What can the world of psychotherapy and counselling contribute to wider social justice and progressive social change? Lynne Gabriel and Kate Smith interview one of the most socially influentially psychotherapists in the world, Dr Susie Orbach.
This event is included in a series of seminars organised in collaboration with the Therapy and Social Change Network.
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Kate Smith PhD. is an academic at Abertay University in Scotland where she oversees the MSc in Pluralistic Therapy and the Tayside Centre for Counselling. She has led a number of initiatives within the pluralistic practice community, as well as being the co-author of The Pluralistic Therapy Primer, 50 Frequently Asked Questions in Pluralistic Therapy, and a co-Editor in Chief of the Pluralistic Practice Journal.
Dr. Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, writer, activist and social critic. She co-founded The Women’s Therapy Centre, London in 1976. Her first book, Fat is a Feminist Issue has been continuously in print since 1978. Her most recent In Therapy is based on the Radio 4 series of the same name heard by 3 million listeners. She lectures widely in the UK, Europe, NZ and North America, has provided consultation and social policy advice for organisations from the Government and the NHS to the World Bank. She was a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a Guardian columnist, both for 10 years and continues to work with many individuals and couples from her practice in London. She is a member of The Balint Consultancy.
Lynne is Professor of Counselling and Mental Health at York St John University, York, UK. She is a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Accredited and Registered Counsellor and Psychotherapist, and an honorary fellow of the association. She is a trained supervisor of practitioners working within the counselling, mental health and helping professions. Originally trained as a mental health nurse, Lynne has been a key player in the counselling and mental health fields for many years, contributing at local, regional, national, and international levels. Lynne has a leadership role in mental health transformation in York, working with the health and mental health system partners to bring about co-designed and coproduced change.
Lynne’s current research areas include public mental health, domestic and relationship abuse and trauma, pluralistic approaches to ethics for the counselling professions, group interventions for bereavement and loss, review and evaluation of standardised mental health measures, and evaluation of the provision of online counselling. Lynne has published books on ethics in practice and research papers on multiple aspects of work in the counselling professions. Lynne is working with coeditor Professor Andrew Reeves on an Ethics in Action series for Routledge and is lead author for the series header book, Navigating Relational Ethics in Day-to-Day Practice (co-author Professor Andrew Reeves; book is in production and due for publication in September 2024).
The Therapy and Social Change (TaSC) Network is a broad affiliation of people interested in exploring the interface between therapeutic ideas and practices and social justice perspectives and actions. We are interested both in the ways that counselling and psychotherapy can be practiced with social justice concerns in mind (for instance, tackling unconscious biases in the consulting room), and also in the ways that therapeutic principles and practices can be extended out to the wider social realm (for instance, developing social and emotional literacy in schools).
