Taylor Swift’s Engagement Ring

It’s nearly the end of 2025 so with Christmas and New Years Eve coming up soon what better moment than to think about things that glitter, and what goes in to making them? In today's episode Simone does a deep-dive into Taylor Swift’s engagement ring and it’s connection to mining and colonialism. Although it’s not really about the ring but about what it and “American royalty” represent within white supremacy during these times of genocide(s). They consider some of the workers involved in the creation of this ring and the histories and contexts that formed this August 2025 media moment. Articles referred to:The diamond for Taylor Swift's ring may be from India, claims Instagram user! : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/fashion/luxury/cover-story/the-diamond-for-taylor-swifts-ring-may-be-from-india-claims-instagram-user/articleshow/123541549.cmsBlood Diamonds: The Kimberley Process and Their History: https://ourosjewels.co.uk/blogs/education/blood-diamonds-kimberley-processSubscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine responds to an email sent to her about the differential treatment of people of colour in the workplace, and why Black people are treated more harshly. This question was a response to a thread she made about the idealisation of Black people, and so this episode is also a follow up to the last episode where she spoke on that topic.She begins with an aside considering hierarchies of Racism under White Supremacy, particularly in relation to the UK, France and the USA.She then goes through examples of differential treatment across racial lines and shares some thoughts on the reasons why these patterns are engrained within white supremacist society.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on how, seemingly paradoxically, when Black people (and other marginalised groups) are idealised in the workplace it can put them at risk, and result in their denigration and/or devaluation.She begins by looking an an example, a Black doctor mentioned in Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313127/black-skin-white-masks-by-fanon-frantz/9780241396667She expands on this concept to detail the ways that this doctor might be exceptionalised and idealised due to being a competent and skilled person from a group that is not seen to have those qualities. And how this sets them up to fail when any mistake is made on their part resulting in a pendulum swing where they are often seen as betraying the person or institution that was idealising them.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on what she has learnt from the first year of this course and offers some advice for how people might prepare for the course, particularly for people who are new to analytic thinking and practice.She hadn’t necessarily anticipated that such a broad range of people that would be attracted to applying, which enriches the conversation and the group for all parties, but also brings some challenges. So some preparation for applicants who come from outside of mental health and psychotherapy may be helpful.She considers that even though the course being primarily online helps make it accessible there are a few elements involved in it being online that can be challenging and she reflects on those areas and how to overcome these challenges.People who are coming to group analytic thinking and practice for the first time are not necessarily familiar with the role that the unconscious plays within that, and so some preparation around could be helpful. Similarly reflecting on reflectivity and the self will be required. And preparation for the way that group analysis by design is unstructured.If you are interested in being a part of the next cohort of this course that will be beginning in January this episode should be useful for you. Also if you have issues do feel free to reach out to Guilaine about them. And if you want to be a part of it do apply as soon as you can as places are limited and will be allocated in order of application.Contact Guilaine at [email protected], rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Simone continues on their reflections around Black Maternal Health Week which took place in April earlier this year, organised by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance: https://blackmamasmatter.org/The first episode covering this topic can be found here: How Black women and others experience discrimination at work while pregnant https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/17304518Simone considers this years theme Healing Legacies: strengthening Black maternal health through collective action and advocacy. They begin by reminding us of the range of people who experience pregnancies, and define and explore the spectrum of gender identities.They then talk about the role of doulas in supporting pregnant people during their birth process and postpartum. They then take the article: Doulas, Racism, and Whiteness: How Birth Support Workers Process Advocacy towards Women of Color by Juan L. Salinas, Manisha Salinas and Megan Kahn as a jumping off point: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/12/1/19They talk about the findings of this paper and combine that with their own lived experience and knowledge of other research and advocacy to go through the specific issues faced by both Black doulas and Black birthing people.They finish by looking at another article: Addressing Systemic Racism in Birth Doula Services to Reduce Health Inequities in the United States by Marieke S Van Eijk,  Grace A Guenther, Paula M Kett, Andrew D Jopson, Bianca