US.听

Hence the name George Floyd, a helpless man unnecessarily pinned down while begging for breath, became synonymous with the civil rights movement. His death somehow resonated more than when the world witnessed the savage beating of Rodney King in 1991 by officers of the LAPD.听

As an academic on a well-established 网爆门 accredited postgraduate diploma programme that equips trainee counselling psychotherapists to be able to work with human anguish, the complex and multilayered ways that structural and institutional racism shape the lived experiences of people from minoritised and marginalised communities, and how these show up in the therapeutic setting, have always been a focus of my life鈥檚 work.听

My immediate response to this horrific event was to address, in collaboration with our trainees, the need to discuss the concept of otherness in which the othered is depersonalised by the majority in-group who embody power and privilege, and the potential for this to be re-enacted in the intensity of the therapeutic encounter.^5,6听

The reaction of our trainees, in the face of the horror of George Floyd鈥檚 murder, was to demand more than the existing strand of the programme (which fulfilled 网爆门 criteria in tackling difference), and so we made curricular changes.听

This led to a three-year action research project in collaboration with our trainees of the 2020 cohort. Predicated in the notion 鈥榯hat a role is only as good as the person occupying it鈥�, we centred the ensuing action research around three key statements:聽

Who we are will ultimately define what we do.

It鈥檚 what we do that makes a difference.⁷

People will never forget how what we did made them feel.听

I am hopeful that other 网爆门 accredited courses responded similarly, and five years on we must begin to assess the growth in awareness and understanding of 鈥榦thering鈥� as a concept within the mental health profession as a whole. Our impact assessment on clinical practice is underway.听

With Daphne Duret⁸ of declaring that, 鈥榙espite the outcry and countless headlines about a great American 鈥渞acial reckoning鈥�, many police agencies and companies have backed away from the promises they made that summer鈥�, I found myself wondering: did we all get shocked momentarily and then go right back to our old ways of being?聽

Kim Loliya, who trained on our programme and set up the successful to exclusively support Black and Global Majority communities, says: 鈥極ver the past five years, I struggle to see many examples of sustained long-term movement towards holding otherness and containing the natural anxiety that comes with encountering difference. Instead, I have become increasingly concerned that our profession is regressing due to the rate of microaggressions, gaslighting and wilful ignorance that Black clients encounter during therapy.鈥櫬�

Like Kim, I have felt an urgency to be more intentional and overt about anti-oppressive and justice-led practice, and that despite the heartbreak of the past five years, there is a personal and professional liberation in practising authentically and living these values. There is much work to be done to encourage more spaces where people can heal away from the gaze of otherness, while we as professionals must be willing to have uncomfortable but necessary conversations about how we incorporate social justice as a fifth force among counselling paradigms.^9听

聽My hope is that the radical change we all hoped would emerge from the horror of George Floyd鈥檚 murder¹⁰ will continue, especially in the current climate where civil liberties are being threatened. My fear is that despite the seeming raising of awareness that met the death of George Floyd, the ensuing resistance to the impact of the murder is a sign that not much has changed. This would explain the urgency that I and others in the profession feel in continuing to ask hard questions that promote a genuine self-awareness underlying our social justice advocacy, not merely ticking EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] boxes.

Banjo Aromolaran

What have we learnt then as a profession, post-George Floyd, and has psychotherapy become more inclusive? There was an initial surge in efforts to address racial wounds within the profession, and some progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go. This initial response has diminished somewhat over time, but that does not mean we have reverted to where we were. There has definitely been a shift, which will inevitably take years to fully unfold.听

As therapeutic professionals we encounter people in their pain, and through these encounters something shifts and transforms. We recognise that to remain at the contact boundary of distress in others, we must work on the parts of ourselves that want to shut down or divert from the movement towards pain through deflection, projection, introjection and other adjustments. If we as a profession cannot hold racial distress meaningfully 鈥� especially among the Global Majority, for whom it is a significant wound that can overshadow early family wounds 鈥� then we limit ourselves to primarily working with the majority in the Global North and remain ill equipped to address a vital aspect of the majority in the Global South.听

What then needs to happen to create a more meaningful shift? As I went through my own process of healing from the wounds of racism I realised that I am intimately connected to the history of slavery and the British Empire. Much of that history is stored in my body, outside my conscious awareness. That history manifests itself in how I walk, how I talk, my eye contact, my patterns of speech and many other non-verbal cues. I also recognised that race is not solely present in Black and Brown bodies. Race is also present in the bodies of non-racialised people who, like those who are racialised, are also intimately connected to Europe鈥檚 colonial past.听

