February 29, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode, Dr Peter Blundell interviews Ellis J. Johnson.
Ellis is a qualified Psychodynamic Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and a queer, trans man of colour. He delivers training to counsellors in working affirmatively around gender and also delivers training in trans awareness, and anti-racist practice, to organisations around the country and internationally. Ellis describes his work as "explorative and largely non-directive" and influenced by spirituality and by Black feminism, taking into account how intersecting oppressive structures in society (and throughout history) can harm our mental, spiritual and physical health. His work is affirmative of gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (e.g. non-monogamy, poly, kink), as well as being sex-worker affirmative.
You can find details on Eliss' work on his website - https://www.transcounselling.co.uk/
To find out more about the training he delivers go here - https://www.transcounselling.co.uk/general-5
Dr Peter Blundell's details
Social Media: @drpeterblundell
Website: www.peterblundell.com
#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
Website: www.Therapists-Connect.com
Twitter: @Therapists_C
Instagram: @TherapistsConnect
Facebook: @TherConnect
Origins of #TherapistsConnect
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello.
(00:00):
Welcome to another episode atthe therapist connect podcast.
My name is Dr.
Peter Blundell and today I'mback interviewing therapists
encouraging our guests to talkabout their views about the
world of counseling andpsychotherapy.
But before I tell you about thisone, this guest, I want to
remind our listeners if youenjoyed the podcast and please
give us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform or
share the links for the podcaston social media or with
(00:23):
colleagues as it really helps toraise the profile of the
podcast.
This month, it was a pleasure tointerview Ellis J.
Johnson, who is a psychodynamicpsychotherapeutic counselor, and
a queer trans man of color.
He delivers training tocounselors in working
affirmatively around gender andalso delivering training in
trans awareness and ananti-racist practice to organize
(00:43):
organizations around the countryand internationally.
On his website, Ellis statesthat his work is influenced by
spirituality, by black feminism,taking into account how
intersecting oppressivestructures in society and
throughout history can have anadverse effect on our mental,
spiritual, and physical health.
His work is affirmative ofgender, sexuality, and
relationship.
(01:04):
As well as being sex workeraffirmative, you can find all of
Ellis' details in the episode.
Show notes.
I hope you enjoy this episode asmuch as I did recording it.
Peter (01:16):
Ellis welcome to the Therapist Connect podcast.
It's lovely to have you as aguest.
Ellis J Johnson (01:21):
Thank you.
It's lovely to be here.
Thank you, Peter.
Peter (01:23):
I know we've met before, so I know a little bit about
you, but I'm hoping we can getto know each other a little bit
better through some of thequestions that we've got today.
Thanks for coming on and sharingyour experience with us.
Ellis J Johnson (01:33):
Yeah, thank you very much.
Thanks to be, it's lovely to beasked.
Thank you.
Peter (01:37):
So the question that I ask everybody who comes on the
podcast, I think people findthis quite interesting to know
about therapists and wherethey've come from.
What drew you to this as aprofession in the first place?
What, why did you want to becomea therapist?
Ellis J Johnson (01:50):
Yeah, it's, I think it's a really good
question and I really had torack my brains about this one to
think, a little bit deeper thanthe, the kind of the general,
this is my upbringing and havingmental health difficulties in
the family and being reallyinterested in how to navigate
those and what was going on,beyond a sort of natural
(02:11):
curiosity I think that lots ofpeople have.
I remembered.
I'm just trying to think aboutthis question.
I remember really specificallybeing drawn to the idea of not
having to be a different personat work than I was at home.
So I remember thinking, Oh, whata, what an amazing thing to live
(02:32):
by your values every day.
So live by, doing something thatyou.
You care about and is, I think,helps you grow as a person, as
well as the person that you'resupporting or you're with, and I
think I was really drawn to thehow it seemed that you could be
(02:53):
full of integrity, really, as atherapist, you were present, the
ideas that I had in my headabout it, you'd be present,
you're connected you're yeah,doing work that maybe aligns
with your values.
And I think that's really whatdrew me to, to doing this
alongside an intellectualcuriosity, and fascination, I
(03:14):
think, for me, I can't imagine amore fascinating thing to do
with your time every single daythan be with another person,
profoundly, genuinely, in a, inthe most connected way you can
be.
I just couldn't think ofanything more, more wonderful
actually.
To do with my career and andluckily I still feel that way
(03:37):
actually and I think that stillis my experience.
I think it's a magical thing todo and to experience.
So I think my expectations ofthe job are, have been met.
I would probably say that.
Peter (03:51):
That's lovely.
And it's it's reminded me ofwhen you were talking about your
values being aligned with yourwork, and I was thinking about
the amount of jobs I've done inthe past before being a
therapist, where my values didnot align with the jobs I was
doing.
The real incongruence anddiscontent.
disconnect there for me and howlucky I feel now to be in this
profession and doing somethingthat I love.
(04:11):
And then also that like theinterest each day, like there's
a constant process of learningand how exciting that is.
And I, I still feel that, I'vebeen qualified for over 10 years
now, but I still have thatmagic, that excitement, that,
every day that you're connectingwith someone at such a deep
level, it's unusual.
Unusual job.
Ellis J Johnson (04:30):
Yeah, it is unusual.
It's so unusual and it doesn'tit doesn't really align with a
lot of the expectations of whatwork should be like, right?
Or what work really is andprobably was for me as well
before I was a therapist.
So it is, I do feel very luckyevery single day that I get to
do this job.
And I always say, I don't.
I don't tend to get, whichwould, yeah, anyway, I don't get
(04:51):
like the Sunday blues, it's aSunday and I'm not like, Oh,
I've got to go to work tomorrow.
I'm like, I'm ready.
I'm ready for it.
And I'm engaged and interested.
And that's such a, it's such aprivilege to be able to do work
like that.
Peter (05:04):
It's wonderful.
Can you tell us then a littlebit about your career so far
Ellis J Johnson (05:08):
So I qualified in 2016 and I was incredibly
lucky because I remember comingto the end of my course, I
remember very specificallysaying to myself.
Oh, this is exactly the kind ofjob that I want.
This is what I want to be doing.
(05:29):
So I'm a transgender man.
I transitioned actually halfwaythrough my course.
So socially transitioned,started to medically transition
halfway through the course and.
I remember very specificallysaying to myself, I would love
to be able to offer free therapyto trans people, trans non
binary questioning people.
I thought, that's what anamazing thing.
(05:50):
Maybe one day I'll get to dothat.
And literally about a monthlater, a job came up at an
organization in London calledSpectra which was offering free
therapy to trans non binarypeople.
They just set up a couple ofmonths before and they were
looking for a trans therapist.
And I was like, Oh my God, youhave just.
Spoken into existence, thisperfect job.
(06:11):
And at the time, I wasn't awareof anything similar to that
anywhere in the country,actually.
And I think since some otherservices have popped up as far
as I'm aware, that was one ofthe first, I think perhaps there
was Clinic Q in London as well.
But I think at that time,perhaps they were charging.
I'm not sure about that, butessentially it was very rare to
find an organization that wasoffering that.
(06:32):
And I was lucky enough to getthat role.
So fell into a sort of dream jobimmediately hit the ground
running was there for a good fewyears.
I was also doing mental healthadvocacy work for another
organization at the time.
So I was doing for LGBTQ mentalhealth organization.
So I was doing things likehelping people with their
benefits, chasing up doctors,helping them with their health
(06:53):
care running groups for peopleof color and people with
suicidal ideation as well.
And doing like a milliondifferent things.
So if you've ever, anyone's everworked, who's watching this has
worked in the charity sector,you probably know that you get
hired for one role and you do amillion other things as well.
So that was a kind of a baptismof fire as well, but it really
(07:15):
gave me a grounding of, workingin the community and really You
know, really face to face withthe, the real lived experience
of people, obviously being partof the community is one thing
and having friends and, is onething, but working with the kind
of intricacies ofdiscrimination, marginalized
(07:37):
lives that really, I think it'sreally grounded a lot of my work
since then, actually.