K Frogner and Susan M Skillman https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8896213/And recommending Episode 182 of the podcast Evidence Based Birth:  Black-led Queer and Trans Birth Work with Mystique Hargrove, Kortney Lapeyrolerie, and Nadine Ashby https://evidencebasedbirth.com/black-led-queer-and-trans-birth-work-with-mystique-hargrove-kortney-lapeyrolerie-and-nadine-ashby/Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine responds to some queries and questions about accessing our foundation course in Group Analysis centring racial trauma.She begins by outlining what the course consists of and celebrating its certification by the Institute of Group Analysis. Then she talks about the ways this course is designed to be accessible and goes over the different pathways offered for you to follow if you require financial or structural support.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine responds to a query that came up when she recently received an honorary doctorate related to her contribution to analytic and psychodynamic theory and psychodynamic and analytic practice, specifically in relation to marginalised groups and race. She reflects on how she feels about this doctorate in terms of her personal journey within academia, how this doctorate is (so far) her most significant career achievement, and that it has a similar narrative arc to her experience of writing her first book Living While Black: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442992/living-while-black-by-kinouani-guilaine/9781529109436She teases out the ideas around this question, considering social media, transparency, reflexivity, intersectionality, disclosure, accessibility, connection, cartesian dualism, trauma, splitting, joy, beauty, pleasure, resistance and sharing work when it is still half formed.She refers to this previous episode of the podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/15059341Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on how the perception of language and linguistics can become dislocated through a primitive colonial imaginary to the point where people do not hear language as it is.She presents a hypothesis around the ways that the literal sound of racialised people talking can become distorted and dislocated in the ears of white people listening. She draws on two anecdotes as examples, both consisting of French speakers being heard as speaking non-French languages, one in an online video from a few years ago of two Black French people, and one a personal story of racial violence that she and her mother experienced. In addition she considers some passages by Frantz Fanon in his book Black Skin, White Masks: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313127/black-skin-white-masks-by-fanon-frantz/9780241396667She asks what happens to the white psyche when exposed to stimuli related to Blackness and African-ness absorbed through the white imaginary. And considers the way this phenomenon distorts reality impacting how The Other is perceived. She compares it to the racial hostility that happens when someone is speaking in a rational, clear and precise way but the interlocutor cannot understand. She calls this racial contempt where people of colour's words are seen as “mumbojumbo”.She posits that this distortion functions differently from epistemic credibility and violence, it acts more as an intellectual block, playing out as a distortion, an almost physical experience, where people are literally not heard, or what is heard is not heard as is, but as imagined.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Simone reflects on how even though DEI initiatives end to fall short of meaningfully achieving their aims, operating as lip service for corporations, banning them only creates more harm.They talk about how the US courts have been utilised by the Trump administration and the way this impacts workplaces and schools. And how eliminating diversity initiatives in healthcare has some serious implications for racial health equity.They look at this article:  Elimination of Federal Diversity Initiatives: Implications for Racial Health Equity by Latoya Hill, Samantha Artiga, Akash Pillai, and Alisha Rao https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/elimination-of-federal-diversity-initiatives-implications-for-racial-health-equity/Then they consider how this impacts both staff and service users within healthcare. They consider how banning DEI work disproportionately impacts people of colour who tend to deliver these services, and also seriously sets back scholarship around these areas. Linking these issues to White Supremacy, capitalism and the legal enshrinement of false binary ideas around gender and sex. They finish by looking at some of the efforts to fightback against the Trump administration in these areas.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on some questions and queries that people of colour, particularly Black people experience, in relation to their “racial” lineage and heritage. How these function as racist micro-aggressions and in particular the relationship between what is being asked, the histories of colonialism, and the power structures of White Supremacy.She focuses on one of the most familiar micro-aggressive questions, “Where are you really from?” and it's more subtle forms, and then explores queries about the specifics of Black people’s family history regarding whether they are “mixed”, through the lens of colonial violence and rape in within the African continent and the islands of the Caribbean.Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.