Exploring Issues of ‘Race’, Culture and Language within a CAT Framework ~ 20 July 2018

Overview of workshop:
This day offered an opportunity to develop confidence and skills for working with difference and diversity, and a language to describe such work, within a CAT-informed framework. The day was relevant to therapeutic work with people from a range of diverse communities, including refugees, those seeking asylum, and those needing language support through an interpreter.

Workshop outline:
Jessie drew upon her extensive experience of using and developing cognitive analytic therapy in clinical practice, supervision and training in the UK, India and Qatar. Combining presentation and discussion, the day aimed to support participants to:

● Explore how ‘race’, culture and language affect the development of self and reciprocal roles at individual and societal levels

● Understand more about identity, internalised racism and intergenerational roles, for both therapist and client, and how these affect therapy process and dynamics

● Recognise and develop more ease in addressing power dynamics in the alliance

● Understand the process and complexities of language when working in a triadic relationship with the support of an interpreter, including impacts on the therapeutic alliance

Who was it for?
The day was aimed at trainee and qualified CAT practitioners and psychotherapists.
Other therapists with some familiarity with cognitive analytic therapy were also welcome to attend.

Facilitator:
Jessie Emilion is a BACP accredited counsellor and UKCP registered cognitive analytic psychotherapist and supervisor. She has worked in the NHS for 20 years in various capacities as a senior clinician, trainer and manager. She has a particular interest in bi-lingualism, culture, language and ‘race’ and the impact of these factors on mental health, development of self and therapeutic alliance. As a trained interpreter she has extensive experience of working with refugee communities, asylum seekers and voluntary sector organisations both as a clinician and an interpreter.

Jessie is currently employed by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust as a CAT Psychotherapy Lead at the Munro Centre, Guys Hospital. In her former role as the Diversity Lead she developed a Trust strategy plus specific group interventions to help improve access to psychological therapies for local Black and minority ethnic groups.

She provides teaching to cognitive analytic therapy training in the UK and India and contributed to the development of programmes for the Addictions Training & Rehabilitation Centre in Qatar as an Associate of Maudsley International.  She also contributes to training on intercultural work for PWPs and high intensity therapist trainings at UCL and Salomons.

She has played a central role in the introduction of CAT in India and has developed the model further by incorporating religious, cultural and societal values.  This has helped to make CAT more adaptive, appropriate and relevant to Indian society and cultural context.  Alongside Hilary Brown, she co-authored a chapter based on this work in Deborah Pickvance‘s 2017 collection Cognitive Analytic Supervision: a relational approach.  She has also published in Reformulation about work with interpreters in therapy and elsewhere on Bilingualism and Cognitive Analytic Therapy: The Role of Language in the Development of Self.

Location:
54 St James Street, Liverpool L1 0AB.  For more details of the venue click here.

Event Downloads:

Booking-Form-Race-Culture-20-July-2018-1.pdf
Flyer-CAT-Race-Culture-Language-FINAL.pdf