So that was a really yeah.
Transformative.
Period for me I ended up doinglots of training as well and
delivering lots of training andand then I had a really horrible
burnout, actually.
So I'd, worked really super hardthrough, through the course, had
(07:59):
these really incredible jobs.
I was commuting as well, I wasliving in Brighton at the time
and and commuting up to Londonto work twice a week.
And, yeah, I just, I had, yeah,my, my body just stopped
working, essentially, and to cuta long story short.
Yeah, I had to, I couldn't workanymore, actually and it wasn't
(08:20):
possible for me to keep upemployment.
So that kind of pushed me intodoing private practice because I
could do, however many sessionsa week I could.
Physically do at that point, atsome points it was maybe three,
two or three sessions a weekthat I could find the energy to
do whilst I was healing fromthis burnout.
And with many things like that,it turned out to be actually a
(08:41):
really wonderful shift for me.
I think I probably still wouldbe toiling away in the charity
sector for 60 hours a week if Ihadn't have.
Become very unwell at the timeand then I've been in private
practice since then.
So that's what 2019 I went intoprivate practice and and yeah,
and I've been in privatepractice since working mainly
online.
Yeah, solely online.
And and now I'm moving into alsodoing more training, offering
(09:06):
more training around workingwith trans and non binary
clients.
So yeah, so it's been.
Yeah it's such a, it's funnything having to look back, isn't
it?
Because you just, you keep goingand you keep going.
But, I'm very lucky that I wasable to come through the
burnout, still healing fromthat.
And and yeah, so it's.
(09:27):
I've been incredibly busy.
Like a lot of us aren't, right?
Peter (09:31):
It sounds it.
There's a few things that struckme there, and one of them was
the kind of getting to burnoutbut almost, horrible experience,
but it sounds like somethingcame out, out of that.
It's something shifted for youand you were able to make
changes to stop that fromhappening and maybe do some
healing from that.
And then the other thing I wasthinking about was when you were
(09:52):
talking about working charitysector kind of services and
support services and somethingreally resonated with me in
terms of before I qualified as atherapist, I did a lot of
support work.
I worked in third sectororganizations and charities and
advocacy roles and how much moreI think I learn about kind of
social justice and.
And supporting people and yeah,people from different
(10:15):
backgrounds and stuff like thatand how I learned much more
doing those roles than I didthrough my therapy training,
actually.
And so something resonated withme when you were talking about
that in terms of the knowledge,I think, that is there in those
communities.
Ellis J Johnson (10:29):
Absolutely.
And I think you can't.
You can't really imagine, whatpeople's lives are like, it's
hard to, it's unimaginable.
Actually, I think sometimes someof the things that, I was
supporting people with, youcouldn't write, you couldn't
make it up some of thedifficulties.
And I think, sadly, unlessyou've been in those situations
(10:54):
yourself, and perhaps even sayfor me, having burnout and not
being able to, lift up a kettleto make yourself a cup of tea,
not being able to go to the shopfor a pint of milk, or going and
then having to rest for threedays afterwards.
I think unless you'veexperienced that, it's very
difficult to imagine what it'sactually like to be
disenfranchised, to bevulnerable, to.
(11:15):
Worry that you're not going tohave a roof of your head next
month.
So I think the charity that Iwork for they do, that I used to
work for, they now do a reallywonderful thing called the human
library and they do this forsome sort of local universities.
What they do is they get peoplein who use the services and it's
actually for trainee, traineetherapists they can have a one
(11:36):
to one conversation with.
All these different people, it'sso the volunteers are like human
books, basically.
So you come and sit with themand they tell you a bit about
their experience and their lifeand what you might want, they
want you to know.
So you get to choose which kindof.
Experiences you might beinterested in.
And it's a really, yeah, itseems to have a really big
(11:58):
impact on trainee therapists totruly, and I think, if we're
going to talk particularly abouttrans and non binary experiences
there's so much noise.
In the media about trans peopleit's actually quite rare for
people to hear a trans persontalking about a trans experience
or to sit down with a transperson and have a chat with
(12:19):
them.
So whenever I do my training, Ialways say, you might think
you've never met a trans personbefore.
You probably have, but youdidn't know it.
But if you've never met a transperson before, now you have.
And I'm, I exist in the fleshand you can talk to me and ask
me questions if you want to butthe chasm I think between
perhaps people who areprivileged or have privilege and
(12:39):
those that don't, it's, it'svery wide and it seems to be
widening.
As well at the moment.
I think it's invaluable.
Really the work.
It sounds like you've done aswell with actually seeing the
day to day lives of people whodisenfranchised.
Absolutely.
Peter (12:55):
And I suppose one of the things I was thinking about is
as therapists sometimes,obviously we work with people
who are going throughdifficulties, but sometimes very
marginalized communities don'thave access to therapy and
actually therapists can maybe besaying.
not be seeing people from thosecommunities and so might not
have an insight or anunderstanding because they're
not doing that work like othertypes of services are.
Ellis J Johnson (13:16):
Yeah, I think that's there.
And I think there's also aquestion of therapy can only do
so much as well.
So what happens if you, ifsomeone comes to you and says
that, I don't have any food inmy house.
And I'm going to get kicked out.
In a month's time therapy canonly help with that so much it's
a shame that there aren't moreadvocacy services out there
(13:37):
really that, that are supportingmarginalized clients.
Peter (13:40):
Absolutely.
How do you find, define yourtherapeutic approach and has it,
has that changed at all sinceyou qualified?
Ellis J Johnson (13:48):
Yeah, so I trained psychodynamically, and
that definitely forms the mostpart of my work, I'd say.
I Think I've become much lessrigid in the way that I work,
and I think everybody lots oftherapists I know would say the
same thing.
I've become less Stressed if I,haven't got the same glass this
time as I had last time for mywater or, become much less
(14:12):
concerned or yeah, much lessrigid and a bit more fluid, I
think.
So I'm also aware that I've hadsupervisors that integratively
trained, I've had therapistsmyself that are integratively
trained.
So I think again, always comingback to a person centered, the
core conditions I was.
Hold them very closely.
(14:33):
And I also think incorporatingthose other elements of social
justice anti racist practice apractice that is I think,
perhaps more.
How would I put it?
Practice that can address theissues of today as well, right
(14:57):
such as incorporating socialjustice elements understanding
intersectionality,intersectional oppressions,
those kind of things that isreally here in my work as well.
And and I think also Elements ofkind of spiritual practice.
Something that I is here for mein a lot of the client work that
I do, and it tends to be thatclients who are spiritually
inclined seem to make their wayto me.
(15:19):
And we sometimes have thismoment of almost coming out to
each other as being spirituallyinclined in those moments.
It's which is quite interesting.
So those elements are there aswell, my work.
But I think psychodynamic worklends itself really well to, the
kind of the spiritual realm tomagic to the unconscious other
things that are happening, whichis what I really like about,
(15:42):
about the psychodynamicapproach.
Peter (15:44):
That's really interesting.
And I don't know if this is anaccurate kind of representation,
but when you were talking aboutbecoming less rigid, I was
imagining like I've certainlydone this when first training
kind of clinging to the theoryrigidly this is how it's got to
be.
And then over time going, Oh,actually, gosh, there's all this
stuff, that's out there.
Ellis J Johnson (16:01):
It's a lovely feeling to grow in confidence, I
can definitely look back and seethat I can trust myself more to
apply the theory in the rightway, but not in a rigid, not in
a rigid way.
So that's a lovely thing thatcomes with time, I think, and
experience.
Yeah,
Peter (16:18):
I love that.
So for regular listeners of thispodcast, you'll have already
heard Ellis talk a little bitabout this topic already because
we did a interview with some ofthe authors of the Queering
Psychotherapy book that's beenout this year.