To significantly shift the dial on racial distress and other oppressions we must detach from the notion that psychotherapy operates independently from politics. The profession must collectively acknowledge how race and other oppressions influence the unconscious, how they reside as generational conditioning in both body and mind, and how examining the racial construct of whiteness is central to alleviating racial distress. While many may view this as a tall order, the current political landscape of uncertainty offers both challenges and opportunities for more progressive hegemonies to take root.听

Eugene Ellis

Racial trauma in the consulting room by Dawn Estefan

The killing of George Floyd was not an isolated rupture; it was a reiteration of the structural order, recorded and broadcast in real time, producing a global synchronisation of grief, anger and demand. Hopes for change rose up from colonial ashes. Streets filled, monuments toppled and public discourse temporarily recalibrated, forcing what seemed to be a historical shift.听

The shift moved like a current beyond the political and predictably into the psychic terrain, reconfiguring both therapeutic institution and clinical encounter. The changes that followed were not merely rhetorical. Professional associations issued statements acknowledging systemic racism. Training programmes introduced modules on racial trauma. Conferences dedicated panels to anti-racist practice, and journals published special issues on race, power and the psyche.听

Some of the shifts have held. There is a sharper literacy in parts of the profession, there are pockets of anti-racism training woven into courses, and there has been an increased awareness of the importance of clients being culturally matched with their therapists (which comes with its own issues). And yet the momentum has slowed. The wider mental health sector continues to frame racism primarily as a social justice concern, separate from 鈥榗ore鈥� mental health practice, rather than recognising it as a determinant of mental health outcomes.¹¹ This separation limits the integration of anti-racist approaches into service design, commissioning and policy. Shifts are not the same as transformations.听

As a Black therapist, the task is to turn what has been learned over the past five years from a moment or shift into movement through practice. The movement begins when the therapist treats every encounter with a client as a site where the demands of 2020 are still alive in the work. What happens in the room is an opportunity to revolutionise the work we do.听

We have learned that racial trauma stands in the doorway of our rooms, refusing to step back. Racial trauma must be met as an unavoidable clinical reality rather than an abstract social issue. When race enters the room it is not abstract. It arrives as relation, as atmosphere and as history.听

We have learned there is now a deeper understanding of the therapist鈥檚 need to self-observe their whiteness, proximity to whiteness and also their Blackness. Part of this self-observation is recognising racial trauma as a living presence in the relationship, not as an external issue to be handled but as something that breathes between the therapist and client. We now have a clearer lens through which to see the therapeutic relationship as one built atop colonial diagnostic tools and Eurocentric notions of self and other, and a clinical detachment masquerading as neutrality. We now understand that neutrality is violence. And that attending to the threat of violence involves recognition of the fact that the violence out there is not separate from the violence in here, in the room. The history of the world is in the room, and the history of both touches the work.听

We have learned that the Black client comes into the room carrying the weight of a wound that is both personal and collective. The murder of George Floyd, alongside the visible proliferation of other recorded killings and personal encounters, intensifies pre-existing layers of racialised hypervigilance, historical grief and somatic alertness.听

We have learned that the Black client demands not simply to be heard but to be seen in a way that the gaze no longer belongs to the therapist alone.听

We have learned that listening to the clients鈥� demands is an act of co-witnessing. It implicates the therapist in the holding of a history they may or may not have lived but which they must be prepared to carry alongside the client without appropriation or disavowal. In this work we engage with an archive that is alive, dynamic and resistant to erasure. Our role is not to 鈥榗lose鈥� the archive but to witness it, and help navigate its contents without becoming immobilised by them, and to support the integration of collective memory into an empowered self-narrative.听

Deep down I know that the work that still needs doing is bigger than the consulting room. It means building structural competency that knows how to trace a panic attack back to a stopand- search, or a depressive collapse to the slow violence of border policy. It means funding Black-led services that don鈥檛 have to translate themselves to be taken seriously. It means data that don鈥檛 just record disparities but instead move money, policy and power.听

But five years on we鈥檝e seen what the room can hold, when it lets the wound speak. George Floyd鈥檚 breath was stolen, but it has also been shared by those of us who have chosen to change the narrative through activism or creating spaces in which our clients can breathe knowing that the therapeutic encounter is an ongoing choreography of survival and resistance that contributes to the possibility of living, refusing to let the trauma sediment into resignation.听

