August 21, 2023 • 23 mins
In this event, #TherapistsConnect co-leads meet with some of the authors from the Queering Psychotherapy book discuss the motivations for the book, and delve into some of the book chapters.
J. Chance Czyzselska (they/them) - relational integrative psychotherapist in private practice, editor and writer. Member of The Relational School organising team.
Ellis J. Johnson (he/him) is a psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counsellor and trainer who specialises in working alongside clients who are transgender, non-binary, queer and/or questioning.
Amanda Middleton (she/her) is a white, queer, femme antipodean who thinks a lot about gender. For the last 20 years, she has fought passionately to put queer lives at the centre of knowledge-making.
Neil Young (he/they) is an integrative arts psychotherapist working in private practice online and face-to-face as well as an experienced facilitator, researcher and author who teaches a number of therapy and counselling training courses.
Caz Binstead is the founder of our first project #TraineeTalk and project lead for #TherapistsCreate. Caz is an experienced therapist and supervisor, working in private practice. Through her extensive work on creating ethical and thriving practices, she has helped hundreds of therapists set up their private practice.
Dr Peter Blundell (he/him/his) is an academic, researcher, lecturer, trainer, and consultant. He is a counsellor/psychotherapist, a social worker, and a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.
#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
Website: www.Therapists-Connect.com
Twitter: @Therapists_C
Instagram: @TherapistsConnect
Facebook: @TherConnect
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Peter Blundell (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of
the therapist connects podcast.
Today's episode is a shortenedversion of a discussion that was
hosted by therapists connectearlier this year. Caz and I as
co leads, the therapist connecthosted a debate with some of the
authors from a new book calledqueering psychotherapy. This
podcast is a shortened versionof that discussion. If you'd
like to hear the full debate,please go to our YouTube channel
(00:22):
and search for queeringpsychotherapy. Thanks for
listening to the TherapistConnect podcast. If you'd like
to support us, then please go toyour favorite podcast platform
and leave us a review.
Okay, cause would you like tostart us off with the
introductions?
Caz Binstead (00:38):
Ellis J. Johnson, who is a psychodynamic
psychotherapeutic counsellor andtrainer specializing in working
alongside clients who aretransgender, non binary, queer,
and or questioning.
Peter Blundell (00:57):
We also have Jane Chance Czyzselska pronouns
they/them who is a relational,integrative psychotherapist in
private practice, editor andwriter as well as a member of
the Relational School organizingteam.
Caz Binstead (01:12):
And then we have Amanda Middleton, pronouns
she/her, who is a white, queer,femme, and antipodean who thinks
a lot about gender. For the last20 years, she's fought
passionately to put queer livesat the center of knowledge
making obsessively immersingherself in queer theory as a
survival skill. She wonders howwe as queer people can reshape
(01:37):
our relationship to power andresist oppressive forces to take
up more space. Initially, shequalified as a psychologist in
Australia, and then as a familyand systemic practice. As family
and systemic psychotherapist inthe UK, a UKCP registered
psychotherapist in independentpractice. Amanda works primarily
(01:59):
with relationships, gender, sex,and sexuality, specializing
within the LGBT IQ communities.
She has extensive experience inthe NHS and social care, and has
previously worked as aspecialist in the areas of sex
and sexuality, dual diagnosis,HIV and sexual health, drug and
alcohol use and domesticviolence. Her practice is the
(02:21):
pink practice and she is also anAssociate Lecturer at the
Tavistock and Portman trust andsupervisor at Gendered
Intelligence.
Peter Blundell (02:35):
And last but not least, we have Neil Young, who's
an integrative artpsychotherapist, working in
private practice with a diversegroup of people especially in
terms of gender, race, age,class, sexuality, and neuro
diversity. He teaches on varioustherapy trainings, including the
Institute for Art, Dance Therapyand Education. He offers
(02:56):
workshops, training, lectures,and embodied performances
specializing in gender andsexuality broader intersectional
difference, including an antiracist class aware position, and
dance movement as a means ofconnecting to self and others.
Neil also work as a consultanttrainer for organizations such
as Kusum, the sunflower network,enjoys creating open safe spaces
(03:21):
that encourage curiousexploration and increase
understanding. And in 2022, Neilco wrote a chapter on queer
children, Don't Panic Queeringthe Child as part of the ground
based, groundbreaking queeringpsychotherapy book,
Welcome everyone. It might be agood place to start. And maybe
(03:42):
if we could just maybe have alittle bit of a discussion or
exploration around themotivation behind the book, what
kind of what kind of pushed youall to kind of come together and
bring this book out?
J. Chance Czyzselska (03:55):
Thanks, Peter, and Caz.