But for people listening for thefirst time you are one of the
authors of that book.
Can you tell tell them a littlebit about it and what kind of
motivated you to write a chapterin that book?
Ellis J Johnson (16:41):
Yeah, so I was invited to write a chapter on
working alongside trans nonbinary questioning folks in
therapy, and yeah, I think as Isaid earlier, it's quite rare,
actually, for trans people to begiven a seat at the table, for
us to be given a voice, andparticularly as a brown trans
(17:02):
person, a trans man, and beingsomebody who is nonbinary.
working class, from a workingclass background there are those
three things together, beingtrans, being brown, being
working class, and perhaps evenalso being a man, sometimes in
this profession, sometimes, notalways and being queer.
as well, all those thingstogether it's pretty rare for
(17:24):
people like me to have a voice,actually.
And you might be forgiven forthinking, oh, trans people are
everywhere, we can't, we don'tstop hearing about trans people.
But if you kind of tune in alittle bit, you'll notice that
you're not really hearing transpeople talk about trans people.
You're hearing cis people talkabout trans people.
With a lot of confidence, butit's very rare you hear trans
voices.
(17:45):
So I lost
Peter (17:46):
a lot of confidence and very loudly, incredibly loudly
Ellis J Johnson (17:50):
and very forcefully.
And perhaps very convincinglysometimes as well So for me, I
was like, wow, okay, so there'san opportunity, there's a space
here for me to talk about thethings that I care about, the
things that I experience andalso from being able to talk
about it as a professional.
Not just from a lived experienceperspective, because that's also
(18:12):
often what we hear from transpeople if they're given space to
speak, it's about personalexperience, it's lived
experience, it's about thenarrative, the story, when did
you know, when did you starttaking hormones, when did you
have surgery that's what wehear, I think, a lot of the time
but it is rare, I think, to hearProfessionals who just happen to
be transgender, talking aboutthe things that they know about.
(18:35):
So I was, I was just really overthe moon to be asked.
It's just a wonderful project.
And Yeah, there was so much tosay.
Oh my God, there's so much tosay, but it was really wonderful
experience talking with chanceand hearing what chance had to
offer as well.
And yeah, I just feel reallylucky to be a part of it.
Peter (18:52):
Yeah, it's wonderful.
It's fantastic.
It's a fantastic book.
So anyone who's not read it, Iwould recommend going and
getting it and you can hear morefrom the authors in one of our
previous.
podcast episode a bit more fromyou, Ellis as well.
So thank you for writing it aswell, because it's it's
brilliant.
And your chapter is fantastic aswell I really enjoyed it.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how you see the wider
(19:13):
therapy community?
I suppose we might've touched onthat a little bit and how
connected you feel to othertherapists.
Ellis J Johnson (19:19):
Yeah, I think.
again, as a listener of thepodcast, I hear lots of the
therapists saying similar thingsthat is a very isolating can be
very isolating profession.
And I think I would probably sayI haven't felt very connected to
the profession or to thecommunity that, you know for a
(19:39):
very long time and I think whenthat has, it's come about
recently and that's because I'vebeen connecting with other queer
therapists, thanks to the bookand also being asked to be a
clinical associate at PinkTherapy was a really big honor
for me.
And so connecting in those wayshas been really wonderful.
I don't know that I've alwaysfelt there's a space for me.
(20:01):
with my identities, mybackground, the way I look, the
way I talk, the way I holdmyself, and that might be
something also for me oftraining down South.
Had I done my training up North,maybe back in Yorkshire it would
be one thing I trained in a verywhite trained in Brighton, very
white middle class area.
(20:21):
So maybe I set myself upactually feeling a bit separate.
But it has been hard to feelconnected and to be perhaps even
to feel accepted really andwanted.
And as I say, yeah, that changeswith.
finding other therapists who area little bit like me, and there
are lots of them the, that weare out there so it's been a
(20:44):
bit, it's been a little bitdifficult, I think, but for me
also trying to create thosespaces for myself and other
people, that's how I've gottenaround it starting to deliver
training on my own for otherpeople that want to have these
conversations aroundoppressions, class, race,
ability trans identity in therestarted to.
(21:05):
Create the spaces for people whowant to have the conversations
that I want to have.
And again, surprisingly there'slots of us, actually.
Peter (21:13):
It's, you're right, it's such a common thread, through
the guests on the podcast oftalking about isolation and not
feeling connected, but wantingto be.
And I don't know if you'd agreewith this, but I feel like I've
seen the establishment of lotsmore communities now and groups
of people coming together.
I think almost for me, like thenext stage is like, can we get
all those groups to also connectYeah, absolutely.
(21:35):
Because I think thoseconversations are really
important and I think a lot ofpeople want them to happen and I
think people aren't, ortherapists aren't always sure
how to organize ourselves ingroups.
Yeah.
That's a bit of ageneralization, maybe.
Ellis J Johnson (21:49):
it's my experience as well I agree with
you and I wonder sometimes ifit's, if a lot of us are quite
introverted somehow, and we'remore comfortable listening than
talking.
So you get lots of us togetherand maybe everyone's sitting
back and listening and it can beit can be a bit tricky kind of
thing sometimes.
So it's it's quite fascinatingto know that.
(22:12):
Yeah, there are lots of peoplewho care about the same things
in my experience, again, withdoing the work around trans
inclusion, in therapy, the vastmajority of therapists I speak
to are really desperate to hearmore and to understand more from
a really affirming position.
(22:33):
Without the hostility or the,the cynic cynicism or the
critical ear people are justactually quite welcoming.
So if we could, I love your ideaof just getting, bringing these
groups together somehow.
And I think maybe that's, that'sgot to be the next step for our
profession.
If we want to have longevity, Ithink in this work, we want the
(22:53):
work to be sustainable.
We want to avoid burnout.
And we also want to make adifference.
To the profession and keep itmoving forward.
I think.
Yeah, there's lots ofopportunity for that.
You just need someone to do it.
Peter (23:07):
Yeah, absolutely I think that's why people enjoy the
Therapists Connect podcastbecause people are talking about
their experiences and we'regetting to hear about all these
different kinds of groups andcommunities and work that people
are doing that's going on, butisn't always necessary.
necessarily visible or it mightbe visible to certain therapists
but not to others.
So I think I think it's justreally important that we
(23:28):
highlight all of the, all thisimportant work that's going on
out there at the moment.
Ellis J Johnson (23:32):
Absolutely.
Absolutely there's lots ofdifferent ways to be a
therapist, right?
Exactly.
Hearing from one another, Ithink is really powerful and
Yeah it's been an experiencetoday looking back and talking
about my experience it's reallyinteresting.
Peter (23:45):
That's brilliant.
What do you think is the biggestchallenge that the counselling
and psychotherapy professionfaces right now?
Ellis J Johnson (23:54):
I think there are lots of challenges.
I think there are lots ofchallenges because I think Not
to sound too grandiose about it,but I think the world is
changing really quickly reallyprofoundly everything around us
is shifting.
So I think one of the challengesthat perhaps I can land on today
(24:16):
is, how do we keep up with that,how do we, I think particularly.
Incorporating a social justicelens, understanding
intersectionality, understandingall these other elements of
human experience that might nottake as much space in
therapeutic spaces as theyshould.
(24:38):
Actually, I think that might bethe next challenge.
And certainly, as I say, thetherapist that I speak to, it's
like everyone's trying to catchup with you can think
particularly around like BlackLives Matter, for example.
And I think these kinds ofmovements, these kinds of social
justice movements, civil rightsmovements are coming thick and
fast at the moment.
So I think therapists want tounderstand how to keep up with
(25:01):
that, how to work with it and.
Perhaps there's something therealso about society being very
polarized.
And I think therapists arewondering which side of the coin
or which side of the fence am Igoing to fall on?
And how do I work with that?
There's a kind of an expectationthat we're supposed to be very
polarized in the world rightnow.
