Thinking Space: Promoting Thinking About Race, Culture and Diversity in Psychotherapy and Beyond (Tavistock Clinic Series)

Thinking Space was set up to develop the capacity of staff and trainees at the Tavistock Clinic to think about racism and other forms of hatred toward difference in ourselves and others. Drawing on Bion’s (1962) distinction between “knowing” and “knowing about”, the latter of which can be a defense against knowing a subject in a deeper and emotionally real way, Thinking Space sought to promote curiosity, exploration and learning about difference, by paying as much attention as to how we learn (process) as to what we learn (content). This book is a celebration of ten years of Thinking Space at the Tavistock Clinic and a way of sharing the thinking, experience and learning gained over these years. Thinking Space functions, among other things, as a test-bed for ideas and many of the papers included here began as presentations, and were encouraged and developed by the experience. These papers do not seek to provide a coherent theory or set of views. On the contrary they are very diverse and decidedly so, as finding, expressing and developing one’s own personal idiom involves emotional truthfulness and is an important part of getting to know oneself: both of which are important prerequisites to getting to know the other. Thinking space : the model -- Frank Lowe Race and our evasions of invitations to think : how identifications and idealizations may prevent us from thinking -- Onel Brooks Between fear and blindness : the white therapist and the black patient -- Helen Morgan Is it coz I'm white? -- David Morgan Being "clack" in the transference : working under the spectre of racism -- Jonathan Bradley -- The complexity of cultural competence -- Inga-Britt Krause "Class is in you" : an exploration of some social class issues in psychotherapeutic work -- Joanna Ryan Psychoanalysis and homosexuality : keeping the discussion moving -- Juliet Newbigin Paradoxes and blind spots : an exploration of Irish identity in British organizations and society -- Aideen Lucey Dehumanization, guilt, and large-group dynamics with reference to the West, Israel, and the Palestinians -- Martin Kemp -- The August 2011 riots- them and us -- Frank Lowe. 'Thinking Space' was set up to develop the capacity of staff and trainees at the Tavistock Clinic to think about racism, and other forms of hatred toward difference in ourselves and others. Drawing on Bion's (1962) distinction between ""knowing"" and ""knowing about"", the latter of which can be a defence against knowing a subject in a deeper and emotionally real way, Thinking Space sought to promote curiosity, exploration and learning about difference, by paying as much attention as to how we learn (process) as to what we learn (content). This book is a celebration of ten years of Thinking Spa This book promotes curiosity, exploration and learning about difference by paying as much attention as to how we learn (process) as to what we learn (content). It shares the thinking, experience and learning of staff at the Tavistock Clinic, the premier psychotherapy training institution in the NHS.