Decolonising Psychotherapy & Empires of the Mind: Opportunities and debates

Decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind: Opportunities and debates

Zoom Conference

27th September 2025

9:30 am for 10:00 to 5:30 pm

Speakers include: Gauri Chauhan, Anthony Jay Davis, Teófilo Espada-Brignoni, Andréa Guerra (TBC), Del Loewenthal, Maria Morahan, Edgardo Morales, Ioana Morpurgo, Alexandra Noël, Shireen Noor, Gillian Proctor (TBC), Adele Yaron.

There is with decolonising psychotherapy the vital opportunity to consider what it means for all people to be regarded as equal. This involves concerns about attentiveness, not only to how a client’s culture, practices and experiences may differ from the practitioner’s, but also, crucially, the assumptions the practitioner may hold about notions such as culture, superiority and civilisation.

Is it possible to think about these sorts of complex experiences, assumptions and notions, even if they may unsettle and disorientate?

Is it essential to at least consider that being trained as a psychotherapist often leads us to overvalue the theories we have been taught, taking them as objective and scientific, without thinking of them as products of Western Europe in the time of colonialism, Empires and population shifts, and therefore in need of careful thought?

Yet to achieve this, won’t we first as psychotherapists have to reflect on our own colonial mindsets which we can wrongly normalise?

How can we and our clients do this whilst exploring the complexities of pride in our different heritages? How then do we work in a postcolonial way with our clients?

This conference invites clinicians, theoreticians and researchers to consider the many ways decolonising psychotherapy can influence psychotherapeutic practices, theories and research also stemming from such further questions as:

• Can psychotherapists and clients identify with European cultures without being colonial?
• What are the challenges when working with clients from non-European backgrounds if our psychotherapeutic theories are Eurocentric?
• Are all European psychotherapeutic cultures colonial and all colonial psychotherapeutic cultures European?
• What can we learn as psychotherapists of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds from other academic disciplines that have been exploring issues of post-colonialism?
• As psychotherapists how does our pride, and/or shame, regarding our personal and psychotherapeutic histories help and hinder our clients/patients
• What would it mean to decolonise our and our clients’/patients’ lives?
• What are postcolonial methodologies?
• To what extent should we, must we, and can we, decolonise psychotherapy trainings?

The idea of this conference is that there will not only be speakers reporting on the cutting edge of such questions regarding decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind; but, there will be space where participants can explore in small groups how this may be experienced both as opportunities and challenges by psychotherapists as well as their clients/patients.

Prof Del Loewenthal

Conference Chair

Critical Psychotherapy Network & Southern Association of Psychotherapy and Counselling

*Please note, this confrence will be recorded*

PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME

9.30am - 10.00am: Zoom log in10.00am - 10.05am: Welcome, Del Loewenthal - Conference Chair (Critical Psychotherapy Network and Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling, UK)

10:05am - 10:20am: Introduction: Decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind: Opportunities and debates, Del Loewenthal - Conference Chair (Critical Psychotherapy Network and Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling, UK)

10:20am - 10:45 am: What’s This Got To Do With Me? Grappling with Issues of Decolonisation Within a Psychotherapy Training Institute – Adele Yaron (Private Practice & Karuna Institute, UK)

10.45am - 11:10 am: Looking for Belonging in my Black, Disabled Body – Alexandra Noël (Private Practice)

11.10 - 11.20 : Break

11:20 - 11.45: From spectrum to palette: Reconceiving psychotherapy and the active roles of therapeutic encounter – Frances Ruiz-Alfaro; Teófilo Espada-Brignoni; Edgardo Morales (Department of Psychology, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico)

11.45 - 12.10: The Hate Script – A Radical Transactional Analysis Perspective – Ioana Morpurgo (Iron Mill College, Exeter, UK)

12:10 - 12.20 Break

12:20 - 12:50 - Response 1 TBC – Andréa Guerra

12:50 - 1:30 – Lunch

1:30 - 2:10 – Small groups

2:10pm - 2:35: Spice Routes of the Mind: Rethinking psychotherapeutic practices in the Middle East through global and local perspectives – Gauri Chauhan (Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar)

2:35pm - 3:00 pm: Beyond the Skulls of Our Colonised Ancestors – Reflections on Psychoanalysis and South Asian Culture – Shireen Noor