(25:23):
We're supposed to have anopinion about things, I wonder
how difficult that is fortherapists to to hold all that
shift and change and not bedefensive about being called out
for being racist, for anexample, or this is what's in
the ether at the moment.
So I wonder if a challenge is,yeah how do we engage with those
conversations when they'reincredibly difficult
(25:46):
conversations?
How do we own our racism whenthat is incredibly painful?
As an example.
Peter (25:53):
And I think part of that is for me those, it can be so
fast paced, but it's reallyimportant that we actually do
have the conversations and don'tavoid the conversations because
that's the bigger problem.
Yeah, when we're completelyavoiding it because it's too
scary or too, there's too muchgoing on and we're too defensive
to engage with that.
We don't have thoseconversations, then the work's
(26:14):
not happening.
Ellis J Johnson (26:15):
To not avoid the conversation altogether,
right?
To say therapy is a completelyneutral space.
It's an apolitical space so thatI don't need to engage with
these things.
And that I think can trickledown to the idea that being
trans is a political identity.
Somehow we've been politicizedas a talking point I think that
can be difficult for therapiststo maybe even take seriously,
(26:39):
right?
We, there's an idea that we'rejust a fad and we're causing
trouble, but how do you, whatwhat is your opinion as a
therapist?
How are you going to deal withthat?
How are you going to deal withthat in a client?
so These are really bigquestions.
I think that society is askingitself and I think therapists
are not immune to thosequestions.
Peter (26:58):
And so I was thinking that when you were talking was
the idea of it's about thosespecific conversations we're
having, not just a conversation,debating.
People's lived experience oridentities or it's actually
really about the conversationwith yourself about what are you
doing to improve your work andhow you can support people.,
Ellis J Johnson (27:17):
I think this is the big shift and something that
I'm really keen on in my work isacknowledging that these
questions are not just aboutpeople out there or your
clients.
They are about you because youare also part of society and.
So when I offer my trainingaround trans identities in
therapy the first half of theday or the weekend is about you,
(27:42):
is about, okay, what is yourhistory with gender?, turning
the kind of the camerabackground and saying how about
you?
You have a gender as well.
You have a a sexual identity.
It's not just people who areothered that have identity.
You have an identity as well.
And that's tough work that istough.
That's really tough work.
(28:03):
But if you want to engage in ameaningful way with your clients
and work in a safe way, there'sI've said it to you on the other
podcast, it's a potential for lia liberatory conversations for
all of us in this work.
And, I think that therapistsneed to do that work.,
Peter (28:23):
I completely agree.
When we did the other podcast,we discussed this point a little
bit in terms of, I thinksomething in the book that you
were writing out is theopportunity for everybody when
you start having theseconversations.
And we had a bit of a discussionabout isn't it just enough
actually for it to be for transpeople and one of the things
that I was thinking about it,which I didn't mention when we
had the discussion earlier waswhen I'm doing training in
(28:46):
university for students andstuff, when you open up this
conversation it's it opens up aworld of opportunity for
everybody in the room.
Yeah.
And people start questioning andreflecting and thinking about
different aspects of theiridentity that they hadn't really
connected with before, which Ithink is, for me, it's a
wonderful thing to.
See, and once you take away,that can't take away completely,
(29:07):
but reduce some of that tensionand that toxicity around some of
those discussions and actuallypeople talking from their
authentic experience.
Actually you can, it's amazingwhat kind of comes out of that,
I think.
Ellis J Johnson (29:18):
Yeah.
I mean it's revolutionary.
Yeah it is revolutionary andit's revolutionary because, the
other big part of my work that Ireally care about is thinking
about white supremacy cultureand coloniality and colonialism
and.
Attempting asking the question,how can we undo those things and
so when people recognize thatthey.
(29:39):
also have a position in whitesupremacy.
They've been positioned as well.
They're not just the center, butthey've been racialized as
white.
They've been told that they arestraight.
If they have certain types ofsex or they're, attracted to
certain types of people.
Once we recognize that all thesesystems work in tandem.
It's not a surprise to me thatthere's a relief my God, the
(30:00):
relief of it to understand that,that we., we don't have to be
rigid that we have space tomaneuver and how wonderful in
terms of connecting with otherpeople to acknowledge that they
also don't have to be rigid.
So there is a freedom foreverybody here and it's huge
work, it's, yeah.
It's it's taken 400 years to gethere
Peter (30:22):
and the dismantling of a system and a culture and, or
multiple systems and cultures isamazing, but, and fluid and
freeing, but can also be reallyscary for people as well
Ellis J Johnson (30:33):
yeah, absolutely it's we can talk
about very particularly in sortof therapeutic terms, we're
giving up familiarity, we'regiving up incredibly ingrained
senses of self that have beeningrained on purpose for 400
years.
This is the kind of person youare, this is how to be a person.
This is what a body should looklike, this is how a man should
act, this is how a woman shouldact.
(30:56):
This is race, the construct ofrace, very particularly on
purpose.
It there's a lot that we have tosacrifice, but there's a lot
more to gain.
But it's really profound workand it's very emotionally
charged and it's very it's veryconfusing for lots of people.
So that's the kind of work Ilike to do.
Peter (31:18):
Amazing.
Sounds great.
Ellis, I've really enjoyed thisdiscussion it's been really
interesting.
I suppose my final question iswhat plans have you got for the
future?
I know you've got some trainingcoming up, which you might want
to tell us a little bit moreabout.,
Ellis J Johnson (31:30):
yeah yes I've decided to, as we said earlier
Create space to have theconversations that I want to
have with people and to learnthe things that I'm interested
in learning.
So I've created it's a threepart course.
I'm.
I've titled it Gender ExpansiveTherapy, and the reason it's
(31:52):
expansive is that we are notjust talking about gender, but
we're also talking about race,class age, ability, we're
breaking apart the sort of whitesupremacist oppressive
structures, and engaging in thebigger question of decolonial
work.
Which is something that I'mreally excited by so how do we
(32:15):
decolonize therapy?
How do we decolonize gender,sexual diversity relationship
diversity?
I'm really interested in movingthese conversations forward from
talking about toilets andpronouns, which are absolutely
important they have their place,but I want to.
Yeah again, it sounds like a bigambition, but I want us to be
(32:38):
talking about these things in amuch broader, bigger way.
Understanding them through acolonial lens and doing
something to undo that.
So as I say, yeah, the course isin three parts.
The first part is working withexpansive clients.
It's just around gender andtrans identities, really.
The second part is ondecolonizing gender
(32:58):
relationship, diversity, sexualdiversity.
And the third part of entitledexpansion in practice.
And that will be moreexperiential for therapists to.
Yeah, have some fun with theirgender, have some fun and
explore and expand and yeah,have some experiences that might
be a little bit out of yourcomfort zone in terms of the
questions and the provocationsthat I'll be asking.
(33:21):
So we've had the first sessionalready.
We had level one ran a few.
Weeks ago, and that was reallywonderful.
Really challenging is thefeedback that I was getting
really challenging.
But somebody said I can feel mybrain expanding.
I can feel my brain's expandedthrough this weekend.
So I can understand why you'recalling it gender expansive
therapy.
(33:41):
Which is really wonderful andlevel 1 is going to run a few
more times.
The next one's in February 202410th and 11th and we'll have
another level 1 I think in Apriland then level 2 and level 3
will be out as well.
Plenty of opportunities to comealong to level 1 and a big.
And ambition for me, as I saidearlier, is creating spaces for
(34:02):
therapists who are thinkingabout these topics to come
together and meet other peopleto create community as we go
along, keep in touch with oneanother and support each other
and doing this work.
So that's a big.
a big project for me, trying todecolonize gender in the therapy
world.
But it seems like people areready for it.
So I'm ready too.
Peter (34:21):
Absolutely.
People are asking for it.
And that training soundsamazing.
