The Feminist Imagination in Therapy

The Feminist Therapy Network is excited and honoured to host a one-day collaboration with Dr. Lola Olufemi (Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise) and Micha Frazer-Carroll (Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health) exploring the role of feminist imagination in therapy.

This one day gathering will be a day of disentanglement, disruption and dreaming otherwise together. Accompanied by presentations and provocations from Dr. Lola Olufemi and Micha Frazer-Carroll, whose praxes are rooted in neo-liberal critique and imagining otherwise, we will explore the tensions and impasses present in a politicised psychotherapeutics, inviting us into reimagining ways of practicing together which are not beholden to hyper-individualism and institutional gatekeeping. We will spend time with each other, in reflective dialogue and/or art making practices in order to access our collective feminist imagination and consider otherwise possibilities of practicing therapy that are rooted in an interdependent ethic of care and justice-doing.

The day is a whole-hearted invitation to engage our collective feminist imagination and explore how the psy-disciplines can re-ignite their political imaginings beyond tokenistic gestures of inclusivity and truly contend with the demands and possibilities of a liberatory therapeutics.

Dr. Lola Olufemi will be guiding us through a presentation and dialogue entitled “Resisting the Psychic Dimensions of Social Violence – the Feminist Imagination and Communalism” and Micha Frazer-Carroll will consider the intersections of mental health with racism, capitalism and other social issues, drawing upon alternatives models of care that counter pathological gatekeeping and the policing of our therapeutic imaginations (title tbc).

We hope you will join us on Saturday 11th October to collectively explore questions such as:

- Do the psy-disciplines still hold any revolutionary potential?

- Or, are radical therapy practices now to become archived as nostalgic moments in our therapeutic herstories, rather than opportunities to revisit, reconsider and reimagine how we might manoeuvre away from therapy’s neo-liberal co-optation and respond to the demands of current times?

- What does a feminist therapeutic approach look like in today’s social and political climate? How might revisiting radical therapy herstories help us reshape our present?

- How can we creatively build a psy-commons that is collective and community-serving?

- As therapists, how do we cultivate solidarities with one another and with other movements for liberation and justice?

Any dialogue that intends to critique and re-imagine the psy-disciplines must include the breadth of voices and experiences involved and affected by this work. We welcome attendance from those who not only practice within the Mental Health Industrial Complex but also those with lived experience of navigating it, including survivor perspectives and ways of knowing that exist beyond the borders and limitations of mainstream psychotherapeutic trainings.

Invited Guests:

Dr. Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Associate Lecturer based in the Design School at University Arts London: London College of Communication. Her work focuses on the utility of the political imagination in the textual and visual cultures of radical social movements, examining the role cultural production plays in materialist resistance and collective conceptualisations of futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021), the forthcoming Against Literature (2026) and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective. She occasionally curates and is a member of the organising team at the Feminist Library based in Peckham.

Micha Frazer-Caroll is a journalist, editor and author of Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health (Pluto Press, 2023). She is a columnist at the Independent and has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint, a mental health magazine that she founded. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards’ Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. She is invested in using journalism to challenge systems of power.

Venue and access information:

This event will take place at Lift - 45 White Lion Street | London | N1 9PW. Lift is a community organisation supporting young people in Islington. We have hired an entire floor comprising of two large rooms and two smaller rooms, one of which will be a dedicated quiet space. You will also have access to Lift’s outdoor roof top terrace during breaks and lunch (shared with people attending other events in the building).

Here is some information about the access provisions already in place:

· Our venue, Lift, is fully wheelchair accessible and there is an accessible toilet on the floor we are using.

· There are two sets of gender-neutral toilets on the floor we are using

· A dedicated quiet room will be available all day

· We can provide BSL interpretation for the talks

· Lunch is provided and will include vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options

We recognise that these are not exhaustive; If you have particular access needs to allow you to take part in this event, please get in touch.

Before Booking Your Ticket:

If you are new to the Feminist Therapy Network, please visit our website to get a sense of our work, intentions and ethos . By purchasing a ticket, you are agreeing to attend the event in accordance with the FTN ethos . Unkind or discriminatory behaviours will be called in.

About The Feminist Therapy Network:
The  Feminist Therapy Network  launched in May 2023. It exists to build a grassroots community of therapeutic practitioners interested in feminist perspectives and activism within their practices. It is committed to a trans-inclusive and intersectional feminist  ethos  that engages with both remembering and re-imagining radical feminist therapeutic praxes. We are in the constant process of unlearning and relearning and welcome your input and involvement as we continue to build and grow the FTN community together.