Silencing, power and racial trauma in groups

Abstract

As a black woman I have found myself in various settings where as the only person of colour, speaking of my experience of the world has led to hostility, occasionally to violence, and, more frequently to disorientating silencing attempts. As a therapist working specifically with people of colour, clients have approached me, ashamed, often terrified, describing these familiar walls of impenetrable defensiveness bolstered by gagging manoeuvers their voices meet, when attempting to articulate racism within all social structures. This collective experience of silencing, as illustrated by Eddo-Lodge’s words, is of critical significance for group processes and social dynamics and thus group work practice. This article aims to illuminate the functions of racism related silencing in groups and to offer some formulations of the same in the hope of supporting the profession to make space for those whose voices and perspectives it is still by and large to integrate. This article will present my reflections on silence, silencing and power in groups, primarily from a black perspective. It will mainly engage with formulations and theoretical explorations of racialized dynamics personally experienced, witnessed or reported to me. It will argue that silencing is a mechanism that protects the white psychic equilibrium and the racially stratified social order. It will be further posited that acts of racial silencing as remnants of intergenerational trauma, reproduce and are borne out of power relations and, that they may be enacted within group analytic therapy.

Black Power–White Halos. A response to Guilaine Kinouani’s ‘Silencing, power and racial trauma in groups’

“…I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to another important and challenging article from Guilaine Kinouani (GK) (Kinouani, 2020). She addresses here a quite important problem for group analysis which is central to its raison d’être—that is to promote and facilitate free and open communication.…”

A history of the struggle against racism in the social unconscious of group analysis

“…I was not, as I assumed at the time, talking to fellow group analysts. I was talking to what I have recently, with the help of my colleague, Guilaine Kinouani (2020a, 2020b), come to identify as the ‘impenetrable wall of whiteness’ (Blackwell, 2020a).…”

We’ve all got skin in the game: National Diversity Working Group: Power, Privilege and Position

“…In the wider context of mental health and social care trainings, group analysis is often correctly perceived and experienced to be exclusive with a culture which has yet to develop a sensitivity to the integral inclusion of students from a range of social and ethnic backgrounds (Kinouani, 2020; Stevenson, 2020). Many members and students on IGA courses are white, middle class and heterosexual as they are in many other analytic psychotherapy organizations and trainings.…”

“…That there had not been any sustainable initiatives in the IGA specifically aimed at addressing the disparity between the inclusive group analytic theory and the exclusive perception and experience of many in the organization, was unquestionably indicative of various institutional prejudices in the IGA. It suggests a prejudiced culture and dominance of exclusive anti-social destructive group norms at work within the IGA at an organizational level which is, for example, reflected in the recent contribution on sexuality by Daniel Anderson (2016), and on race by Guilaine Kinouani (2020) and Stuart Stevenson (2020).…”

“…Although there is an awareness within the IGA about power and marginalized identities, and a commitment to address these issues, the PPP believes that there remains a re-enacted systemic issue which could be interpreted as a resistance or racial silencing (Kinouani, 2020). The translation of theory into clinical practice is often a challenging one, and one that needs addressing within group analysis, particularly in relation to race.…”