Queer Experiencing, Trauma and Person-Centred Therapy Workshop with Rachael Peacock

This year, in collaboration with Fiona Gregory, we are launching an exciting series of person-centred events related to working with trauma (Scroll down to read more about upcoming events in this conference series) ⬇️

Over the years, I have been interested in exploring social and political perspectives on trauma within person-centred theory and practice. In this talk for therapists of all identities, I will develop this perspective by focusing on queer experiencing. For queer people of all ages, the social experience of living in predominantly heterosexual and cisgender societies can be complex, generating trauma through being ‘othered’ and marginalised; in person-centred terms generating conditions of worth and estrangement from organismic experiencing. Yet the liberation associated with being orientated towards ‘queerer ways of being’ and discovering queer communities can provide orientations towards growth. In this way, trauma and growth are not mutually exclusive and queer experiencing is a non-linear process entwinning the personal, social and political. Drawing upon Rogers and contemporary person-centred theory as well as my experiences and I hope your experiences, we can explore different ways to orientate ourselves to the multiplicities of queer experiencing, trauma and the political dimensions within person-centred theory and practice.

Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event

• To develop understanding and appreciation of queer histories, consideration of language and the rich and unique ways in which experiencing can be communicated by queer clients in person-centred therapy and beyond
• To develop understanding of how queer people can be impacted by social and political contexts; how growing up and living in predominantly binary, cisgender and heterosexual societies can manifest in person-centred therapy and interact with person-centred understandings of trauma and person-centred theory more generally
• To develop sensitivity towards the impact of the medical model and understandings of trauma for queer people alongside historical and contemporary considerations of the pathologisation of queer experiencing
• Considering overlooked areas of queer experiencing and trauma, adopting intersectional understandings of plural identities and awareness of power for therapist empathy development

Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?

• Counsellors & Psychotherapists working with people who have experienced trauma

How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?

• Person-centred therapy can potentially offer a uniquely freeing and non-pathologising environment for queer clients. To encourage therapists (of all identities) to sensitively encounter queer clients, the workshop aims to support the development of person-centred cultural competency for understanding how trauma may be uniquely experienced by queer clients alongside the importance of working with client moment-to-moment experiencing in therapy practice.