Yeah, I just just before Ianswer that, I wanted to thank
you for hosting us. Some of usfrom creating psychotherapy
feels really good to be heldthat virtually by you and by the
Therapist Connect community. Ialso, as always want to thank my
(04:19):
co contributors andcoconspirators here today.
Ellis, Amanda and Neil. I'vesaid it before, I'll say again,
what you all put out into theworld continues to teach and
inspire me so thank you.
I'm Chance Czyzselska -psychotherapist, and they/then
(04:40):
pronouns.
So you asked about themotivation for why we co created
queering psychotherapy and I waslooking at some research a
couple of years ago and foundout that LGBTIQ plus people are
more likely than cisgender andheterosexual people to suffer
with mental health issues yet,often in therapy we have poor
(05:04):
outcomes. So I knew that thisresearch, in tandem with the
anecdotal experiences andexamples that I'd had I'd heard
about meant that, you know, Ifelt something had to be done.
Because when I was learning inmy training, you know, about a
(05:25):
million years ago, it wasn'teven that long ago was about 10
years ago, in Eurocentricpsychotherapeutic theories,
which were developed largely byheterosexual cisgender and white
theorists was that queerindividuals are often seen as a
singular group, through anothered lens. And so my
(05:48):
experience in my own training,and also in some of the therapy
relationships I've had, was oneof discomforts, in, you know,
many kinds of situations, but inamongst that, you know, I also
was, was sick, you know,receiving profound learning and
healing. So, despite, you know,the value that comes from these
(06:12):
many of these theories thatwe've learned in our primary
trainings, and also CPDs.
Subsequently, we, you know, canoften end up pathologizing and
marginalizing and diminishingqueer and trans lives. Even if
we're queer and trans ourselves,you know, we can we all
internalize this stuff. Youknow, it's not just the
(06:33):
trainings, but the trainingsthat come from, you know, the,
you know, the socio politicalcontext. That's an example of
the kind of history of this youknow, in Britain,
psychoanalytical organizationsonly apologize for labeling
homosexuality as an illnessaround 10 years ago. And in
America, it was just a few yearsago, in 2019. In fact, I was
(06:55):
looking into some of the kind ofharm that has happened within
our profession, and I saw apaper that was written on them
and admittedly was 1979. Butstill, there's a psychoanalyst.
It's called [name], who was atthe time of president, the
president of the BritishPsychoanalytic Society. And he
(07:16):
wrote that homosexuality shouldbe understood as a defensive
solution to a variety ofneurotic and psychotic problems.
So you know, what you weretalking about earlier Caz, the
homophobia, you know, has, haslong roots and back into
society, in history, andculturally and, you know,
(07:38):
obviously, within ourprofession, and it's a
problematic legacy. Obviously,there's been feminist and queer
and lesbian and gay and transpractitioners who have critiqued
these theories and continue todo so and you know, many are in
the book or are referenced inthe book, but our profession and
you know, psychotherapy andpsychoanalysis have tended to
(08:01):
locate the problem in theindividual or their family and
rarely acknowledge or understandhow factors such as sexuality
and gender and race and class,have impact on clients lived
experiences. In fact, were oftenconsidered, you know, our
difference or otherness, youknow, is often considered to be
(08:24):
the source of our problems,rather than the fact that we
live in a world that devaluesand denigrate certain
embodiments while avoidingothers and expecting everyone to
be white and cis andheterosexual. I mean, I've heard
countless times from peoplewho've been in therapy who said
(08:45):
they've been misgendered orshamed about their sexuality, or
when they talk about racism witha white therapist, or, you know,
they've been pathologized orproblematized, and othered by
therapists, which is, you know,no place any client wants to be.
Queering psychotherapy is anantidote to that. And what we're
doing throughout the chapters isis attempting to make visible
(09:11):
there's the structuralinequalities that that impact
clients lives and, you know, whoare queer or trans or ... or any
clients who have identities oraspects that fall outside of
what's normatively expected? Orof what Jake Yearsley in, in his
chapter calls theheteronormative trance, which is
(09:32):
a phrase I really love. So it'sin this context that we and our
clients find ourselves in amental health crisis,
particularly among trans and ...
clients who are bombarded withhate day in and day out. And I
was shocked to discover recentlywhen I was reading something, I
think it was, I can't rememberwhich publication it was, but
(09:55):
apparently in the last 10 yearshate crimes against LGBTIQ plus
people in UK has risen by 349%,349%!!!. And, you know, yes, all
sorts of things have happened,you know, we've become more
visible and maybe that's part ofwhy, you know, there's such a
backlash, you know, that's oftenthe way isn't there is a kind of
(10:18):
liberation movement that happensand there's more visibility and,
and the backlash, but it's, it'sa horrendous kind of context and
to be living in. So whetheryou're a therapist or in therapy
or just interested in therapyqueering psychotherapy is an
(10:38):
accessible, radical, joyfulhealing collection of
conversations, and they areconversation, some are, some are
written, but some part of thewhole kind of queering and
decolonizing practice of thebook was to write in a more
accessible way, so to have aconversation between different
(10:59):
practitioners about, you know,certain issues arising in, you
know, the course of our livesand clients lives. And I think
that's what what has made thebook so popular, it's, uh, you
know, it's very accessible. Andyeah, really kind of reflects
(11:23):
some of the dynamism of the, ofthe therapeutic dyad.