And to have that feedback,that's what you want from
training is, to expand your mindand it sounds like people are
soaking that up, Which isabsolutely fantastic.
And what we'll do is we'll putlinks to the website and the
training and stuff in the shownotes.
So people can get access to thatand check it out.
So Ellis, thank you so much forcoming on the therapist connect
(34:42):
podcast for a second time.
And it's been great getting toknow you a little bit better and
find out more about you.
Thanks so much.
Ellis J Johnson (34:49):
Thank you so much, Peter.
It's been really lovely.
Thanks so much.
Peter (34:52):
Thank you.
Hello.
(00:00):
Welcome to another episode atthe therapist connect podcast.
My name is Dr.
Peter Blundell and today I'mback interviewing therapists
encouraging our guests to talkabout their views about the
world of counseling andpsychotherapy.
But before I tell you about thisone, this guest, I want to
remind our listeners if youenjoyed the podcast and please
give us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform or
share the links for the podcaston social media or with
(00:23):
colleagues as it really helps toraise the profile of the
podcast.
This month, it was a pleasure tointerview Ellis J.
Johnson, who is a psychodynamicpsychotherapeutic counselor, and
a queer trans man of color.
He delivers training tocounselors in working
affirmatively around gender andalso delivering training in
trans awareness and ananti-racist practice to organize
(00:43):
organizations around the countryand internationally.
On his website, Ellis statesthat his work is influenced by
spirituality, by black feminism,taking into account how
intersecting oppressivestructures in society and
throughout history can have anadverse effect on our mental,
spiritual, and physical health.
His work is affirmative ofgender, sexuality, and
relationship.
(01:04):
As well as being sex workeraffirmative, you can find all of
Ellis' details in the episode.
Show notes.
I hope you enjoy this episode asmuch as I did recording it.
Peter (01:16):
Ellis welcome to the Therapist Connect podcast.
It's lovely to have you as aguest.
Ellis J Johnson (01:21):
Thank you.
It's lovely to be here.
Thank you, Peter.
Peter (01:23):
I know we've met before, so I know a little bit about
you, but I'm hoping we can getto know each other a little bit
better through some of thequestions that we've got today.
Thanks for coming on and sharingyour experience with us.
Ellis J Johnson (01:33):
Yeah, thank you very much.
Thanks to be, it's lovely to beasked.
Thank you.
Peter (01:37):
So the question that I ask everybody who comes on the
podcast, I think people findthis quite interesting to know
about therapists and wherethey've come from.
What drew you to this as aprofession in the first place?
What, why did you want to becomea therapist?
Ellis J Johnson (01:50):
Yeah, it's, I think it's a really good
question and I really had torack my brains about this one to
think, a little bit deeper thanthe, the kind of the general,
this is my upbringing and havingmental health difficulties in
the family and being reallyinterested in how to navigate
those and what was going on,beyond a sort of natural
(02:11):
curiosity I think that lots ofpeople have.
I remembered.
I'm just trying to think aboutthis question.
I remember really specificallybeing drawn to the idea of not
having to be a different personat work than I was at home.
So I remember thinking, Oh, whata, what an amazing thing to live
(02:32):
by your values every day.
So live by, doing something thatyou.
You care about and is, I think,helps you grow as a person, as
well as the person that you'resupporting or you're with, and I
think I was really drawn to thehow it seemed that you could be
(02:53):
full of integrity, really, as atherapist, you were present, the
ideas that I had in my headabout it, you'd be present,
you're connected you're yeah,doing work that maybe aligns
with your values.
And I think that's really whatdrew me to, to doing this
alongside an intellectualcuriosity, and fascination, I
(03:14):
think, for me, I can't imagine amore fascinating thing to do
with your time every single daythan be with another person,
profoundly, genuinely, in a, inthe most connected way you can
be.
I just couldn't think ofanything more, more wonderful
actually.
To do with my career and andluckily I still feel that way
(03:37):
actually and I think that stillis my experience.
I think it's a magical thing todo and to experience.
So I think my expectations ofthe job are, have been met.
I would probably say that.
Peter (03:51):
That's lovely.
And it's it's reminded me ofwhen you were talking about your
values being aligned with yourwork, and I was thinking about
the amount of jobs I've done inthe past before being a
therapist, where my values didnot align with the jobs I was
doing.
The real incongruence anddiscontent.
disconnect there for me and howlucky I feel now to be in this
profession and doing somethingthat I love.
(04:11):
And then also that like theinterest each day, like there's
a constant process of learningand how exciting that is.
And I, I still feel that, I'vebeen qualified for over 10 years
now, but I still have thatmagic, that excitement, that,
every day that you're connectingwith someone at such a deep
level, it's unusual.
Unusual job.
Ellis J Johnson (04:30):
Yeah, it is unusual.
It's so unusual and it doesn'tit doesn't really align with a
lot of the expectations of whatwork should be like, right?
Or what work really is andprobably was for me as well
before I was a therapist.
So it is, I do feel very luckyevery single day that I get to
do this job.
And I always say, I don't.
I don't tend to get, whichwould, yeah, anyway, I don't get
(04:51):
like the Sunday blues, it's aSunday and I'm not like, Oh,
I've got to go to work tomorrow.
I'm like, I'm ready.
I'm ready for it.
And I'm engaged and interested.
And that's such a, it's such aprivilege to be able to do work
like that.
Peter (05:04):
It's wonderful.
Can you tell us then a littlebit about your career so far
Ellis J Johnson (05:08):
So I qualified in 2016 and I was incredibly
lucky because I remember comingto the end of my course, I
remember very specificallysaying to myself.
Oh, this is exactly the kind ofjob that I want.
This is what I want to be doing.
(05:29):
So I'm a transgender man.
I transitioned actually halfwaythrough my course.
So socially transitioned,started to medically transition
halfway through the course and.
I remember very specificallysaying to myself, I would love
to be able to offer free therapyto trans people, trans non
binary questioning people.
I thought, that's what anamazing thing.
(05:50):
Maybe one day I'll get to dothat.
And literally about a monthlater, a job came up at an
organization in London calledSpectra which was offering free
therapy to trans non binarypeople.
They just set up a couple ofmonths before and they were
looking for a trans therapist.
And I was like, Oh my God, youhave just.
Spoken into existence, thisperfect job.
(06:11):
And at the time, I wasn't awareof anything similar to that
anywhere in the country,actually.
And I think since some otherservices have popped up as far
as I'm aware, that was one ofthe first, I think perhaps there
was Clinic Q in London as well.
But I think at that time,perhaps they were charging.
I'm not sure about that, butessentially it was very rare to
find an organization that wasoffering that.
(06:32):
And I was lucky enough to getthat role.
So fell into a sort of dream jobimmediately hit the ground
running was there for a good fewyears.
I was also doing mental healthadvocacy work for another
organization at the time.
So I was doing for LGBTQ mentalhealth organization.
So I was doing things likehelping people with their
benefits, chasing up doctors,helping them with their health
(06:53):
care running groups for peopleof color and people with
suicidal ideation as well.
And doing like a milliondifferent things.
So if you've ever, anyone's everworked, who's watching this has
worked in the charity sector,you probably know that you get
hired for one role and you do amillion other things as well.
So that was a kind of a baptismof fire as well, but it really
(07:15):
gave me a grounding of, workingin the community and really You
know, really face to face withthe, the real lived experience
of people, obviously being partof the community is one thing
and having friends and, is onething, but working with the kind
of intricacies ofdiscrimination, marginalized
(07:37):
lives that really, I think it'sreally grounded a lot of my work
since then, actually.
So that was a really yeah.
Transformative.
Period for me I ended up doinglots of training as well and
delivering lots of training andand then I had a really horrible
burnout, actually.
So I'd, worked really super hardthrough, through the course, had
(07:59):
these really incredible jobs.
I was commuting as well, I wasliving in Brighton at the time
and and commuting up to Londonto work twice a week.
