Power in the Therapy Room

Power in the Therapy Room

Facilitator(s)
Nick Totton

Date/Time
Date: 13/10/2018 - 14/10/2018
All Day

About this event

Cost: £150/students £140

Details and bookings: https://www.aashna.uk/events-1/power-in-the-therapy-room-with-nick-totton

We bring certain power relationships into the therapy room with us, and discover certain power relationships already there, created by the nature of the work. On this workshop we will explore both of these and ask ourselves how best to work with them, using discussion, experiential exercises and supervision.

This 2 day workshop will look at:

  • How power differentials from the general social context – for example around gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class – are imported into the therapy/counselling relationship, often without being made explicit; and how these can be addressed. Hopefully we will be able to learn from workshop participants’ experience of bringing disempowered social roles into therapy.
  • How power relations are structured by the therapy relationship itself – the therapist as owner of the space and expert on what happens there; and also how this entangles itself with power relations imported from wider society (e.g. black/female/gay therapist with white/male/straight client).

I will be arguing that practitioners need to be continuously alert to both sorts of power issue; but also, that we need to let go of any notion of eliminating or defusing such issues, and instead try to open them up to the transformative effects of awareness. Therapy is inherently a place where power is struggled over and negotiated; done consciously, this can be one of its strengths.

I am mindful in all this of my privilege and unearned rank as a white, male, middle class, not visibly queer person; and I strive to use this privilege and rank to actively support those who do not share it. In this I repeatedly fail, and I may well do so at points in the workshop, which will enable a ‘live’ experience of the struggle over power in the therapy room.

Location
Aashna
i Castle Views, Castle Road
London

N12 9EH

Contact Details
Contact Person:
Email:
More contact details:
Website: https://www.aashna.uk/events-1/power-in-the-therapy-room-with-nick-totton

Cost
£150/students £140