3.00 - 3:10: Break

3:20 - 3:45: Humanising Psychotherapy Training in the UK: Views on Decolonising Eurocentric Frameworks in Trauma-Informed Care for Black Queer Men – Anthony Jay Davis; Maria Morahan (Private Practice)

3:45 - 4:15: Response 2 TBC - Gillian Proctor (University of Leeds, UK)

4:15 - 5:00: Small groups

5:00 - 5:30pm: Plenary, Presenters, respondents and all participants

5:30pm: Conference close

SPEAKER ABSTRACTS AND BIOS

Gauri Chauhan - Spice Routes of the Mind: Rethinking psychotherapeutic practices in the Middle East through global and local perspectives

The Middle East, with its rich history as a crossroads of global trade and cultural exchange, provides a compelling context for examining the challenges and possibilities of decolonising psychotherapeutic practices in multicultural, postcolonial settings. Drawing an analogy to the spice routes – historical conduits of interconnectedness blending Indian, Kenyan, and European influences – this presentation reflects on the interplay between Eurocentric therapeutic frameworks and the lived experiences of clients from diverse, non-European backgrounds. Gauri, an Indian psychotherapist raised in Kenya, trained in England, and practicing in the Middle East, weaves her reflections into an exploration of how colonial legacies persist in psychotherapeutic paradigms, and the potential to navigate the colonial residues embedded in current therapeutic practices while honouring culturally situated experiences. This presentation thus highlights how decolonising approaches can enhance cultural sensitivity, transform therapeutic relationships, and foster healing; and invites psychological therapists to critically engage with identity, history, and power in their work, offering pathways to enrich practice in a way that is attuned to the complexities of being globally informed and locally responsive.

Dr Gauri Chauhan is an existential-analytic psychotherapist, registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and accredited with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and the Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling (UK). She has been a psychotherapist and Senior Manager at Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar since 2019. Prior to this, her experience in the UK spans private practice, psychiatric hospitals and hospices.

Anthony Jay Davis; Maria Morahan - Humanising Psychotherapy Training in the UK: Views on Decolonising Eurocentric Frameworks in Trauma-Informed Care for Black Queer Men

This presentation explores the importance of integrating decolonial perspectives into therapist education, emphasising the need to challenge Eurocentric frameworks that marginalise diverse worldviews, healing practices, and lived experiences. Drawing on research findings from a study examining trauma-informed care for Black queer men, therapists reflect on their training and early experience in psychotherapy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 practitioners who reflected on their views on the dominance of Eurocentric frameworks in UK psychotherapy training. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the interviews. Findings underscore that decolonisation of UK psychotherapy training is a critical step towards reimagining therapy as a truly inclusive and human-centred discipline. We advocate for a model of counselling and psychotherapy training which consciously and overtly discusses epistemic injustice and implicit colonial knowledge systems. Additionally, we articulate a model of pedagogy in higher education (HE) which embraces relational aspects of counselling and psychotherapy training, utilising the ‘human’.

Anthony Jay Davis holds an MSc in Integrative Counselling and Coaching from the University of East London. He is a BACP-accredited integrative psychotherapist, coach, and clinical supervisor in private practice, working with individual adults and couples. His practice primarily serves gender, sexuality, and relationship diverse (GSRD) clients and individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds. His research interests include LGBTQ+ and ethnic minority experiences in counselling and coaching, men’s mental health, and trauma-informed approaches to care.

Maria Morahan (also k/a Marita) has worked for many years as a senior lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy, following an academic career in developmental psychology. She is a BPS Chartered Psychologist for Teaching and Learning, and a BACP registered integrative psychotherapist and supervisor. She has worked in the field of early years, children’s mental health and domestic abuse. Since training in counselling and psychotherapy, she has focused her research on social justice, mental health in young adults, relational ethics and counselling training. Current work includes as an independent counsellor and psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, trainer and consultant.

