Introduction to the certificate in working with racial trauma and race based injuries using the foundation of group analysis

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the upcoming new course: the certificate in working with racial trauma and race based injuries using the foundation of group analysis. And in particular she focuses some attention on the large group that is going to be focused on Whiteness at Work.

She starts by describing the focus of the course. It is the first in-depth course on racial trauma in the UK, unlike the other courses it is a year long rather than a few days. It’s an online, group based course that looks at racial trauma critically, holistically, in the main using the foundation of group analysis, psychoanalysis, psychology and neuroscience, but also seeking to attempt to interrogate the thinking and colonial logics that lie within these disciplines. It’s a course for everyone but particularly people who are placed in positions to help, support and manage people who are racialised as black and brown and who are experiencing race based issues, and who may be dealing with race based distress and/or racial trauma.

Then she gives some background in why she is running the course. It’s the outcome of professional and traditional doctoral studies, years of research around racial trauma as well as thinking about where we are in the world socio-politically in terms of global insecurity and racial retraumatisation, all of which resulted in Guilaine going being called from an African ontological and cosmological perspective to to create this course.

She then discusses the content of the course in general and focuses on the large group that looks at whiteness at work. The group on whiteness is a core component of the certificate, by whiteness we mean the operationalisation of the structure of White Supremacy, the stratification of life based on racialisation. The aim of the group is to create a space to come together as a community to think about whiteness and share and speak about what they experience. It will meet monthly online and will focus on the dynamics at play and how to resist them. 

She concludes by considering that the bulk of harm she has seen in her clinical work has been acquired within the workplace and how this means it is essential for people within the workplace to understand these patterns. She is offering the experience of being in a large group to people wanting to pursue group analysis as a therapeutic discipline but more than that a large group is likely to repeat and recreate some of the dynamics at play out within institutions and society. So it’s very useful and insightful for exploring these issues in a more contained and better held environment.

Interested in the course? More information can be found here: https://racereflections.co.uk/certificate-in-working-with-racial-trauma-and-race-based-injuries-using-the-foundation-of-group-analysis-fee-page/

and an opportunity to reserve a place can be found here: https://racereflections.co.uk/events/open-day-certificate-in-working-with-racial-trauma-and-race-based-injuries-using-the-foundation-of-group-analysis/

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