Peter Blundell (11:29):
One of the phrases that's used in the, in
the acknowledgement section isthat it's a fusion. And I just
really, really liked that word,because I just thought it really
represents kind of all thesedifferent approaches and ways of
understanding things all comingtogether. And, yeah, I really
appreciate that about the book.
J. Chance Czyzselska (11:50):
It is a fusion and it's infused with,
you know, all sorts of, youknow, really enlivening, you
know, sort of aspects of livedexperience. So it feels Yeah, it
feels very live and dynamic andnot dry. And as a lot of
(12:11):
academic theory can. I'll readyou a little bit from the
opening chapter, if you like myintroduction.
In spring 2020, the COVID 19pandemic and national lockdown
I think I'll leave it there fornow. I'd love to see what many
started to change lives as wehave lived them. workplaces and
meeting spaces emptied likecaves, days and weeks slowed
down. Roads cleared of traffic,first quiet and birdsong. Space
(12:35):
opened up for collaborativepsychotherapeutic cross
fertilization. Following aconversation with Dr. Gail
Lewis, in which she notes someof the ways that black lesbian
poet and author Audrey Lourdesideas seem to echo the work of
white heterosexual malepsychoanalyst and Wilfred Bion.
(12:55):
I reread Lourdes poetry is not aluxury, and was struck by the
therapeutic message in herdescription of poetry.
Reflecting on the form as arevelatory distillation of
experience that makes itpossible to give name to the
nameless so it can be thoughtLourdes words sound not
dissimilar to what whitepsychoanalyst Christopher Bolus
(13:19):
conceived with his unsoughtknown for the exploration of
what we unconsciously learn ofthe object world as infants, and
how we can harness it in theservice of our psyches. It
wasn't the first time I'd feltLourdes words convey something
vitally important about how wecan examine and regulate our
(13:41):
emotions. So it's not onlypoetry that is a vital place for
self reflection, andunderstanding, as I believe
therapy can also be, but alsodecolonial, black, lesbian,
feminist, queer and transperspectives that can bring
richness to our profession. Arichness that often goes
unacknowledged, or is evenrejected as too political, as if
(14:05):
the therapy encounter is apolitics free space. It is
because of the politics inherentin our lives, the inequalities
that are endemic to it. Thattherapy, however, can often be a
luxury and also a privilege,especially for those in the
LGBTIQA plus and ...
communities. Therapeuticoutcomes for these client groups
(14:25):
also varied perhaps sometimesbecause of this unwillingness to
accept that all of ouridentities are politicized out
under white, cis heteropatriarchy. Indeed Crawford et
al., in 2018 found that peoplefrom sexual and ethnic
minorities are more likely toreport experiencing lasting bad
(14:46):
effects in therapy. Rhymes etal., in 2019 also found that
compared to heterosexual women,lesbian and bisexual women had
higher final session a severityfor depression, anxiety and
functional impairment. Anincreased risk of not attaining
reliable recovery in depression,anxiety or functioning. Similar
(15:07):
results were found amongbisexual men. In research by
Stonewall, in 2018. One in 20LGBT people and one in five
trans people reported that theyhad been pressured to access
services or change to change orsuppress their sexual
orientation, and or genderidentity. Therapists already
(15:28):
have an ethical obligation notto practice so called Conversion
Therapy. But these harmfulpractices do take place.
Further, as this book goes topress many therapists are
expressing their opposition tothe government decision to
exclude trans people from theban on so called Conversion
(15:49):
Therapy practices, despite thefact that more recent study,
statistics indicate that transpeople are twice as likely as
cisgender LGB people to beoffered or subjected to
conversion practices. And thatof my colleagues would like to
say, feel moved to say.
was from research in 2022.
Caz Binstead (16:14):
Thank you Chance, I mean, inviting anyone else to
jump in. It might be useful ifyou do jump in and just say what
the name of your chapter andchapter you're involved in is,
is called. I mean, I agree withChance about the accessibility
of this book. And I know acouple of you here took part in
(16:35):
kind of interview style. Well,an interview style in the
chapters. How how do people findthat? Was that your choice? Or
Chances? Or?
