Posted on: 16 March 2022
CNWL arts psychotherapist Jessica Collier celebrated with colleagues and friends, Thursday 10 March, the launch of her new book Intersectionality in the Arts Psychotherapies, edited with Corrina Eastwood. Comprising a wide range of chapters exploring how various forms of disadvantage, disability and trauma intersect with mental health and educational challenges. It calls on all clinicians to better understand how they bring their own privilege into dialogue with a desire to help.
Dr Ryan Kemp, CNWL’s Director Therapies, attended the launch and said:
“For such a serious topic and a serious book, the launch event was very joyous and uplifting. It is no mean feat to get a book developed, especially during the pandemic. But nonetheless the book engages with a vital subject, how easy it is to see the people we serve as people with offenses or diagnoses. In fact these individuals have been subject to multiple powerful forces outside of their control which have shaped their lives. Their suffering is a testament to how unfair our society has been and remains. This book is part of process of healing some of these deficits we see in our services every day. I think Jessica and Corrina should be very proud with what they have produced.”
Read Jessica’s speech below.
"First of all this evening I want to thank everyone here for coming and to think about those people who were not able to come tonight. I especially want to keep in mind the people in the world right now who are fleeing their homes and fighting for their lives. Violence, as James Gilligan writes, is an epidemic. An epidemic born of fear and shame and an inability to accept otherness or tolerate difference.
While I’ve spent many years working with underprivileged people, I had not properly considered my own position. And while I know prejudice - growing up a lesbian in the 1980s was characterized by explicit and lawful homophobia - I had not thought about my own privilege properly, even as I taught and wrote about the importance for therapists of understanding their unconscious motivations, desire for power or feelings of insecurity, fear or rejection.
So we decided to make a book.
Our early discussions focussed on what we did not want the book to be. We did not want to compile a book by “experts” discoursing on how successful art therapy should be done. I felt - and I feel - that it’s important to show the struggles and disappointments of therapy, as well as the fruitful and gratifying encounters.
We did not want a book about knowing. I did not want a book about how competent, empathic and non-judgemental arts therapists are. We wanted a book about our own uncertainty, internalised prejudices and unconscious bias and we wanted to explore how this influences our clinical practice. We wanted a book not about professional success, but about thoughtfulness and reflexivity. The question at the heart of my own practice often seems to me to be “Why do I want to be in this powerful position?”
For many years this building was a hostel for homeless women. In my work with disadvantaged women in prison, I am constantly witness to the very extremes of what results from the marginalisation and abuse of women in a patriarchal society; be they women of colour or other minority ethnic backgrounds who experience racism every day, be they white women, women who are victims of psychological, physical and sexual abuse, women living in poverty - as most do - LGBTQ+ women or women who have been trafficked. Women with no access to education. Women battling addiction or mental health problems, with disabilities or those who are neurologically diverse. Intergenerationally traumatised women who have committed terrible acts of violence and the disadvantaged children and men who are also profoundly affected by the patriarchy.
When we invite our patients to do arts therapies, we are asking them to come on a challenging journey of discovery. Going on a journey is what I think important writing does, for the reader but also for the author. I am so grateful to the contributors for their willingness to make their own journeys. I was keen for the writers, including myself, to find their own way through their chapters, to feel and find what mattered most to them, just as we try to support our patients find what matters most to them. This feels risky, and I want to thank all the authors for taking that risk.
Most of all, I didn’t want this book to be a theoretical exercise, but a book full of lived experience, reflexivity, intuition and learning.
I have the privilege of being in a position where I can publish a book! And I have had the privilege of learning an immense amount from this project, from my patients, from Corrina Eastwood, and all the contributors and their patients and clients, and from the students who asked me all those questions that I was unsure how to answer.
So, I want to say thank you to them – and also to the supportive and inspirational colleagues and friends, many of whom are here this evening, who have taught me so much and continue to teach and guide me. And thanks always to my partner Janetka – for everything."