Dr Teófilo Espada-Brignoni, Dr Edgardo Morales-Arandes – From spectrum to palette: Reconceiving psychotherapy and the active roles of therapeutic encounter

Psychological practice is often grounded in individualism. Relational views break away from psychological individualism and positivism by emphasizing shared meanings that transcend therapeutic space. Historically, psychological concepts have been plagued by European and North American taxonomies that have shaped how subjectivity and action are viewed and used in therapeutic encounters across the globe. The ever-present metaphor of the “spectrum” reinforces an epistemology that its users think they are subverting, for the spectrum assumes the unquestioned existence of a preexisting entity that holds within it a defined number of variations. It also reifies traditional psychological concepts while invisibilizing the role of psychotherapists and their communities in shaping how we think about the mind. We must then assess, when thinking about psychology across cultures and nations, how therapists are constrained into thinking about and doing specific forms of psychology. In this paper, we propose the metaphor of the painter’s palette, instead of the spectrum, to underscore the intentional, creative, and subversive role of critical psychological theory and practice. This metaphor allows us to engage deeply with ways of thinking about psychology that understand culture as constitutive of subjectivity and not a superficial variable that merely influences so-called universal mental processes.

Dr Teófilo Espada-Brignoni, Department of Psychology, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dr Edgardo Morales-Arandes, Department of Psychology, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus San Juan, Puerto Rico

Andréa Guerra, TBC

Del Loewenthal - Decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind: Opportunities and debates,

As Conference Brief above

Prof Del Loewenthal, Conference Chair (Critical Psychotherapy Network and Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling, UK)

Ioana Morpurgo - The Hate Script – A Radical Transactional Analysis Perspective

This presentation employs Radical TA theory and deconstructionism to explore the psychology of unconscious biases. The speaker’s own upbringing, in communist Romania during the 1980’s, and the widespread discrimination against the Roma are used as a case study. Antiziganism is interpreted both as a symbolic abhorrence we hold against our own potential to fall and become outsiders and as a fixated ‘I’m not OK, you’re not OK’ life position, in extreme cases relating to hamartia. The role of authoritarianism is explored in relation to different levels of script (societal, cultural and individual) while dissidence is seen as relying on direct input from a proposed metascript level: humanity at large + the ecosystem. The term Other is capitalised throughout the essay to denote the tensions between I/us and another ethnic, gender, racial etc. group. Gypsy and Roma are used to represent historical discrimination (the former) and the politically correct address (the latter) according to context.

Ioana Morpurgo is a psychotherapist in advanced training at Iron Mill College, Exeter, UK. She has a BA in Romanian-English Studies and an MA in Cultural Anthropology. She researched the culture of transition in post-communist societies at Exeter University, where she also taught a seminar on Contemporary Societies. She contributed articles on socio-cultural topics to New Internationalist, Contemporary Review, Lichtungen, Buchkultur, Observator cultural etc. She is also the author of three novels: Fisa de inregistrare (Record Slip -Polirom, 2004), Imigrantii (The Immigrants - Polirom, 2011), Schije (Shrapnel - Polirom, 2017) and curator of Airborne Particles – a project exploring the state of isolation during the lockdown in 47 different cultures. In 2004, Ioana Morpurgo relocated from Romania to UK, where she writes, sees clients at a low-cost clinic in Dorset, plays the piano and coordinates a project celebrating ideas – Lectures on Everything. She is an activist for human rights and the environment, a member of UKATA, EATA, the Romanian Union of Writers and PEN Club.

Alexandra Noël - Looking for Belonging in my Black, Disabled Body

This presentation investigates Alexandra’s lived experience as a Black woman, frequently mischaracterised as aggressive and threatening, alongside her journey with epilepsy. By weaving together personal accounts of racism and ableism, she employs Porges' polyvagal theory to illuminate the profound effects of systemic discrimination on the ANS. Furthermore, exploring neuroception reveals how systemic oppression disrupts essential human connections, highlighting a critical area of concern. She also engages with Fanon's theory of decolonising the mind and Menakem’s concept of the “soul nerve,” emphasising the pivotal role of narrative transformation in achieving genuine self-regulation. In examining clinical studies, Alexandra reveals how therapists can successfully support clients with intersectional identities by embodying a “ventral presence of healing,” fostering emotional regulation in these individuals. Nonetheless, it is crucial to acknowledge the limitations of current theories on affect regulation, which often place the onus on unregulated individuals. This perspective falls short of addressing the unique experiences of those with disabilities, especially neurological conditions. Western psychotherapy tends to disregard the importance of intuition and its impact on neuroception, as well as the legacies of colonisation and self-othering. This presentation calls for a more inclusive and compassionate approach to psychotherapy that genuinely understands and addresses these complexities.

