Anti-Racism in Action: Tackling Islamophobia in Therapy

This workshop is for therapists who want to gain a better understanding of Islamophobia and how it affects the context in which we practice therapy. The focus will be on learning and exploring in an embodied way.

We will:

• Explore the history of Islamophobia;
• Prevent and alternative approaches to safeguarding;
• The physiological impacts of surveillance on Muslim people
• Issues for queer Muslim clients
• Anti-oppressive practice and solidarity

Who Can Join?

This workshop is suitable for all trainees and qualified counselors and therapists who want to deepen their anti-oppressive practice and pay closer attention to the role of Islamophobia in the world of therapy. This workshop invites you to reflect on your own practice and the ways in which individual therapists and the systems we work within create and compound harm.

Accessibility

• Closed Captions will be enabled
• BSL Interpreters will be booked upon request
• Please share your access needs in the checkout

About

Jinan Petra Golly is a trainee Gestalt therapist based in London. Jinan has a background working on issues around race, migration, and gender, and working with young people. She is interested in holistic care and the importance of the body in hurt and healing.

Jumanah Younis is a therapist-in-training at Brighton University. They have developed and delivered training on gender-based violence for a range of professionals and institutions. Jumanah is also a freelance writer and editor. They have written on social justice movements for a variety of outlets including the Guardian, Red Pepper, and the LRB blog, and currently volunteer with the collective Race & Health.

Inclusive Mosque Initiative is an intersectional feminist mosque dedicated to creating inclusive, safer places for marginalised Muslims and their families. IMI is committed to reviving a rights-based Islam that addresses the way systems of oppression intersect. Inclusive Mosque aims to be proactively inclusive of disabled people, Queer and Trans people, and Muslims of different sects, and they support women, non-binary people, and genderqueer people in leadership roles.

Socials: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Radical Therapist Network CIC is a collective of international therapists dedicated to anti-oppressive praxis. Through transformative justice and intersectional frameworks we centre community healing and education, and work to dismantle white supremacy, and systems of violence within the world of therapy, and society at large.

Socials: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

About this Partnership

Using a grant from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), IMI has been working to address Islamophobia in different sectors. IMI’s work in partnership with the Radical Therapist Network has produced training and tools to support Muslim therapy clients, Muslim therapists and non-Muslim therapists working with Muslim clients.

RTN and IMI want our partnership to demonstrate a long-term relationship between a mosque and a network of therapists already committed to uprooting racism, colonialism, homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia. We believe this partnership can create systemic change by showing both the mental health sector and the faith-based sector that safe, affirming support for Black, brown, straight, queer and trans people of faith is possible and sustainable. We will be evaluating our partnership and sharing our learning with both sectors and anyone interested in anti-racism in the mental health sector.

This partnership is part of IMI’s Raise Your Gaze programme. Raise Your Gaze is about advocating for our right to safety and justice in all aspects of our lives. Through Raise Your Gaze, IMI collaborates with actors in specific sectors offering support to marginalized people, to make those sectors safer for all who seek support. They have worked with organizations in the mental health sector, the anti-VAWG sector, the LGBT+ sector, and the inter-faith sector on challenging Islamophobia when it shows up in the conception and delivery of work.