Abolition

In her book Nejma,  quiet poet Nayyirah Waheed speaks to her education as a writer and the fact that white supremacy shaped the educational curriculum and the texts she was offered as student.  

until we are so beleaguered and 
swollen 
with a definition of poetry that is white skin and
not us. 
that we truck our scalding. our soreness. 
behind ourselves and
learn 
poetry.
as trauma. as violence. as erasure. 
another place we do not exist. 
another form of exile 
where we should praise. honor. our own starvation.
Thinking about abolition when it comes to therapeutic thought, practice and teaching - who was looking at you in the theory you were offered?  How was it a violence?  A starvation?  
How were you seen and not seen by the texts, thinkers and teachers? 
What were you offered?  What could you have done with? Who? 
What have you done to correct that since? 

every poem. here.
is an unwrite.
of all that has been written in me without. permission.  (Nejma: Nayyirah Waheed). 
Abolition is a creative practice, a therapeutic practice of un-writing that which has been imprinted upon and within us, a re-writing and re-imagining otherwise.
Dr Jennifer Mullan's work is focussed on decolonizing therapy and offers radical critique and understanding. You can also study with her work via her posts on  instagram.  Podcast. 
"Depth psychology can be seen as an effort which radically challenges dominant cultural paradigms of selfhood and reality. It can also be seen as reflecting, conserving, perpetuating aspects of the cultural status quo that contribute to human suffering".
"Liberation psychology, borne from the inspiration of liberation theology, argues that psychology itself requires liberation before it can be a clear force for liberation.  The first step in such a process is to situate itself as a discipline within a cultural and historical context".



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