Events
The Guild holds a range of events through the year at The Guild in London and on Zoom.
Everyday Racism and the Legacy of Colonialism
Everyday Racism and the Legacy of Colonialism
Ivan Ward
Respondent: Anne Aiyegbusi
Racial Trauma as an Unlaid Ghost of Empire
Chair: Anshu Srivastava (Guild of Psychotherapists)
This is the latest in the series of seminars on Decolonising Psychoanalysis, organised by the Race and Culture Committee of the Guild of Psychotherapists. The series is intended to open up conversations about psychoanalysis by initiating dialogues between academics and psychotherapists, bringing clinical responses to the academic decolonial work. In this seminar, Ivan Ward analyses the psycho-political effects of racist assumptions that are a continuing legacy of colonialism.
Please note that a recording of the seminar will be available to ticket-holders for a full year after the event.
Image caption
From the ‘Snapshots of Empire’ blog, University of Sussex. ‘What are the British Empire’s “Legacies”?’ by Professor Alan Lester. https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/snapshotsofempire/2022/10/10/what-are-the-british-empires-legacies/
About this seminar
Everyday Racism and the Legacy of Colonialism Ivan Ward
This paper is about ‘everyday racism’ and is an attempt to describe something of the atmosphere in which people of colour live their lives in white-majority societies. It does not address the ‘big picture’ of structural, systemic or institutional racism, or the continuing underdevelopment of the global South.
Using my own experiences and those of others in white-majority societies, it looks at the legacy of colonialism in examples of ‘low-level’ everyday racism – the ways in which micro-aggressions operate to create a racialised ‘other’ and to ‘put you in your place’ through covert threats, shame, humiliation, infantalisation, criminalisation and so on. Written in a non-academic style, it will show that even well-meaning and seemingly benign social interactions may be infused with unconsciously held racist beliefs and stereotypes that are a legacy of colonialism and can have a debilitating effect on the person of colour. I will argue that the task of ‘decolonising’ is a psychological as well as socio-politico-economic process.
Speakers’ Biographies
Ivan Ward is the former Deputy Director and Head of Learning at the Freud Museum London, where he worked for 33 years. Born in Hackney, London, in the mid-1950s, he is a mixed-race father of two girls and author or editor of a number of books and papers on psychoanalytic theory and the applications of psychoanalysis to social and cultural issues. Now semi-retired, he works part-time on the FreePsy research project at the University of Essex, UK, which investigates the past history and current practices of socially engaged, free and low-cost psychoanalytically-informed therapeutic collectives. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL Psychoanalysis Unit. Recent publications include: ‘Everyday Racism: Psychological Effects‘ (2022) in The Trauma of Racism: Lessons from the Therapeutic Encounter edited by Beverly J. Stoute and Michael Slevin (Routledge) and ‘Reflections on the object of racism’ (2024) in Journal of Psychosocial Studies Vol. 17 issue 2. Bristol University Press.
Dr Anne Aiyegbusi is a forensic psychotherapist, group analyst, supervisor, organisational consultant and registered mental health nurse. She works part time in the NHS as a principal psychotherapist and group analyst. Anne is also a director, consultant nurse, psychotherapist and group analyst with Psychological Approaches CIC, an independent training and consultancy company which primarily supports service delivery within forensic mental health and criminal justice settings. She is President of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy (IAFP) and course convenor for the IGA Diploma in Group Work Practice – Forensic Settings. Anne has presented and published regularly, nationally and internationally, and is currently writing a book about forensic psychotherapy and racial trauma.
Bursary tickets
A limited number of bursary tickets are available on a pay-what-you-can basis to people who would not be able to attend without financial assistance. To apply for a bursary ticket please email ivan_talks@guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk. Thank you.
A recording will be available for ticket buyers for a full year after the event.
Certificates of Attendance available on request.
Previous seminar recordings are available here –
Organised by the Race and Culture Committee of the Guild of Psychotherapists.
Related Events
The Guild of Psychotherapists holds and links to a wide range of events, sometimes covering controversial issues. The views expressed at these events do not necessarily reflect the position or views of The Guild of Psychotherapists.