And, yeah, I just, I had, yeah,my, my body just stopped
working, essentially, and to cuta long story short.
Yeah, I had to, I couldn't workanymore, actually and it wasn't
(08:20):
possible for me to keep upemployment.
So that kind of pushed me intodoing private practice because I
could do, however many sessionsa week I could.
Physically do at that point, atsome points it was maybe three,
two or three sessions a weekthat I could find the energy to
do whilst I was healing fromthis burnout.
And with many things like that,it turned out to be actually a
(08:41):
really wonderful shift for me.
I think I probably still wouldbe toiling away in the charity
sector for 60 hours a week if Ihadn't have.
Become very unwell at the timeand then I've been in private
practice since then.
So that's what 2019 I went intoprivate practice and and yeah,
and I've been in privatepractice since working mainly
online.
Yeah, solely online.
And and now I'm moving into alsodoing more training, offering
(09:06):
more training around workingwith trans and non binary
clients.
So yeah, so it's been.
Yeah it's such a, it's funnything having to look back, isn't
it?
Because you just, you keep goingand you keep going.
But, I'm very lucky that I wasable to come through the
burnout, still healing fromthat.
And and yeah, so it's.
(09:27):
I've been incredibly busy.
Like a lot of us aren't, right?
Peter (09:31):
It sounds it.
There's a few things that struckme there, and one of them was
the kind of getting to burnoutbut almost, horrible experience,
but it sounds like somethingcame out, out of that.
It's something shifted for youand you were able to make
changes to stop that fromhappening and maybe do some
healing from that.
And then the other thing I wasthinking about was when you were
(09:52):
talking about working charitysector kind of services and
support services and somethingreally resonated with me in
terms of before I qualified as atherapist, I did a lot of
support work.
I worked in third sectororganizations and charities and
advocacy roles and how much moreI think I learn about kind of
social justice and.
And supporting people and yeah,people from different
(10:15):
backgrounds and stuff like thatand how I learned much more
doing those roles than I didthrough my therapy training,
actually.
And so something resonated withme when you were talking about
that in terms of the knowledge,I think, that is there in those
communities.
Ellis J Johnson (10:29):
Absolutely.
And I think you can't.
You can't really imagine, whatpeople's lives are like, it's
hard to, it's unimaginable.
Actually, I think sometimes someof the things that, I was
supporting people with, youcouldn't write, you couldn't
make it up some of thedifficulties.
And I think, sadly, unlessyou've been in those situations
(10:54):
yourself, and perhaps even sayfor me, having burnout and not
being able to, lift up a kettleto make yourself a cup of tea,
not being able to go to the shopfor a pint of milk, or going and
then having to rest for threedays afterwards.
I think unless you'veexperienced that, it's very
difficult to imagine what it'sactually like to be
disenfranchised, to bevulnerable, to.
(11:15):
Worry that you're not going tohave a roof of your head next
month.
So I think the charity that Iwork for they do, that I used to
work for, they now do a reallywonderful thing called the human
library and they do this forsome sort of local universities.
What they do is they get peoplein who use the services and it's
actually for trainee, traineetherapists they can have a one
(11:36):
to one conversation with.
All these different people, it'sso the volunteers are like human
books, basically.
So you come and sit with themand they tell you a bit about
their experience and their lifeand what you might want, they
want you to know.
So you get to choose which kindof.
Experiences you might beinterested in.
And it's a really, yeah, itseems to have a really big
(11:58):
impact on trainee therapists totruly, and I think, if we're
going to talk particularly abouttrans and non binary experiences
there's so much noise.
In the media about trans peopleit's actually quite rare for
people to hear a trans persontalking about a trans experience
or to sit down with a transperson and have a chat with
(12:19):
them.
So whenever I do my training, Ialways say, you might think
you've never met a trans personbefore.
You probably have, but youdidn't know it.
But if you've never met a transperson before, now you have.
And I'm, I exist in the fleshand you can talk to me and ask
me questions if you want to butthe chasm I think between
perhaps people who areprivileged or have privilege and
(12:39):
those that don't, it's, it'svery wide and it seems to be
widening.
As well at the moment.
I think it's invaluable.
Really the work.
It sounds like you've done aswell with actually seeing the
day to day lives of people whodisenfranchised.
Absolutely.
Peter (12:55):
And I suppose one of the things I was thinking about is
as therapists sometimes,obviously we work with people
who are going throughdifficulties, but sometimes very
marginalized communities don'thave access to therapy and
actually therapists can maybe besaying.
not be seeing people from thosecommunities and so might not
have an insight or anunderstanding because they're
not doing that work like othertypes of services are.
Ellis J Johnson (13:16):
Yeah, I think that's there.
And I think there's also aquestion of therapy can only do
so much as well.
So what happens if you, ifsomeone comes to you and says
that, I don't have any food inmy house.
And I'm going to get kicked out.
In a month's time therapy canonly help with that so much it's
a shame that there aren't moreadvocacy services out there
(13:37):
really that, that are supportingmarginalized clients.
Peter (13:40):
Absolutely.
How do you find, define yourtherapeutic approach and has it,
has that changed at all sinceyou qualified?
Ellis J Johnson (13:48):
Yeah, so I trained psychodynamically, and
that definitely forms the mostpart of my work, I'd say.
I Think I've become much lessrigid in the way that I work,
and I think everybody lots oftherapists I know would say the
same thing.
I've become less Stressed if I,haven't got the same glass this
time as I had last time for mywater or, become much less
(14:12):
concerned or yeah, much lessrigid and a bit more fluid, I
think.
So I'm also aware that I've hadsupervisors that integratively
trained, I've had therapistsmyself that are integratively
trained.
So I think again, always comingback to a person centered, the
core conditions I was.
Hold them very closely.
(14:33):
And I also think incorporatingthose other elements of social
justice anti racist practice apractice that is I think,
perhaps more.
How would I put it?
Practice that can address theissues of today as well, right
(14:57):
such as incorporating socialjustice elements understanding
intersectionality,intersectional oppressions,
those kind of things that isreally here in my work as well.
And and I think also Elements ofkind of spiritual practice.
Something that I is here for mein a lot of the client work that
I do, and it tends to be thatclients who are spiritually
inclined seem to make their wayto me.
(15:19):
And we sometimes have thismoment of almost coming out to
each other as being spirituallyinclined in those moments.
It's which is quite interesting.
So those elements are there aswell, my work.
But I think psychodynamic worklends itself really well to, the
kind of the spiritual realm tomagic to the unconscious other
things that are happening, whichis what I really like about,
(15:42):
about the psychodynamicapproach.
Peter (15:44):
That's really interesting.
And I don't know if this is anaccurate kind of representation,
but when you were talking aboutbecoming less rigid, I was
imagining like I've certainlydone this when first training
kind of clinging to the theoryrigidly this is how it's got to
be.
And then over time going, Oh,actually, gosh, there's all this
stuff, that's out there.
Ellis J Johnson (16:01):
It's a lovely feeling to grow in confidence, I
can definitely look back and seethat I can trust myself more to
apply the theory in the rightway, but not in a rigid, not in
a rigid way.
So that's a lovely thing thatcomes with time, I think, and
experience.
Yeah,
Peter (16:18):
I love that.
So for regular listeners of thispodcast, you'll have already
heard Ellis talk a little bitabout this topic already because
we did a interview with some ofthe authors of the Queering
Psychotherapy book that's beenout this year.
But for people listening for thefirst time you are one of the
authors of that book.
Can you tell tell them a littlebit about it and what kind of
motivated you to write a chapterin that book?
Ellis J Johnson (16:41):
Yeah, so I was invited to write a chapter on
working alongside trans nonbinary questioning folks in
therapy, and yeah, I think as Isaid earlier, it's quite rare,
actually, for trans people to begiven a seat at the table, for
us to be given a voice, andparticularly as a brown trans
(17:02):
person, a trans man, and beingsomebody who is nonbinary.
working class, from a workingclass background there are those
three things together, beingtrans, being brown, being
working class, and perhaps evenalso being a man, sometimes in
this profession, sometimes, notalways and being queer.
as well, all those thingstogether it's pretty rare for
(17:24):
people like me to have a voice,actually.