Ellis Johnson (16:54):
Happy to jump in?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Caz.
Thank you Chance also forgetting us kicked off and, and
reminding us about the contextof the book. Because it was it
was quite a long time ago. Now.
Actually, I think we all westarted to pull all this
together. And so yeah, mychapter is on working with trans
(17:16):
and gender expansive clients.
And I really find it reallygenerative to be in conversation
with chance. And when we had,you know, a couple of broad
questions to kind of, did youwant to sit with, and but what
came out of the conversationwas, was much deeper, much
(17:40):
richer than anything I couldhave just kind of come up with
on my, on my own. So I thinkthat was a really Yeah, really.
Yeah, enjoyable way of kind ofcoming together. And I think
you'll hear me speak about thisChance. A couple of words, I'm
sitting with the main word I'msitting with is centering, or re
(18:04):
centering or decentering. Whatwe understand as sort of the
parameters of, of normal, humanbehavior, human behavior. And
with this book, what we'retrying to do, is, is, is
recenter, queer, trans, intersexexperiences is not being on the
margins of humanity, we're noton the margins of human
(18:27):
experience. But actually, we'reright in the middle. And we
represent something that is, iswhat everybody, actually and
that's why I'm also interestedin using you know, the acronym
GSRD instead of LGBTQIA plus, soGSRDS is, gender, sex and
relationship diversity. And thatacronym sort of demonstrates, I
(18:52):
suppose that everybody has agender everybody has a sexuality
or relationships and sexuality.
Everyone has a relationship totheir relationship style. So
this work is not just for us,but in centering the most
marginalized people. It shiftsthe whole conversation for
everyone. We shift this wholethe whole lens. And, you know,
(19:16):
as queer trans people, it kindof comes naturally to us, I
think, to do that. We're used to
Amanda Middleton (19:21):
And I also had the I think, advantage of being
doing that. So you know, it'ssuch a, it's such a privilege to
be involved with this. And Ithink the feedback we're getting
already is is really exciting.
Yeah, Amanda, Neil, I dont knowif you want to jump in.
(19:48):
in conversation with Chance, inorder to create the chapter. And
for me, there was somethingreally kind of alive and quick
about it, in terms of it being aconversation, and I think in
terms of the book feels, from Iknow, books take forever. And I
know Chance you labored hard onthis. But there is still
(20:09):
something quite fast about thisbook. And I appreciate that,
because from conversation topublishing was a couple of
years. But if we think about theacademic publishing cycle, which
is like five to seven years, itmeans that really important
conversations that are happeningright now can be in people's
hands, and extended. And I thinkthe format also worked for me,
(20:31):
because I'm dyslexic. So if Ihad to write it, it would take
forever, and maybe not happen.
And there's something aboutvaluing an oral tradition, you
know, therapy is such an oraltradition. And yet, our
knowledge is often held when Itrained therapists because,
well, I haven't read enough or Ihaven't done this. And our
relationship to reading is ahuge part of our relationship to
being therapists, I think, andhow we feel sort of competent
(20:54):
and up to date, yet it is anoral tradition, based on the
oral traditions of healing andstorytelling and being with
people in conversation andconnecting. And so that's where
it feels like the book doesmirror the practice, the form
and function thing, which Ireally appreciate about it as
well. Neil, I can't rememberwhether you were interviewed or
(21:19):
whether you wrote.
Neil Young (21:22):
Well, it was kind of we found out as we went, so I
guess, chapter I co wrote, and Ishould say that Paul Harrison,
and Benjamin, were my coauthors. And it really was the
three of us with Chance'ssupport really, in terms of
talking to chance, and then sortof it developed, it was more
like, we ended up talking thethree of us every month for six
(21:42):
months, we were a bit like, howdo we hold on to what can become
very slippery knowledge in aculture that, I don't know, I
quite liked this phrase, I wasthinking, I think I heard it by
some sort of drag program. Butthis idea that we're all groomed
to be kind of cisgender andstraight. And so then, when
you're up against that, there'ssomething about how do we hold
(22:04):
on to kind of queer knowledge.
And I remember first, when I wasjust kind of Googling and
started looking for researcharound queer children, it's
like, can we even use thatlanguage, somehow, like, dare we
even say that, but it's not likequeer people are born. I don't
know at the age of consent orsome sort of fairly arbitrary
thing or 16 or something. So andit was really helpful to have
(22:25):
kind of coparents really in thewriting and reflecting and
Chance's role that was reallyimportant. And for us to be able
to integrate different differentbits that we brought, you know,
in terms of Anthea, brilliantkind of experience with
children, teenagers, as well asan anti racist perspective. Paul
brought his experience in termsof working as a supervisor and
(22:46):
with a lot of experience ofworking with queer children, and
I guess have a history in youthwork. So we're sort of like we
were thinking developmentallyeven developmentally, even
within the idea of child and itsort of feels now like, it's
just the beginning. You know,like through the specific work
and curiosities that are outthere in the world and hoping
(23:08):
that that sparked by thethinking and the sharing, I
guess.