Alexandra is a proud Black non-binary lesbian woman with Epilepsy, an invisible disability. They are a qualified integrative therapist, running their private practice in North London and training for an MA in Integrative Psychotherapy. They hold an MSc in Mental Health Psychology and wrote their dissertation on the impact of the European Referendum on the mental health of British-born Black and Brown people. They are passionate about anti-blackness, and is a BAATN anti-oppression trainer. They are an avid film watcher and true crime armchair detective in their spare time. They are also a published writer and uses poetry and prose as trauma expression.

Shireen Noor - Beyond the Skulls of Our Colonised Ancestors – Reflections On Psychoanalysis and South Asian Culture

This presentation examines the integration of cultural sensitivity, cultural insight, cultural attunement as post-colonial methodologies in contemporary psychotherapy. It interrogates the feasibility and implications of cultural competence, raising critical questions: Can a therapist possess meaningful knowledge of all cultures? And, what does it truly mean to be culturally attuned and informed in therapeutic practice? As clients increasingly demand more cultural awareness and recognition within the clinical space, this shift challenges both European and non-European practitioners to reflect on their framework and assumptions. Many cultural nuances may be difficult to explain or understand unless a therapist shares a similar culture, religion, or tradition with the client. The presentation examines how clients may interpret a therapist’s curiosity about their culture, whether as genuine curiosity or as ignorance and a lack of knowledge. This may have a potential risk of positioning the client as an educator and reinforcing their experience of otherness. Drawing on theorists such as Lowe (2019) and Samuels (2002), the paper cultivates what Lowe terms a ‘thinking space’ (Lowe 2019) as a reflective terrain of contemplation and critique (Samuels 2002). Through personal reflections, clinical vignettes, and critical engagement with post-colonial psychoanalytical thought, the presentation contributes to a growing discourse that reimagines the analytical field through a decolonising and cultural lens.

Dr Gillian Proctor – TBC

Dr Gillian Proctor is a lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Leeds. She is also an independent clinical psychologist, offering psychotherapy, supervision and training. Her particular interests are in politics, ethics and power on which she has written two key text books ('The dynamics of power in counselling and psychotherapy' 2002/2017: PCCS Books. ‘Values and ethics in counselling and psychotherapy’ 2014: Sage) and many articles and book chapters. She is currently a research fellow, researching authenticity, belonging and inclusion in online teaching and learning. Before moving to academia, she worked in the NHS for 22 years and was passionate about the relationship between inequalities, deprivation and distress and how the power structures within psychiatry often compounded rather than relieve this distress. Navigating the complexities of understanding unique individuals whilst acknowledging the impact and power of the socio-political context keeps her very busy

Adele Yaron - What’s This Got To Do With Me? Grappling with Issues of Decolonisation Within a Psychotherapy Training Institute

This presentation explores the challenges faced by the profession in addressing the legacies of colonisation. The process of decolonisation is understood as challenging Eurocentric frameworks, addressing systemic oppression, promoting greater inclusivity, and considering societal, cultural, and intergenerational factors alongside individual experiences in shaping psychic and social life. Drawing on her own experience of seeing things ‘otherwise’, Adele examines how psychotherapy trainings might reflect more critically on the epistemologies underpinning current curricula, while also highlighting the resistance that institutions and trainers often display in acknowledging their own implicated positions. Informed by Michael Rothberg’s work The Implicated Subject (2019), Adele calls for a process of ‘unlearning’, which involves expanding awareness of responsibilities and working through defensive states of shame and guilt. This presentation ultimately advocates for critical reflection and a radical rethinking of both teaching and clinical practice in order to address and integrate the ongoing impacts of colonial histories and their enduring effects (Sharpe 2016).

Adele Yaron is a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice in Brighton, UK. She is on the teaching faculty and is also the academic coordinator at the Karuna Institute, Bristol, a UKCP-accredited training. She has a deep commitment to integrating spiritual practice with psychological awareness as well as to combining psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to inform her own on-going learning and practice.