Extended individual psychotherapy is an elitist, outmoded, as well as nonproductive form of psychiatric help. It concentrates on the talents of a few. It silently colludes with the notion that people’s difficulties have their sources within them while implying that everything is well with the world. It promotes oppression by shrouding its consequences with shame and secrecy.

- The Radical Therapist Manifesto, 1969

What are manifestos? Declarations of intent, calls and commitment to action, interventions against dominant, oppressive systems. They are invitations to imagine not just alternatives but otherwise being - futurity as imminent process. Manifestos protest. They can be impolite, frothy and simmering with urgency. They may be angry, satirical, flippant or sincere. They are always political.

As therapists, we are encouraged to ‘integrate’, to synthesise our theories into coherent, roll-off-the-tongue therapeutic approaches. What, however, of the aspects of therapeutic practice that we find intolerable, what of the parts that resist integration and require active refusal? What is it to occupy a dissenting position within a profession whose mainstream practice continues to normalize, categorise and prescribe? Manifestos have a long history in politics and the arts, yet their role in therapeutic practice has been minimal. How might manifesto writing might be utilised as a critical and resistant therapeutic intervention for our times?

This workshop will be creative, non-prescriptive and collaborative in its embrace of ethical heterogeneity. It will invite participants into a more precarious therapeutic territory, where we allow ourselves to be critical and oppositional in consideration of the therapeutic ground we each stand upon. We will work together in large and small groups, whilst allowing time for self-writing.

Taking examples from various manifestos as our starting point for discussion, participants will be invited to play and experiment with writing their own therapist manifestos. Should participants wish, their manifestos will become part of a digital archive – a record of radical therapeutic intention and praxis.

This workshop will be facilitated by Rebecca Esho Greenslade (she/her). Formatively trained in existential psychotherapy, Rebecca works as a psychotherapist and supervisor in London. She is the founder and director of Gaia Therapy Project in East London. Rebecca is currently undertaking MPhil/PhD research with the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck University. Her project considers how late Foucauldian ethical ideas on care of the self provide a framework through which to review and renew feminist psychotherapy. She is a Zen practitioner and student in the White Plum lineage.

Numbers will be limited to support discussion and participation. Early booking advised.

If you have any questions about the workshop, you are welcome to contact Rebecca directly. E: rebeccagreenslade@hotmail.co.uk

Rebecca is planning to run a series of Manifesto Writing for Therapist workshops, both online and in person. If you are unable to attend on 12th June, but may wish to attend another workshop in the future, do let Rebecca know.