Dawn Estefan

A therapist鈥檚 journey through collective trauma by Rotimi Akinsete聽

In the immediate aftermath of the twin crises of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd, I found myself in conversations with fellow Black male therapists and community healers. The air in those spaces was heavy 鈥� not only with grief but with a deeper reckoning about our work, our survival and the responsibilities we carry towards our communities.听

During the lockdown period, Black Men on the Couch* conversations evolved from professional discussions into digital sanctuaries. These informal chats became spaces where we processed the stark realities unfolding around us 鈥� not just as therapists but as Black men living through it all.听

Alongside these dialogues with clinicians I was joined by voices from other parts of the community. Ibrahim Hashim, a radio and podcast producer active in Justice for Black Lives, and Jordan 鈥楯ords鈥� Wilks, a recording artist whose lyrics often grappled with racial trauma, offered perspectives that reminded us that healing was not confined to therapy rooms. It was happening in recording studios, at protest sites and across the airwaves 鈥� wherever Black men were responding to the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial violence.听

We were navigating multiple layers of trauma. The pandemic exposed devastating inequalities, with Black men dying at disproportionately high rates from COVID-19.¹² At the same time, the relentless media coverage of racial violence 鈥� especially in the US but also in the UK 鈥� was a constant trigger for communities already living with the daily realities of discrimination.听

As therapists we are trained to hold space for others. But this period required holding space for each other too. Professional boundaries softened as survival and solidarity took precedence.听

Many of us admitted privately what we could not always say publicly: that supporting clients through racialised trauma while living through it ourselves was exhausting. For some the experience was overwhelming 鈥� sessions left them needing to step away and recover their own emotional balance.听

For those in training at the time there were both calling and burden. Some had entered the profession from a desire to heal their communities, only to find themselves face-to-face with realities for which training had not prepared them 鈥� clients arriving still marked from protests, or conversations where trauma was both personal and political. Others were frustrated that racial trauma remained an optional element in training programmes rather than part of the core curriculum.听

This period also highlighted the lack of institutional readiness to address racial trauma. Qualified and experienced therapists found themselves positioned as informal educators on 鈥榯he Black perspective鈥� for white supervisors or peers.听

Within our networks we began to describe the period as a 鈥榙ouble pandemic鈥� 鈥� the deadly combination of COVID-19 and racial violence. Our professional communication channels became filled with mortality statistics, protest safety advice and constant check-ins on one another鈥檚 wellbeing. The separation between personal and professional lives dissolved almost entirely.听

Rotimi Akinsete

Looking back from the vantage point of five years, it is clear that some things have shifted. In therapeutic spaces there is now wider recognition that racism directly impacts mental health. The question has moved from whether this is true, to how therapists can support clients 鈥� and themselves 鈥� in living through ongoing racial trauma.听

Yet progress is uneven. Therapy may be more visible and, in some circles, more culturally resonant, but it still remains out of reach for many who might benefit most. At the same time, I have witnessed more Black men actively seeking healing spaces 鈥� attending groups, meetings and conferences focused on physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, and increasingly joining training courses to become therapists themselves. This growing participation is reshaping the landscape, making therapy and related practices feel more accessible, relevant and grounded in lived experience.听

For those of us in the profession challenges remain. We are often positioned as experts on Black trauma, with far less attention given to the fullness of Black life 鈥� our joy, our resilience and our love stories.听

The work we do is both professional and deeply personal. There is no neat division between the therapist self and the human self when the trauma we encounter in the therapy room mirrors our own lived experience. The structures we work within remain inadequate, yet our commitment to each other and our communities has not diminished.听

A further lesson is that Black therapists need spaces for their own healing. Peer support, reflective practice groups and culturally safe professional networks are not luxuries 鈥� they are essential.听

One of the most affirming developments I have witnessed is the journey of those who first came to therapy as clients in the aftermath of George Floyd and have since entered the profession themselves 鈥� or are seriously considering it. Their growing presence affirms that therapy can look and feel different when shaped by people who understand these intersecting realities from the inside.听

As we prepare to launch Black Women on the Couch, the lessons of these past years remain vital. The conversations we began in the crucible of crisis continue to evolve. They remind me that healing is not linear, that the therapist is never entirely separate from the work, and that our professional growth is intertwined with our personal survival聽

The couch is still where we meet.听

The difference is that we now carry a stronger sense of what it means to show up 鈥� for our clients, for each other and for ourselves聽

*鈥�Black Men on the Couch: conversations during lock-down鈥� is still available to watch on their .听

Rotimi Akinsete