And you might be forgiven forthinking, oh, trans people are
everywhere, we can't, we don'tstop hearing about trans people.
But if you kind of tune in alittle bit, you'll notice that
you're not really hearing transpeople talk about trans people.
You're hearing cis people talkabout trans people.
With a lot of confidence, butit's very rare you hear trans
voices.
(17:45):
So I lost
Peter (17:46):
a lot of confidence and very loudly, incredibly loudly
Ellis J Johnson (17:50):
and very forcefully.
And perhaps very convincinglysometimes as well So for me, I
was like, wow, okay, so there'san opportunity, there's a space
here for me to talk about thethings that I care about, the
things that I experience andalso from being able to talk
about it as a professional.
Not just from a lived experienceperspective, because that's also
(18:12):
often what we hear from transpeople if they're given space to
speak, it's about personalexperience, it's lived
experience, it's about thenarrative, the story, when did
you know, when did you starttaking hormones, when did you
have surgery that's what wehear, I think, a lot of the time
but it is rare, I think, to hearProfessionals who just happen to
be transgender, talking aboutthe things that they know about.
(18:35):
So I was, I was just really overthe moon to be asked.
It's just a wonderful project.
And Yeah, there was so much tosay.
Oh my God, there's so much tosay, but it was really wonderful
experience talking with chanceand hearing what chance had to
offer as well.
And yeah, I just feel reallylucky to be a part of it.
Peter (18:52):
Yeah, it's wonderful.
It's fantastic.
It's a fantastic book.
So anyone who's not read it, Iwould recommend going and
getting it and you can hear morefrom the authors in one of our
previous.
podcast episode a bit more fromyou, Ellis as well.
So thank you for writing it aswell, because it's it's
brilliant.
And your chapter is fantastic aswell I really enjoyed it.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how you see the wider
(19:13):
therapy community?
I suppose we might've touched onthat a little bit and how
connected you feel to othertherapists.
Ellis J Johnson (19:19):
Yeah, I think.
again, as a listener of thepodcast, I hear lots of the
therapists saying similar thingsthat is a very isolating can be
very isolating profession.
And I think I would probably sayI haven't felt very connected to
the profession or to thecommunity that, you know for a
(19:39):
very long time and I think whenthat has, it's come about
recently and that's because I'vebeen connecting with other queer
therapists, thanks to the bookand also being asked to be a
clinical associate at PinkTherapy was a really big honor
for me.
And so connecting in those wayshas been really wonderful.
I don't know that I've alwaysfelt there's a space for me.
(20:01):
with my identities, mybackground, the way I look, the
way I talk, the way I holdmyself, and that might be
something also for me oftraining down South.
Had I done my training up North,maybe back in Yorkshire it would
be one thing I trained in a verywhite trained in Brighton, very
white middle class area.
(20:21):
So maybe I set myself upactually feeling a bit separate.
But it has been hard to feelconnected and to be perhaps even
to feel accepted really andwanted.
And as I say, yeah, that changeswith.
finding other therapists who area little bit like me, and there
are lots of them the, that weare out there so it's been a
(20:44):
bit, it's been a little bitdifficult, I think, but for me
also trying to create thosespaces for myself and other
people, that's how I've gottenaround it starting to deliver
training on my own for otherpeople that want to have these
conversations aroundoppressions, class, race,
ability trans identity in therestarted to.
(21:05):
Create the spaces for people whowant to have the conversations
that I want to have.
And again, surprisingly there'slots of us, actually.
Peter (21:13):
It's, you're right, it's such a common thread, through
the guests on the podcast oftalking about isolation and not
feeling connected, but wantingto be.
And I don't know if you'd agreewith this, but I feel like I've
seen the establishment of lotsmore communities now and groups
of people coming together.
I think almost for me, like thenext stage is like, can we get
all those groups to also connectYeah, absolutely.
(21:35):
Because I think thoseconversations are really
important and I think a lot ofpeople want them to happen and I
think people aren't, ortherapists aren't always sure
how to organize ourselves ingroups.
Yeah.
That's a bit of ageneralization, maybe.
Ellis J Johnson (21:49):
it's my experience as well I agree with
you and I wonder sometimes ifit's, if a lot of us are quite
introverted somehow, and we'remore comfortable listening than
talking.
So you get lots of us togetherand maybe everyone's sitting
back and listening and it can beit can be a bit tricky kind of
thing sometimes.
So it's it's quite fascinatingto know that.
(22:12):
Yeah, there are lots of peoplewho care about the same things
in my experience, again, withdoing the work around trans
inclusion, in therapy, the vastmajority of therapists I speak
to are really desperate to hearmore and to understand more from
a really affirming position.
(22:33):
Without the hostility or the,the cynic cynicism or the
critical ear people are justactually quite welcoming.
So if we could, I love your ideaof just getting, bringing these
groups together somehow.
And I think maybe that's, that'sgot to be the next step for our
profession.
If we want to have longevity, Ithink in this work, we want the
(22:53):
work to be sustainable.
We want to avoid burnout.
And we also want to make adifference.
To the profession and keep itmoving forward.
I think.
Yeah, there's lots ofopportunity for that.
You just need someone to do it.
Peter (23:07):
Yeah, absolutely I think that's why people enjoy the
Therapists Connect podcastbecause people are talking about
their experiences and we'regetting to hear about all these
different kinds of groups andcommunities and work that people
are doing that's going on, butisn't always necessary.
necessarily visible or it mightbe visible to certain therapists
but not to others.
So I think I think it's justreally important that we
(23:28):
highlight all of the, all thisimportant work that's going on
out there at the moment.
Ellis J Johnson (23:32):
Absolutely.
Absolutely there's lots ofdifferent ways to be a
therapist, right?
Exactly.
Hearing from one another, Ithink is really powerful and
Yeah it's been an experiencetoday looking back and talking
about my experience it's reallyinteresting.
Peter (23:45):
That's brilliant.
What do you think is the biggestchallenge that the counselling
and psychotherapy professionfaces right now?
Ellis J Johnson (23:54):
I think there are lots of challenges.
I think there are lots ofchallenges because I think Not
to sound too grandiose about it,but I think the world is
changing really quickly reallyprofoundly everything around us
is shifting.
So I think one of the challengesthat perhaps I can land on today
(24:16):
is, how do we keep up with that,how do we, I think particularly.
Incorporating a social justicelens, understanding
intersectionality, understandingall these other elements of
human experience that might nottake as much space in
therapeutic spaces as theyshould.
(24:38):
Actually, I think that might bethe next challenge.
And certainly, as I say, thetherapist that I speak to, it's
like everyone's trying to catchup with you can think
particularly around like BlackLives Matter, for example.
And I think these kinds ofmovements, these kinds of social
justice movements, civil rightsmovements are coming thick and
fast at the moment.
So I think therapists want tounderstand how to keep up with
(25:01):
that, how to work with it and.
Perhaps there's something therealso about society being very
polarized.
And I think therapists arewondering which side of the coin
or which side of the fence am Igoing to fall on?
And how do I work with that?
There's a kind of an expectationthat we're supposed to be very
polarized in the world rightnow.
(25:23):
We're supposed to have anopinion about things, I wonder
how difficult that is fortherapists to to hold all that
shift and change and not bedefensive about being called out
for being racist, for anexample, or this is what's in
the ether at the moment.
So I wonder if a challenge is,yeah how do we engage with those
conversations when they'reincredibly difficult
(25:46):
conversations?
How do we own our racism whenthat is incredibly painful?
As an example.
Peter (25:53):
And I think part of that is for me those, it can be so
fast paced, but it's reallyimportant that we actually do
have the conversations and don'tavoid the conversations because
that's the bigger problem.