Peter Blundell (23:17):
Thanks for listening to this episode. If
you'd like to hear a fullversion of this discussion,
please go to our YouTube channeland search for queering
psychotherapy.
J. Chance Czyzselska (23:27):
Okay.
Thanks for having us.
Ellis Johnson (23:30):
Thank you.
Neil Young (23:31):
Thanks.
Hello and welcome to another episode of
the therapist connects podcast.
Today's episode is a shortenedversion of a discussion that was
hosted by therapists connectearlier this year. Caz and I as
co leads, the therapist connecthosted a debate with some of the
authors from a new book calledqueering psychotherapy. This
podcast is a shortened versionof that discussion. If you'd
like to hear the full debate,please go to our YouTube channel
(00:22):
and search for queeringpsychotherapy. Thanks for
listening to the TherapistConnect podcast. If you'd like
to support us, then please go toyour favorite podcast platform
and leave us a review.
Okay, cause would you like tostart us off with the
introductions?
Caz Binstead (00:38):
Ellis J. Johnson, who is a psychodynamic
psychotherapeutic counsellor andtrainer specializing in working
alongside clients who aretransgender, non binary, queer,
and or questioning.
Peter Blundell (00:57):
We also have Jane Chance Czyzselska pronouns
they/them who is a relational,integrative psychotherapist in
private practice, editor andwriter as well as a member of
the Relational School organizingteam.
Caz Binstead (01:12):
And then we have Amanda Middleton, pronouns
she/her, who is a white, queer,femme, and antipodean who thinks
a lot about gender. For the last20 years, she's fought
passionately to put queer livesat the center of knowledge
making obsessively immersingherself in queer theory as a
survival skill. She wonders howwe as queer people can reshape
(01:37):
our relationship to power andresist oppressive forces to take
up more space. Initially, shequalified as a psychologist in
Australia, and then as a familyand systemic practice. As family
and systemic psychotherapist inthe UK, a UKCP registered
psychotherapist in independentpractice. Amanda works primarily
(01:59):
with relationships, gender, sex,and sexuality, specializing
within the LGBT IQ communities.
She has extensive experience inthe NHS and social care, and has
previously worked as aspecialist in the areas of sex
and sexuality, dual diagnosis,HIV and sexual health, drug and
alcohol use and domesticviolence. Her practice is the
(02:21):
pink practice and she is also anAssociate Lecturer at the
Tavistock and Portman trust andsupervisor at Gendered
Intelligence.
Peter Blundell (02:35):
And last but not least, we have Neil Young, who's
an integrative artpsychotherapist, working in
private practice with a diversegroup of people especially in
terms of gender, race, age,class, sexuality, and neuro
diversity. He teaches on varioustherapy trainings, including the
Institute for Art, Dance Therapyand Education. He offers
(02:56):
workshops, training, lectures,and embodied performances
specializing in gender andsexuality broader intersectional
difference, including an antiracist class aware position, and
dance movement as a means ofconnecting to self and others.
Neil also work as a consultanttrainer for organizations such
as Kusum, the sunflower network,enjoys creating open safe spaces
(03:21):
that encourage curiousexploration and increase
understanding. And in 2022, Neilco wrote a chapter on queer
children, Don't Panic Queeringthe Child as part of the ground
based, groundbreaking queeringpsychotherapy book,
Welcome everyone. It might be agood place to start. And maybe
(03:42):
if we could just maybe have alittle bit of a discussion or
exploration around themotivation behind the book, what
kind of what kind of pushed youall to kind of come together and
bring this book out?
J. Chance Czyzselska (03:55):
Thanks, Peter, and Caz.
Yeah, I just just before Ianswer that, I wanted to thank
you for hosting us. Some of usfrom creating psychotherapy
feels really good to be heldthat virtually by you and by the
Therapist Connect community. Ialso, as always want to thank my
(04:19):
co contributors andcoconspirators here today.
Ellis, Amanda and Neil. I'vesaid it before, I'll say again,
what you all put out into theworld continues to teach and
inspire me so thank you.
I'm Chance Czyzselska -psychotherapist, and they/then
(04:40):
pronouns.
So you asked about themotivation for why we co created
queering psychotherapy and I waslooking at some research a
couple of years ago and foundout that LGBTIQ plus people are
more likely than cisgender andheterosexual people to suffer
with mental health issues yet,often in therapy we have poor
(05:04):
outcomes. So I knew that thisresearch, in tandem with the
anecdotal experiences andexamples that I'd had I'd heard
about meant that, you know, Ifelt something had to be done.
