Lenticular Futures

We're transforming psychotherapy and counselling in three ways: We are re-thinking all therapeutic theory to situate the individual in wider contexts and systems. We ask how everything is connected, by whom and with what consequences! Join us in decolonising, depathologising and ecologising practice, theory and research We can help therapists and training institutes develop future oriented technological competence for more accessible practice. Why is that important? There is a need to decolonise and depathologise the theory and practice of psychotherapy and counselling. We need to understand the problems of the individual as situated in a world which is socially, culturally and economically unbalanced. And we need to have ways of recognising and working with people's complex intersectional community memberships, experiences and talents in therapy. Why now? We are living in a panmorphic crisis (Simon 2021). It's a good time to read the writing on the wall and take action. We can do this by making decolonising and depathologising theory and practice, by responding with EcoSystemic ways of working, by critically engaging with accessible and future oriented technological possibilities. What work do we do? The key areas of our work are Training - Research - Consultancy. We run workshops and seminars to create and support decolonised, depathologised and ecosystemic ways of working. We host conferences on social issues affecting psychotherapy and counselling practice and training. We introduce psychotherapists and their training organisations to new technologies and intramediality to help make learning and assessment more accessible and culturally relevant. We produce research reports on future technology for therapy; neurodiverse therapy; therapeutic space; ecosystemic therapy; indigenous knowing and practice in therapy; new ways of training and assessing counselling and psychotherapy trainees; more... We consult to training organisations and professional membership bodies to help them improve the experience and success of trainees from diverse communities We run leadership and organisational development groups for leaders and managers who are developing inclusive therapeutic services What kind of organisation is Lenticular Futures? We are becoming a Community Interest Company. That means we are a Not For Profit and all proceeds from work support free or low cost projects and research within the organisation. How do we fund this work? We charge for workshops, conferences and seminars we host. We apply for funding. We welcome donations for specific projects or in general What does Lenticular mean? Lenticular Futures is a term borrowed from a paper by Professor Wanda Pillow (link). It's a prompt to hold in mind past, present and future when you meet people or see something. It's an invitation to notice the neurotypical, heteronormative, eurocentric lenses we have been taught to look through and check who-what we are including and who-what we are excluding. It comes from noticing what Wanda calls a "whiteout" in academic and professional literature of Global Majority contributors. This is an era for new curricula and making new theory and practice. Our professions can easily lead changes in the balance of power and develop more user friendly ways of working. What are our philosophical objectives? To theorise and interrogate fundamental taken for granteds in the cultural bias of theory and practice. To develop a lenticular ideology of psychotherapy and counselling which integrates and is led by decolonising, depathologising, ecosystemic, contextual influences of planet and co-inhabitants. To redress the exclusion of knowledge from oppressed population groups. To support therapeutic practices which are generated from within communities. To understand and address systemic influences of capitalism on wellbeing. To critically work with the socio-techno world in which we live. To get that systemic understanding of the world is an overarching metatheory for all our modalities. To decolonise means not having a disordered attachment to theories of disorder. Who are we? The co-founders are experienced psychotherapists and organisational consultants. We bring a vast amount of experience in systemic thinking about organisations, culture, therapy and counselling training, research and management. We also know how to create initiatives from within the margins. The co-founders are Dr Julia Jude, Dr Gail Simon, Rukiya Jemmott, Dr Leah Salter, Kiri Summers, Dr Liz Day, Dr Birgitte Pedersen, Anne Bennett, Naz Nizami, Dr Francisco Urbistondo Cano and Amanda Middleton. Forthcoming events Lenticular Futures: Crafting Practices beyond this Unravelled World FLIP@Brathay 2nd & 3rd May 2022 https://lf2022.eventbrite.co.uk Indigenous and Decolonising Knowledge and Practice Decolonising Therapeutic Practice read-watch-listen-make groups Future Tech to improve experiences for people doing therapy and in therapy training EcoSystemic Return Reading Seminars Professional Wellbeing events Walking and Outdoors Therapy Creating Decolonised Participatory Groups Systemic Practice and Autism Conference Writing Performance as Research Film, podcast, documentary making with people doing training and therapy Watch this page and our Eventbrite page - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - : - Therapy in a Panmorphic World This era of panmorphic crisis requires urgent, creative, ethics-led responses. Most of the professional theories we live by came into being without their ideological foundations being questioned. We cannot take a step further in this world without a commitment to developing awareness of parallel, criss-crossing, multidimensional, transtemporal, transcultural, transmaterial elements of living – and how they interact. No Meaning Without Context The key systemic value of understanding context is paramount to inquiry, to understanding what is happening and how to move as a relational, situated participant-player. But the contexts in play are often hidden, erased, elusive or remote, and it can be plain hard to see-feel-understand the knowledges and experiences specific to other places, people or disciplines. The Individual Is Not The Problem The psych professions confuse this further through the decontextualising practices of individualising and pathologising explanation of why some people see some things one way and not another. Furthermore, the social construction of truth is a debate that transcends academia and has been put to work by political agendas to foster an era of mistrust of truth. People are now aware that “truth” can be put to work for objectives other than the common good. This undermines social justice issues and what counts as information. Voices from within a community, from within lived experience are undermined by voices from without of those contexts often without a critique of power relations. A Fresh Look at Training Counsellors and "Psycho"therapists We cannot train relational practitioners in aboutness-withoutness ways of thinking. It separates people from place and history, and it creates colonisers and pathologisers whose practices become policy and influence the majority’s “common sense”. Opportunities for other kinds of learning are lost. The first language of the psycho professions of “talking therapy”, whatever its modality, is excluding of other ways of moving on safely and creatively together. The psychotherapies are playing catch-up in how people use technology to communicate in their everyday lives. A Paradigm Shift for Therapy and Counselling The Black Lives Matter movement offers a choice. It can be treated as a passing protest or a cultural shift. This organisation chooses to take the position that no-one should choose to be unchanged by Black Lives Matter. The question is how to be changed in ways that will contribute to a better world? This is more than a matter of equal rights. It is about safety now, it is about heritage, rich, stolen, re-interpreted, it is about past, present and future being held in mind, all the time. Professional practice needs to scrutinise its theoretical heritage with its hidden ideological assumptions to study and guide our ways forward into a new era, to meet change with culturally appropriate language, local knowledges, and ways of being and imagining.