Yeah, when we're completelyavoiding it because it's too
scary or too, there's too muchgoing on and we're too defensive
to engage with that.
We don't have thoseconversations, then the work's
(26:14):
not happening.
Ellis J Johnson (26:15):
To not avoid the conversation altogether,
right?
To say therapy is a completelyneutral space.
It's an apolitical space so thatI don't need to engage with
these things.
And that I think can trickledown to the idea that being
trans is a political identity.
Somehow we've been politicizedas a talking point I think that
can be difficult for therapiststo maybe even take seriously,
(26:39):
right?
We, there's an idea that we'rejust a fad and we're causing
trouble, but how do you, whatwhat is your opinion as a
therapist?
How are you going to deal withthat?
How are you going to deal withthat in a client?
so These are really bigquestions.
I think that society is askingitself and I think therapists
are not immune to thosequestions.
Peter (26:58):
And so I was thinking that when you were talking was
the idea of it's about thosespecific conversations we're
having, not just a conversation,debating.
People's lived experience oridentities or it's actually
really about the conversationwith yourself about what are you
doing to improve your work andhow you can support people.,
Ellis J Johnson (27:17):
I think this is the big shift and something that
I'm really keen on in my work isacknowledging that these
questions are not just aboutpeople out there or your
clients.
They are about you because youare also part of society and.
So when I offer my trainingaround trans identities in
therapy the first half of theday or the weekend is about you,
(27:42):
is about, okay, what is yourhistory with gender?, turning
the kind of the camerabackground and saying how about
you?
You have a gender as well.
You have a a sexual identity.
It's not just people who areothered that have identity.
You have an identity as well.
And that's tough work that istough.
That's really tough work.
(28:03):
But if you want to engage in ameaningful way with your clients
and work in a safe way, there'sI've said it to you on the other
podcast, it's a potential for lia liberatory conversations for
all of us in this work.
And, I think that therapistsneed to do that work.,
Peter (28:23):
I completely agree.
When we did the other podcast,we discussed this point a little
bit in terms of, I thinksomething in the book that you
were writing out is theopportunity for everybody when
you start having theseconversations.
And we had a bit of a discussionabout isn't it just enough
actually for it to be for transpeople and one of the things
that I was thinking about it,which I didn't mention when we
had the discussion earlier waswhen I'm doing training in
(28:46):
university for students andstuff, when you open up this
conversation it's it opens up aworld of opportunity for
everybody in the room.
Yeah.
And people start questioning andreflecting and thinking about
different aspects of theiridentity that they hadn't really
connected with before, which Ithink is, for me, it's a
wonderful thing to.
See, and once you take away,that can't take away completely,
(29:07):
but reduce some of that tensionand that toxicity around some of
those discussions and actuallypeople talking from their
authentic experience.
Actually you can, it's amazingwhat kind of comes out of that,
I think.
Ellis J Johnson (29:18):
Yeah.
I mean it's revolutionary.
Yeah it is revolutionary andit's revolutionary because, the
other big part of my work that Ireally care about is thinking
about white supremacy cultureand coloniality and colonialism
and.
Attempting asking the question,how can we undo those things and
so when people recognize thatthey.
(29:39):
also have a position in whitesupremacy.
They've been positioned as well.
They're not just the center, butthey've been racialized as
white.
They've been told that they arestraight.
If they have certain types ofsex or they're, attracted to
certain types of people.
Once we recognize that all thesesystems work in tandem.
It's not a surprise to me thatthere's a relief my God, the
(30:00):
relief of it to understand that,that we., we don't have to be
rigid that we have space tomaneuver and how wonderful in
terms of connecting with otherpeople to acknowledge that they
also don't have to be rigid.
So there is a freedom foreverybody here and it's huge
work, it's, yeah.
It's it's taken 400 years to gethere
Peter (30:22):
and the dismantling of a system and a culture and, or
multiple systems and cultures isamazing, but, and fluid and
freeing, but can also be reallyscary for people as well
Ellis J Johnson (30:33):
yeah, absolutely it's we can talk
about very particularly in sortof therapeutic terms, we're
giving up familiarity, we'regiving up incredibly ingrained
senses of self that have beeningrained on purpose for 400
years.
This is the kind of person youare, this is how to be a person.
This is what a body should looklike, this is how a man should
act, this is how a woman shouldact.
(30:56):
This is race, the construct ofrace, very particularly on
purpose.
It there's a lot that we have tosacrifice, but there's a lot
more to gain.
But it's really profound workand it's very emotionally
charged and it's very it's veryconfusing for lots of people.
So that's the kind of work Ilike to do.
Peter (31:18):
Amazing.
Sounds great.
Ellis, I've really enjoyed thisdiscussion it's been really
interesting.
I suppose my final question iswhat plans have you got for the
future?
I know you've got some trainingcoming up, which you might want
to tell us a little bit moreabout.,
Ellis J Johnson (31:30):
yeah yes I've decided to, as we said earlier
Create space to have theconversations that I want to
have with people and to learnthe things that I'm interested
in learning.
So I've created it's a threepart course.
I'm.
I've titled it Gender ExpansiveTherapy, and the reason it's
(31:52):
expansive is that we are notjust talking about gender, but
we're also talking about race,class age, ability, we're
breaking apart the sort of whitesupremacist oppressive
structures, and engaging in thebigger question of decolonial
work.
Which is something that I'mreally excited by so how do we
(32:15):
decolonize therapy?
How do we decolonize gender,sexual diversity relationship
diversity?
I'm really interested in movingthese conversations forward from
talking about toilets andpronouns, which are absolutely
important they have their place,but I want to.
Yeah again, it sounds like a bigambition, but I want us to be
(32:38):
talking about these things in amuch broader, bigger way.
Understanding them through acolonial lens and doing
something to undo that.
So as I say, yeah, the course isin three parts.
The first part is working withexpansive clients.
It's just around gender andtrans identities, really.
The second part is ondecolonizing gender
(32:58):
relationship, diversity, sexualdiversity.
And the third part of entitledexpansion in practice.
And that will be moreexperiential for therapists to.
Yeah, have some fun with theirgender, have some fun and
explore and expand and yeah,have some experiences that might
be a little bit out of yourcomfort zone in terms of the
questions and the provocationsthat I'll be asking.
(33:21):
So we've had the first sessionalready.
We had level one ran a few.
Weeks ago, and that was reallywonderful.
Really challenging is thefeedback that I was getting
really challenging.
But somebody said I can feel mybrain expanding.
I can feel my brain's expandedthrough this weekend.
So I can understand why you'recalling it gender expansive
therapy.
(33:41):
Which is really wonderful andlevel 1 is going to run a few
more times.
The next one's in February 202410th and 11th and we'll have
another level 1 I think in Apriland then level 2 and level 3
will be out as well.
Plenty of opportunities to comealong to level 1 and a big.
And ambition for me, as I saidearlier, is creating spaces for
(34:02):
therapists who are thinkingabout these topics to come
together and meet other peopleto create community as we go
along, keep in touch with oneanother and support each other
and doing this work.
So that's a big.
a big project for me, trying todecolonize gender in the therapy
world.
But it seems like people areready for it.
So I'm ready too.
Peter (34:21):
Absolutely.
People are asking for it.
And that training soundsamazing.
And to have that feedback,that's what you want from
training is, to expand your mindand it sounds like people are
soaking that up, Which isabsolutely fantastic.
And what we'll do is we'll putlinks to the website and the
training and stuff in the shownotes.
So people can get access to thatand check it out.
So Ellis, thank you so much forcoming on the therapist connect
(34:42):
podcast for a second time.
And it's been great getting toknow you a little bit better and
find out more about you.
Thanks so much.
Ellis J Johnson (34:49):
Thank you so much, Peter.
It's been really lovely.
Thanks so much.
Peter (34:52):
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.