Because when I was learning inmy training, you know, about a
(05:25):
million years ago, it wasn'teven that long ago was about 10
years ago, in Eurocentricpsychotherapeutic theories,
which were developed largely byheterosexual cisgender and white
theorists was that queerindividuals are often seen as a
singular group, through anothered lens. And so my
(05:48):
experience in my own training,and also in some of the therapy
relationships I've had, was oneof discomforts, in, you know,
many kinds of situations, but inamongst that, you know, I also
was, was sick, you know,receiving profound learning and
healing. So, despite, you know,the value that comes from these
(06:12):
many of these theories thatwe've learned in our primary
trainings, and also CPDs.
Subsequently, we, you know, canoften end up pathologizing and
marginalizing and diminishingqueer and trans lives. Even if
we're queer and trans ourselves,you know, we can we all
internalize this stuff. Youknow, it's not just the
(06:33):
trainings, but the trainingsthat come from, you know, the,
you know, the socio politicalcontext. That's an example of
the kind of history of this youknow, in Britain,
psychoanalytical organizationsonly apologize for labeling
homosexuality as an illnessaround 10 years ago. And in
America, it was just a few yearsago, in 2019. In fact, I was
(06:55):
looking into some of the kind ofharm that has happened within
our profession, and I saw apaper that was written on them
and admittedly was 1979. Butstill, there's a psychoanalyst.
It's called [name], who was atthe time of president, the
president of the BritishPsychoanalytic Society. And he
(07:16):
wrote that homosexuality shouldbe understood as a defensive
solution to a variety ofneurotic and psychotic problems.
So you know, what you weretalking about earlier Caz, the
homophobia, you know, has, haslong roots and back into
society, in history, andculturally and, you know,
(07:38):
obviously, within ourprofession, and it's a
problematic legacy. Obviously,there's been feminist and queer
and lesbian and gay and transpractitioners who have critiqued
these theories and continue todo so and you know, many are in
the book or are referenced inthe book, but our profession and
you know, psychotherapy andpsychoanalysis have tended to
(08:01):
locate the problem in theindividual or their family and
rarely acknowledge or understandhow factors such as sexuality
and gender and race and class,have impact on clients lived
experiences. In fact, were oftenconsidered, you know, our
difference or otherness, youknow, is often considered to be
(08:24):
the source of our problems,rather than the fact that we
live in a world that devaluesand denigrate certain
embodiments while avoidingothers and expecting everyone to
be white and cis andheterosexual. I mean, I've heard
countless times from peoplewho've been in therapy who said
(08:45):
they've been misgendered orshamed about their sexuality, or
when they talk about racism witha white therapist, or, you know,
they've been pathologized orproblematized, and othered by
therapists, which is, you know,no place any client wants to be.
Queering psychotherapy is anantidote to that. And what we're
doing throughout the chapters isis attempting to make visible
(09:11):
there's the structuralinequalities that that impact
clients lives and, you know, whoare queer or trans or ... or any
clients who have identities oraspects that fall outside of
what's normatively expected? Orof what Jake Yearsley in, in his
chapter calls theheteronormative trance, which is
(09:32):
a phrase I really love. So it'sin this context that we and our
clients find ourselves in amental health crisis,
particularly among trans and ...
clients who are bombarded withhate day in and day out. And I
was shocked to discover recentlywhen I was reading something, I
think it was, I can't rememberwhich publication it was, but
(09:55):
apparently in the last 10 yearshate crimes against LGBTIQ plus
people in UK has risen by 349%,349%!!!. And, you know, yes, all
sorts of things have happened,you know, we've become more
visible and maybe that's part ofwhy, you know, there's such a
backlash, you know, that's oftenthe way isn't there is a kind of
(10:18):
liberation movement that happensand there's more visibility and,
and the backlash, but it's, it'sa horrendous kind of context and
to be living in. So whetheryou're a therapist or in therapy
or just interested in therapyqueering psychotherapy is an
(10:38):
accessible, radical, joyfulhealing collection of
conversations, and they areconversation, some are, some are
written, but some part of thewhole kind of queering and
decolonizing practice of thebook was to write in a more
accessible way, so to have aconversation between different
(10:59):
practitioners about, you know,certain issues arising in, you
know, the course of our livesand clients lives. And I think
that's what what has made thebook so popular, it's, uh, you
know, it's very accessible. Andyeah, really kind of reflects
(11:23):
some of the dynamism of the, ofthe therapeutic dyad.
