The Guild of Psychotherapists is delighted to bring The Decolonising Psychoanalysis Seminars to a wider audience via these online recordings. The series, which began in 2022, was co-organised by Ivan Ward and Anshu Srivastava, under the auspices of the Race & Culture Committee at The Guild.

Members of the Guild are invited to use the promotional code MEMBER for a 25% discount. Students are invited to use the promotional code STUDENT for a 50% discount.

Together we set out to explore the following question.

As a group of Black and Asian psychotherapists, with our non-European antecedents, can we really escape from the colonial and Eurocentric mindsets that accompanied the birth and growth of psychoanalysis through the 20th and now 21st Centuries?
As a starting point we noted, that whilst black and brown people are often invited to share their lived experiences, they are rarely asked to theorise their own experiences. Put crudely, a logic persists in our trainings that whilst authentic experience might be black or brown, authentic theory is only ever white.

We observed that certain academic disciplines, especially as they have developed within American universities over the past 20 years, have been contending with this problem with a remarkable level of determination and perception, often using psychoanalytically infused thought. The depth, complexity, and ambition of this thinking in departments of English, Film, Women’s, and Post-Colonial studies in the American academy has easily outstripped the levels of thinking going on in psychoanalytic circles themselves, especially where race and migration are concerns. As therapists, working in contemporary multi-cultural London, Lagos, Delhi or Beijing, we have had no choice but to read across these various disciplines. The seminar series at the Guild was part of our contribution, to make those same, often solo explorations and connections, in an international group setting, which we subtitled ‘Transatlantic Dialogues’. Inviting academics of colour working in the US, into conversation with therapists of colour working in the UK.

We were keen therefore to create bridges across those usual divides and are grateful to our participants for their willingness to meet in this way.

The seminar presentations to date have been as follows:

The Psychoanalysis of Racism and the Racism of Psychoanalysis - Robert Beshara (speaker) with Fakhry Davids (respondent)

Occupying Psychoanalysis in a Post-Colonial World: Fanon's 'zone of nonbeing' and the subject of racism - Gautam Basu Thakur (speaker) with Sharon Numa (respondent)

Questioning 'Diversity' in Psychoanalysis - Lara Sheehi (Representation, not liberation: "Diversity" and stabilizing coloniality) and Foluke Taylor (Following Broken Water: Decolonising Psychoanalytics and Therapeutic Emergent-cy)

Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism Revisited – Ranjana Khanna (speaker) with Anshu Srivastava (discussant)

Reverie and Internalized Colonizers: A South African Perspective – Sally Swartz (speaker) with Fakhry Davids (respondent)

The Psychological Effects of Racism - Ivan Ward (Speaker) with Anshu Srivastava (discussant)

Epistemic Injustices: Effects of Prejudice and Marginalization - Miranda Fricker (Speaker) with Sandra Thompson (discussant).

The Enemy Within the white Mind: Psychological Assessments of Black Males - Tommy J Curry (Speaker) with Charles Brown (Discussant)

Decolonising Psychotherapy as an Ethic of Disillusionment - Dr Nini Kerr (Speaker) with Dr Tarun Pamneja (Discussant)

Afro-pessimism and Psychoanalysis - Derek Hook (Speaker) with Maxine Dennis (Respondent)

Eurowhiteness, Imperial Amnesia and "Post-Colonial Melancholy" - Hans Kundnani (Speaker) with Anshu Srivastava (Respondent)

Race as Screen: The Iridescent Allure of the Lacanian Real - Sheldon George (Speaker) with Andrea Fassolas and Anshu Srivastava (Respondents)

On Being and Becoming: Thinking Historical Trauma Through Language and the Body - Thando Njovane (Speaker) and Peter Nevins (Respondent)

Decolonising Minds in relation to Israel & Palestine - Shaul Magid & Zahi Zalloua (Speakers) and Anshu Srivastava (Respondent)

Everyday Racism and the Legacy of Colonialism - Ivan Ward (Speaker) and Anne Aiyegbusi (Respondent)

In addition to providing access to these important speakers and seminars, we offer these videos for rental in order to raise funds for the reduced fee clinic that is run by the Guild of Psychotherapists. The viability of the clinic was particularly challenged by the Covid pandemic and your support would make a significant contribution to a service which is highly valued by local communities.
To find out more about the clinic: guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk/psychotherapy/reduced-fee-clinic/

If you would like to find out more about supporting the Guild of Psychotherapists: guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk/support-the-guild/