Decolonising our Therapy Practice

Hi I’m Allison Priestman. I am a white, slim, cis gendered woman; living and struggling with both my disability and my ableism. I have been working as an Embodied-Relational Therapist for over 20 years. I'm continually being woken up, challenged and nourished by my contact with clients, supervises and trainees. At this time of climate, diversity and equality crises, I’m interested in being part of a collective understanding of their interwoven causes. And part of a collective search for a way forward.I’m interested in creating training spaces from three-hour webinars to the two year-long residential Embodied- Relational Therapy training, which allow participants to drop deeply into themselves. Combining experiential learning with rigorous theoretical input. Supporting practitioners to relax into the complexities and paradoxes of working as a therapist. Of supporting work from the non-expert position.I'm re-running for the fourth time my Playing with Fire Online Course Oct 2024- June 2025. Exploring an Embodied, Relational, Intersectional and Wild Therapeutic Approach. How can working in an embodied, relational and wild way support the decolonisation of your practise?https://www.allisonpriestman.org/copy-of-playing-with-fireMore information to follow in the new year. Please note I will be running a series of Friday morning webinars in the Spring and Summer to act as tasters for the training.The next Embodied-Relational Therapy two year training begins in Juner 2025. It’s a robust, immersive, modular, residential training that will be run from Devon this year. I will be co-running the first year with Stephen Tame. For more information and the application documents please check out theEmbodied-Relational Therapy website. If you'd like to  know more about the Embodied-Relational Therapy  training check out this video.https://vimeo.com/498402917I’m creating a series of informative videos to communicate some of the ideas that inform my work. A video onworking with Erotic Chargecan be seen here.Thank you for reading, I hope you’re able to make it to one of my webinars or trainings, Allison

Allison Priestman

What can an embodied, relational, and wild approach,
offer that journey?

“To colonise is to capture, to take, to control, to disconnect, to disenfranchise, disidentify. To decolonise is to reclaim, to reconnect, to honour, to recognise our interconnectedness with all living things.” Dr Thema Bryant. Colonialism and white supremacy, has a 500 year-plus, historical legacy that is deeply embedded in our minds, our systems and our society, resulting in huge global injustice and inequality, in particular towards people of colour, black and indigenous people. This webinar is an introduction to the complex and long journey of learning and exploring how we can start to decolonise our practice. Counselling and psychotherapy, as a profession, has grown from predominantly, European, white, male, intellectual, non-disabled, heteronormative, privileged roots. Therapy today is still very white-centred. I will offer a framework to explore how we can support and work with oppression, intersectionality and marginalisation. Working with the complexity of our own, and our clients, lived experience of both marginalisation, power and privilege. This workshop is an offering, part of a global collective enquiry into decolonising our therapeutic practice. How can our profession engage with the ancestral and current trauma that experiencing ongoing social injustice and systemic oppression, can inflict upon people from marginalised communities? Can a deeper understanding and empathy towards those experiencing social injustice be embedded into our therapeutic approaches? How can therapy work with individual psychology and the reality of the collective, cultural and social origins of our distress? I’ll be exploring what non-normative therapy approaches and specifically Body Psychotherapy and Wild/Ecopsychology, can offer a journey into deepening our understanding of decolonising our practice. Working with embodiment can open the door to exploring the lived experiences of oppression, intergenerational marginalisation and intersectionality. Ecosystemic and Wild Therapy reminds us of our interconnectedness, our interdependence, of the sentient aliveness of all beings. I’m interested in re-centring liminal, non-manualised, wild, embodied, playful, creative practice. I hope the morning will be enlivening, collaborative, and interactive. As a white woman, it feels important to me, to use my developing awareness of my power and my privilege to raise these issues. I’m curious and drawn to what we can explore, challenge and co-create together. Cost: £50 concessions £35. <a href="" title="" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Please contact me </a>if you wish to have a concessionary place at £35. Date: Saturday 7th September 2024. Time: 10am-1pm. Venue: Online This would act as a useful taster for the <a href="https://www.allisonpriestman.org/copy-of-playing-with-fire" title="https://www.allisonpriestman.org/copy-of-playing-with-fire" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Playing with Fire </a>nine-month online training starting in October 2024. <a href="https://www.allisonpriestman.org/about-allison" title="https://www.allisonpriestman.org/about-allison" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">About Allison</a> I am a white, slim, cis gendered woman, living with and exploring both my disability and my internalised ableism. I have been working as an Embodied-Relational Therapist for over 22 years. I'm continually being woken up, challenged, and nourished by my contact with clients, supervisees, and trainees. At this time of climate, diversity, and equality crises, I’m interested in being part of a collective understanding of their interwoven causes, and part of a wider societal search for ways forward.

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Decolonising our Therapy Practice

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