Peter Blundell (11:29):
One of the phrases that's used in the, in
the acknowledgement section isthat it's a fusion. And I just
really, really liked that word,because I just thought it really
represents kind of all thesedifferent approaches and ways of
understanding things all comingtogether. And, yeah, I really
appreciate that about the book.
J. Chance Czyzselska (11:50):
It is a fusion and it's infused with,
you know, all sorts of, youknow, really enlivening, you
know, sort of aspects of livedexperience. So it feels Yeah, it
feels very live and dynamic andnot dry. And as a lot of
(12:11):
academic theory can. I'll readyou a little bit from the
opening chapter, if you like myintroduction.
In spring 2020, the COVID 19pandemic and national lockdown
I think I'll leave it there fornow. I'd love to see what many
started to change lives as wehave lived them. workplaces and
meeting spaces emptied likecaves, days and weeks slowed
down. Roads cleared of traffic,first quiet and birdsong. Space
(12:35):
opened up for collaborativepsychotherapeutic cross
fertilization. Following aconversation with Dr. Gail
Lewis, in which she notes someof the ways that black lesbian
poet and author Audrey Lourdesideas seem to echo the work of
white heterosexual malepsychoanalyst and Wilfred Bion.
(12:55):
I reread Lourdes poetry is not aluxury, and was struck by the
therapeutic message in herdescription of poetry.
Reflecting on the form as arevelatory distillation of
experience that makes itpossible to give name to the
nameless so it can be thoughtLourdes words sound not
dissimilar to what whitepsychoanalyst Christopher Bolus
(13:19):
conceived with his unsoughtknown for the exploration of
what we unconsciously learn ofthe object world as infants, and
how we can harness it in theservice of our psyches. It
wasn't the first time I'd feltLourdes words convey something
vitally important about how wecan examine and regulate our
(13:41):
emotions. So it's not onlypoetry that is a vital place for
self reflection, andunderstanding, as I believe
therapy can also be, but alsodecolonial, black, lesbian,
feminist, queer and transperspectives that can bring
richness to our profession. Arichness that often goes
unacknowledged, or is evenrejected as too political, as if
(14:05):
the therapy encounter is apolitics free space. It is
because of the politics inherentin our lives, the inequalities
that are endemic to it. Thattherapy, however, can often be a
luxury and also a privilege,especially for those in the
LGBTIQA plus and ...
communities. Therapeuticoutcomes for these client groups
(14:25):
also varied perhaps sometimesbecause of this unwillingness to
accept that all of ouridentities are politicized out
under white, cis heteropatriarchy. Indeed Crawford et
al., in 2018 found that peoplefrom sexual and ethnic
minorities are more likely toreport experiencing lasting bad
(14:46):
effects in therapy. Rhymes etal., in 2019 also found that
compared to heterosexual women,lesbian and bisexual women had
higher final session a severityfor depression, anxiety and
functional impairment. Anincreased risk of not attaining
reliable recovery in depression,anxiety or functioning. Similar
(15:07):
results were found amongbisexual men. In research by
Stonewall, in 2018. One in 20LGBT people and one in five
trans people reported that theyhad been pressured to access
services or change to change orsuppress their sexual
orientation, and or genderidentity. Therapists already
(15:28):
have an ethical obligation notto practice so called Conversion
Therapy. But these harmfulpractices do take place.
Further, as this book goes topress many therapists are
expressing their opposition tothe government decision to
exclude trans people from theban on so called Conversion
(15:49):
Therapy practices, despite thefact that more recent study,
statistics indicate that transpeople are twice as likely as
cisgender LGB people to beoffered or subjected to
conversion practices. And thatof my colleagues would like to
say, feel moved to say.
was from research in 2022.
Caz Binstead (16:14):
Thank you Chance, I mean, inviting anyone else to
jump in. It might be useful ifyou do jump in and just say what
the name of your chapter andchapter you're involved in is,
is called. I mean, I agree withChance about the accessibility
of this book. And I know acouple of you here took part in
(16:35):
kind of interview style. Well,an interview style in the
chapters. How how do people findthat? Was that your choice? Or
Chances? Or?
Ellis Johnson (16:54):
Happy to jump in?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Caz.
Thank you Chance also forgetting us kicked off and, and
reminding us about the contextof the book. Because it was it
was quite a long time ago. Now.
Actually, I think we all westarted to pull all this
together. And so yeah, mychapter is on working with trans
(17:16):
and gender expansive clients.
And I really find it reallygenerative to be in conversation
with chance. And when we had,you know, a couple of broad
questions to kind of, did youwant to sit with, and but what
came out of the conversationwas, was much deeper, much
(17:40):
richer than anything I couldhave just kind of come up with
on my, on my own. So I thinkthat was a really Yeah, really.
