Foundation Level One: Working with Expansive Clients: Trans and Non-Binary Experiences

Part of a series of three workshops on decolonising gender expansive therapy – see below for further details

About the Workshop

This is the first of three workshops designed for mental health practitioners eager to enhance their practice with transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive clients, as well as any practitioner working with gender in the therapy room - this means everyone!

Encompassing and moving beyond trans/gender 101, Foundation Level One is suitable for practitioners at any level of competence around trans/gender client work and provides the necessary foundation for continuing onto Level Two: Decolonising Gender (& sexuality & relationship diversity) and Level Three: Expansion in Practice. Level One is also suitable as a stand alone training.

For this first workshop, Day one will be spent deepening and expanding our understanding of gender and exploring our own relationship to gender, with prompts, group work, experiential exercises and discussion.

Day two will begin with an exploration of the lived experiences of trans, non-binary and gender expansive clients in our current context. Including terminology, up to date information about trans lives and lived experiences, presenting issues in therapy (including dysphoria and incongruence) and current internationally-accepted best practice.

Lastly, we will engage with case studies to develop our skills in practice and consider what we don’t yet know about supporting these marginalised groups.

Agenda

The two-day workshop will cover:

• Introduction: What do we mean by Gender?
  
• Gender identity development
• Mapping our gender journeys; finding our core assumptions
• Current socio-political context (including radicalisation) and historical considerations
• Trans, non-binary and expansive experiences in focus
• Understanding terminology, language and key terms
• Medical and Historical context
• Legal considerations
• Understanding international best practice
• Common presenting issues and themes including working with dysphoria
• Case studies

Aims & Objectives

• At the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
  
• Strengthen skills in using an intersectional, decolonial lens
• Understand the current socio-political context for gender-expansive and queer people
• Identify key intersectional considerations/challenges
• Recognise and work with key language and terminology around gender
• Identify and implement international best practice
• Grasp the historical and current context for marginalisation of gender nonconformity
• Feel confident and prepared to engage with complex conversations around gender
• Recognise further learning needs and gaps in knowledge within your own practice and know where to find additional resources
• Connect with like-minded colleagues who care about progressing their practice to include anti-colonial/decolonial elements

This programme is for you if:

• You care deeply about your work being safe, accessible and effective for marginalised clients
  
• You are ready to develop a decolonial/anti-colonial and intersectional lens
• You are prepared to reflect on your own positionality and gendered history
• You’d like to connect with like-minded practitioners who are asking themselves these same questions
• You'd like to attend Intermediate Level 2 or Advanced Level 3 (see below for more details)

Tutor

Ellis J. Johnson is a psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counsellor, trainer and speaker working in private practice. He is an Advanced Accredited Gender, Sex and Relationship Diversity Therapist and Clinical Associate at Pink Therapy. For more information see ellisjjohnson.com or transcounselling.co.uk

More about the programme:

Foundation Level 1: Working With Expansive Clients: Trans and Non-Binary Experiences

Intermediate Level 2: Decolonising Gender (& sexuality & relationship diversity)

Advanced Level 3: Expansion in Practice: Gender f*ckery for practitioners

This series delves into undoing the impact of the colonial project on our understandings of gender, sex and sexuality, focussing through the lens of trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming experiences. The programme is designed to enhance the development of your intersectional and decolonial lens, helping you to decentre expected parameters of normative and non-normative expressions and experiences. It is therefore applicable to *all *client work, not solely work with trans or queer clients or clients of colour.

Incorporating elements of social-justice, anti-racism, historical context, reflexive challenges and current best practice, it offers space to explore and interrogate the impact of white supremacy culture in how we approach issues of gender, sexuality and normativity in the therapy room. Through connecting, collaborating and sharing experiences and ideas with other practitioners, it aims to move the conversation forward to meet the current-day challenges of radicalisation and rampant transphobia and racism in an anti-colonial and progressive way.