Counselling Services
Social Awareness Counselling
Form and maintain authentic connections
An important aspect of my work revolves around my own anti-racism education and extending my practice to groups and individuals on institutional and individual levels.
I have worked as a facilitator at UCT (University of Cape Town) to support anti-racism work but have found that these public spaces often don’t allow, in fact sometimes even hinder, a true reflection on our own positionality, internalized harmful beliefs and residual racist thinking. The need to be seen as a ‘good person’ added to the volatile nature of public spaces (including social media) makes it difficult if not dangerous to be open and truthful about our own struggles with internalized racism. As much as education is an important aspect of anti-racism work, it cannot end there. As white people we have the responsibility to go deeper and truly understand our potential to unintentionally harm and how to do better.
Bringing the strands of my work in marginalized spaces and my anti-racism work together, I am moving away from public platforms and extend my offerings to individual white people who have ‘done the work’ of educating themselves but understand they need to go deeper. Having gained knowledge of the many manifestations of racism, what language or behaviors to avoid and how to not ‘act’ racist (if that is even possible) many of us are still struggling in diverse spaces. Often people are afraid of ‘saying the wrong thing’, of being called racist which makes them unable show up authentically and vulnerable in so called diverse spaces or with people from a different background. Based in fear of rejection and judgement, those relationship tend to remain superficial or conflicted.
I offer my own experiences in this space as someone who had to work through the many layers of fear, self-deception, defensiveness and denial in order to not lose the most important relationships in my life. I believe I can accompany my clients with empathy and compassion as they begin to process the residue of their socialization into a racist society. When there is no judgement people can more and more show up as their true vulnerable selves, curious rather than defensive, open to learn, to mess up, to be accountable and try again, whilst deepening their inter-racial relationships.
If we can accept ourselves as human beings capable of doing harm (as we all are) even if we are well intentioned, if we understand that being socialized into racism is something we can own up to without shame or guilt but with an open heart and the wish for collective healing, we can learn to listen deeply and from a place of love and curiosity rather than ‘otherness’ and defensiveness.
In this as in all of my areas of work, I am not setting myself up as an expert or as someone who ‘knows’ better. In fact, the longer I do this work, the less I ‘know’ and the more I have learned to trust my clients and my intuition to guide us to where mutual learning and growth can happen.
When I say ‘I have learned’ I need to acknowledge first and foremost the people who have made my learning possible, namely my black family, friends, colleagues and last but not least my black and queer clients, who have over the years shown me more love and trust than I felt I deserved, who have generously shared themselves, their wisdom and knowledge so I could continue to grow and become a better parent, friend, colleague and therapist.
Ready to find your path?
I offer a 30 min free consultation to everybody before we start our sessions so we can get to know each other and find out if we are a good fit.