Art work : Asili Taylor

A Dialogue: Unruly Conversations in Living Room

Hosted by The Relational School 

What kind of therapeutics are required for the now? 

Black feminism offers an implicitly relational stance that speaks to therapeutic thought and practice as expressed in this latest book from therapeutic practitioner and writer Foluke Taylor:

"Unruly Therapeutic provided new insights into my own experience of therapy; what has 'worked' and what hasn't, what resonated and why. Taylor's use of black feminisms, in both theory and praxis, shows that the therapeutic can be found in other ways of reading, writing, seeing, listening, knowing, and being. This book is life-giving. It made me feel seen, understood, unruly. I look forward to reading it again and again."        

                                                                                                                  -Nydia A. Swaby, black feminist researcher, writer, and curator.

Foluke will be in conversation with a gathering of writers, thinkers, practitioners and makers that she has invited to share their responses to the book and to reflect on its themes in this unruly conversation in 'living room'.

About the book:

Centering the experiences of black women allows for richer therapeutic practices for everyone.

“Black feminisms have provided a foundation from which it becomes more possible to speak and write of interconnection—of a spirited life, soul, a natural mystic blowing through the air—and engagement with all of this in therapeutic practice.”

Part thesis, part memoir, and part poetry, this book is unlike any other therapeutic text. Psychotherapist and writer Foluke Taylor explores how the centering of black women’s experiences in therapeutic scholarship allows for greater space—space for wandering, for wondering, and for deepening narratives—in every therapeutic relationship. Beginning with the book’s poetic structuring, Taylor rejects the need for a streamlined solution, instead inviting the reader to take a different path through her crucial research—one that is unruly, nonlinear, and celebratory of the richer, fuller narratives allowed for by black feminisms.

Foluke Taylor :  therapist*writer, working with an asterisk to signal black feminist modes of creation, space-making, and care. She is interested in facilitating emergence – in the what-is-not-yet-but-is-coming-to-be and the therapeutics that usher it in to being. Foluke is the author of How the Hiding Seek (2018) an experiment with the intermediary agency of creative writing to counter hierarchy, categorical difference, and separation. She is a troubler of borders including, but not limited to, those erected between mind/body, human/ ‘nature’, now/then, and fiction/non-fiction. After spending several years doing some adult growing up in The Gambia, Foluke returned, with her partner and children, to the city of London where she is now based.

Her forthcoming book, Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room, published by W.W. Norton, will be released in London and New York on February 28th 2023.

The panel of speakers who will be responding to the text in conversation, in quiet contemplation, with some tunes are:

Dr Gail Lewis : is an author, academic and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Her political subjectivity was formed in the intensities of black feminist and anti-racist struggle and through a socialist, anti-imperialist lens. She was a member of the Brixton Black Women's Group and one of the founder members of the Organization of Women of African and Asian Descent, Britain’s first national organization for black and other women of color. She organizes her thinking through the category ‘experience’ which she conceives as a vector of both the felt senses in conjunction with social, structural and cultural processes, and an analytic in the production of meaning and knowing otherwise. She is currently writing a book on Black feminism in Britain and has written on feminism, intersectionality, the welfare state and citizenship, psychoanalysis and Black feminism, and the psychosocial dynamics of racialized-gendered experience.

Her publications include ‘Race, Gender and Social Welfare: encounters in a postcolonial society’ (2000), Polity Press; ‘Citizenship: personal lives and social policy’ (2004), ed. Polity Press; ‘Birthing Racial Difference: conversations with my mother and others’ (2009) Studies in the Maternal; ‘Unsafe Travel: experiencing intersectionality and feminist displacements’ (2013) Signs: journal of women in culture and society; ‘Where Might I Find You’: Popular Music and the Internal Space of the Father’, (2012) Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society; ‘Questions of Presence’, (2017) Feminist Review, Issue 117; ‘Black Feminism and the Challenge of Object Use’ (forthcoming) Feminist Review. She believes that open and honest conversations across differences, including intergenerational conversations, are the pressing issues of this moment of hate-filled crisis. She is an Arsenal fan.

Dr Eiman Hussein : Eiman is an integrative psychotherapist and an academic lecturer at Metanoia Institute. In therapy, she works in private practice as well as providing therapeutic support to women survivors of different forms of Violence against women and girls (VAWG), specifically FGM within an African led organization in the UK. Eiman has a background in Medicine and an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries, with more than 15 years of experience working in the charity sector on issues of women’s reproductive health and rights and specifically on the issue of FGM. In practice and in teaching, Eiman draws from her own self, her multitude of identities and past experiences in life and in work to enrichen her work. She is also a very occasional poet/writer.

Omikemi : is a writer, healing arts practitioner and community organizer. Their work is focused on creativity for health and healing and they have a growing interest in mystic-activism. Their recent collaborations include work with Vital Xposure, Disability Arts Online and Autograph Gallery London. Omikemi also organizes Way-Making an online Black-centered creative and healing arts space

Dr Dzifa Afonu : Clinical psychologist, consultant, supervisor, community researcher and illustrator with an interest in decolonial and liberatory approaches to mental health. With over 20 years of experience in community and charity work and 10 years experience working in the NHS I bring a range of skills and knowledge across multiple fields.

Dr Akima Thomas OBE : is a black feminist activist and comes from a background in nursing, social work and psychotherapy. Akima has pioneered working from a trauma informed approach and developed the Holistic Empowerment Recovery Model (HER), a strengths based non pathologising clinical model; integrating healing of mind body and spirit. Akima continues to research women’s healing journeys chronicling strategies of resistance, rebellion, and resilience to ensure survival and wrote a chapter in the book ‘Drop the Disorder! Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis’, which challenges the culture of psychiatric diagnosis. Akima was awarded an OBE for services to Supporting Women and Girls, in 2019.

Anthea Benjamin is a UKCP registered Integrative Arts Psychotherapist, Play Therapist, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Practitioner, Group Analyst and Supervisor. Anthea has worked extensively with children, adolescents, adults, families, couples, and groups for over 15 years in various settings including schools, community projects and within the NHS. She works as a therapist delivering training and consultancy in a range of professional and educational contexts. Anthea also offers therapeutic services such as self-reflective groups and team supervision both in organizations and within her private practice in south London. Anthea has a special interest in racial trauma, particularly working with racial trauma in the body.

To order Unruly Therapeutic in the UK at a special member discount please follow the link below and add the code WN918 when prompted at the checkout.
UK: Unruly Therapeutic - Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room

To order Unruly Therapeutic in the US at a special member discount please follow the link below and add the code WN866 when prompted at the checkout.
US: Unruly Therapeutic - Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room.