Yeah, enjoyable way of kind ofcoming together. And I think
you'll hear me speak about thisChance. A couple of words, I'm
sitting with the main word I'msitting with is centering, or re
(18:04):
centering or decentering. Whatwe understand as sort of the
parameters of, of normal, humanbehavior, human behavior. And
with this book, what we'retrying to do, is, is, is
recenter, queer, trans, intersexexperiences is not being on the
margins of humanity, we're noton the margins of human
(18:27):
experience. But actually, we'reright in the middle. And we
represent something that is, iswhat everybody, actually and
that's why I'm also interestedin using you know, the acronym
GSRD instead of LGBTQIA plus, soGSRDS is, gender, sex and
relationship diversity. And thatacronym sort of demonstrates, I
(18:52):
suppose that everybody has agender everybody has a sexuality
or relationships and sexuality.
Everyone has a relationship totheir relationship style. So
this work is not just for us,but in centering the most
marginalized people. It shiftsthe whole conversation for
everyone. We shift this wholethe whole lens. And, you know,
(19:16):
as queer trans people, it kindof comes naturally to us, I
think, to do that. We're used to
Amanda Middleton (19:21):
And I also had the I think, advantage of being
doing that. So you know, it'ssuch a, it's such a privilege to
be involved with this. And Ithink the feedback we're getting
already is is really exciting.
Yeah, Amanda, Neil, I dont knowif you want to jump in.
(19:48):
in conversation with Chance, inorder to create the chapter. And
for me, there was somethingreally kind of alive and quick
about it, in terms of it being aconversation, and I think in
terms of the book feels, from Iknow, books take forever. And I
know Chance you labored hard onthis. But there is still
(20:09):
something quite fast about thisbook. And I appreciate that,
because from conversation topublishing was a couple of
years. But if we think about theacademic publishing cycle, which
is like five to seven years, itmeans that really important
conversations that are happeningright now can be in people's
hands, and extended. And I thinkthe format also worked for me,
(20:31):
because I'm dyslexic. So if Ihad to write it, it would take
forever, and maybe not happen.
And there's something aboutvaluing an oral tradition, you
know, therapy is such an oraltradition. And yet, our
knowledge is often held when Itrained therapists because,
well, I haven't read enough or Ihaven't done this. And our
relationship to reading is ahuge part of our relationship to
being therapists, I think, andhow we feel sort of competent
(20:54):
and up to date, yet it is anoral tradition, based on the
oral traditions of healing andstorytelling and being with
people in conversation andconnecting. And so that's where
it feels like the book doesmirror the practice, the form
and function thing, which Ireally appreciate about it as
well. Neil, I can't rememberwhether you were interviewed or
(21:19):
whether you wrote.
Neil Young (21:22):
Well, it was kind of we found out as we went, so I
guess, chapter I co wrote, and Ishould say that Paul Harrison,
and Benjamin, were my coauthors. And it really was the
three of us with Chance'ssupport really, in terms of
talking to chance, and then sortof it developed, it was more
like, we ended up talking thethree of us every month for six
(21:42):
months, we were a bit like, howdo we hold on to what can become
very slippery knowledge in aculture that, I don't know, I
quite liked this phrase, I wasthinking, I think I heard it by
some sort of drag program. Butthis idea that we're all groomed
to be kind of cisgender andstraight. And so then, when
you're up against that, there'ssomething about how do we hold
(22:04):
on to kind of queer knowledge.
And I remember first, when I wasjust kind of Googling and
started looking for researcharound queer children, it's
like, can we even use thatlanguage, somehow, like, dare we
even say that, but it's not likequeer people are born. I don't
know at the age of consent orsome sort of fairly arbitrary
thing or 16 or something. So andit was really helpful to have
(22:25):
kind of coparents really in thewriting and reflecting and
Chance's role that was reallyimportant. And for us to be able
to integrate different differentbits that we brought, you know,
in terms of Anthea, brilliantkind of experience with
children, teenagers, as well asan anti racist perspective. Paul
brought his experience in termsof working as a supervisor and
(22:46):
with a lot of experience ofworking with queer children, and
I guess have a history in youthwork. So we're sort of like we
were thinking developmentallyeven developmentally, even
within the idea of child and itsort of feels now like, it's
just the beginning. You know,like through the specific work
and curiosities that are outthere in the world and hoping
(23:08):
that that sparked by thethinking and the sharing, I
guess.
Peter Blundell (23:17):
Thanks for listening to this episode. If
you'd like to hear a fullversion of this discussion,
please go to our YouTube channeland search for queering
psychotherapy.
J. Chance Czyzselska (23:27):
Okay.
Thanks for having us.
Ellis Johnson (23:30):
Thank you.
Neil Young (23:31):
Thanks.
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