lenticular futures
Manchester
We're transforming psychotherapy and counselling in three ways: We are
re-thinking all therapeutic theory to situate the individual in wider contexts
and systems. We ask how everything is connected, by whom and with what
consequences! Join us in decolonising, depathologising and ecologising practice,
theory and research We can help therapists and training institutes develop
future oriented technological competence for more accessible practice. Why is
that important? There is a need to decolonise and depathologise the theory and
practice of psychotherapy and counselling. We need to understand the problems of
the individual as situated in a world which is socially, culturally and
economically unbalanced. And we need to have ways of recognising and working
with people's complex intersectional community memberships, experiences and
talents in therapy. Why now? We are living in a panmorphic crisis (Simon 2021).
It's a good time to read the writing on the wall and take action. We can do this
by making decolonising and depathologising theory and practice, by responding
with EcoSystemic ways of working, by critically engaging with accessible and
future oriented technological possibilities. What work do we do? The key areas
of our work are Training - Research - Consultancy. We run workshops and seminars
to create and support decolonised, depathologised and ecosystemic ways of
working. We host conferences on social issues affecting psychotherapy and
counselling practice and training. We introduce psychotherapists and their
training organisations to new technologies and intramediality to help make
learning and assessment more accessible and culturally relevant. We produce
research reports on future technology for therapy; neurodiverse therapy;
therapeutic space; ecosystemic therapy; indigenous knowing and practice in
therapy; new ways of training and assessing counselling and psychotherapy
trainees; more... We consult to training organisations and professional
membership bodies to help them improve the experience and success of trainees
from diverse communities We run leadership and organisational development groups
for leaders and managers who are developing inclusive therapeutic services What
kind of organisation is Lenticular Futures? We are becoming a Community Interest
Company. That means we are a Not For Profit and all proceeds from work support
free or low cost projects and research within the organisation. How do we fund
this work? We charge for workshops, conferences and seminars we host. We apply
for funding. We welcome donations for specific projects or in general What does
Lenticular mean? Lenticular Futures is a term borrowed from a paper by Professor
Wanda Pillow (link). It's a prompt to hold in mind past, present and future when
you meet people or see something. It's an invitation to notice the neurotypical,
heteronormative, eurocentric lenses we have been taught to look through and
check who-what we are including and who-what we are excluding. It comes from
noticing what Wanda calls a "whiteout" in academic and professional literature
of Global Majority contributors. This is an era for new curricula and making new
theory and practice. Our professions can easily lead changes in the balance of
power and develop more user friendly ways of working. What are our philosophical
objectives? To theorise and interrogate fundamental taken for granteds in the
cultural bias of theory and practice. To develop a lenticular ideology of
psychotherapy and counselling which integrates and is led by decolonising,
depathologising, ecosystemic, contextual influences of planet and
co-inhabitants. To redress the exclusion of knowledge from oppressed population
groups. To support therapeutic practices which are generated from within
communities. To understand and address systemic influences of capitalism on
wellbeing. To critically work with the socio-techno world in which we live. To
get that systemic understanding of the world is an overarching metatheory for
all our modalities. To decolonise means not having a disordered attachment to
theories of disorder. Who are we? The co-founders are experienced
psychotherapists and organisational consultants. We bring a vast amount of
experience in systemic thinking about organisations, culture, therapy and
counselling training, research and management. We also know how to create
initiatives from within the margins. The co-founders are Dr Julia Jude, Dr Gail
Simon, Rukiya Jemmott, Dr Leah Salter, Kiri Summers, Dr Liz Day, Dr Birgitte
Pedersen, Anne Bennett, Naz Nizami, Dr Francisco Urbistondo Cano and Amanda
Middleton. Forthcoming events Lenticular Futures: Crafting Practices beyond this
Unravelled World FLIP@Brathay 2nd & 3rd May 2022 https://lf2022.eventbrite.co.uk
Indigenous and Decolonising Knowledge and Practice Decolonising Therapeutic
Practice read-watch-listen-make groups Future Tech to improve experiences for
people doing therapy and in therapy training EcoSystemic Return Reading Seminars
Professional Wellbeing events Walking and Outdoors Therapy Creating Decolonised
Participatory Groups Systemic Practice and Autism Conference Writing Performance
as Research Film, podcast, documentary making with people doing training and
therapy Watch this page and our Eventbrite page - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - :
- : - : - : - : - : - : - Therapy in a Panmorphic World This era of panmorphic
crisis requires urgent, creative, ethics-led responses. Most of the professional
theories we live by came into being without their ideological foundations being
questioned. We cannot take a step further in this world without a commitment to
developing awareness of parallel, criss-crossing, multidimensional,
transtemporal, transcultural, transmaterial elements of living – and how they
interact. No Meaning Without Context The key systemic value of understanding
context is paramount to inquiry, to understanding what is happening and how to
move as a relational, situated participant-player. But the contexts in play are
often hidden, erased, elusive or remote, and it can be plain hard to
see-feel-understand the knowledges and experiences specific to other places,
people or disciplines. The Individual Is Not The Problem The psych professions
confuse this further through the decontextualising practices of individualising
and pathologising explanation of why some people see some things one way and not
another. Furthermore, the social construction of truth is a debate that
transcends academia and has been put to work by political agendas to foster an
era of mistrust of truth. People are now aware that “truth†can be put to
work for objectives other than the common good. This undermines social justice
issues and what counts as information. Voices from within a community, from
within lived experience are undermined by voices from without of those contexts
often without a critique of power relations. A Fresh Look at Training
Counsellors and "Psycho"therapists We cannot train relational practitioners in
aboutness-withoutness ways of thinking. It separates people from place and
history, and it creates colonisers and pathologisers whose practices become
policy and influence the majority’s “common senseâ€. Opportunities for
other kinds of learning are lost. The first language of the psycho professions
of “talking therapyâ€, whatever its modality, is excluding of other ways of
moving on safely and creatively together. The psychotherapies are playing
catch-up in how people use technology to communicate in their everyday lives. A
Paradigm Shift for Therapy and Counselling The Black Lives Matter movement
offers a choice. It can be treated as a passing protest or a cultural shift.
This organisation chooses to take the position that no-one should choose to be
unchanged by Black Lives Matter. The question is how to be changed in ways that
will contribute to a better world? This is more than a matter of equal rights.
It is about safety now, it is about heritage, rich, stolen, re-interpreted, it
is about past, present and future being held in mind, all the time. Professional
practice needs to scrutinise its theoretical heritage with its hidden
ideological assumptions to study and guide our ways forward into a new era, to
meet change with culturally appropriate language, local knowledges, and ways of
being and imagining.
