Publications
The following papers and book chapters are informed by Dr Aileen Alleyne’s clinical research and her wide-ranging interest in identity, race and culture.
Black identity and workplace oppression
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, July 2004, Vol. 4, No 1: 4-8 This paper is primarily aimed at counselling and psychotherapy practitioners whose clients experience workplace conflict and its resulting stress and trauma. The paper reports findings from the author’s doctoral research, studying black workers in three work contexts.
Race-specific workplace stress
Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, October 2004, Vol. 15, No 8: 30-33 This paper examines common experiences of work-related stress affecting black people in predominantly white institutions. The paper addresses less visible kinds of discrimination (‘modern racism’) and other dynamics of positional power within these settings.
The internal oppressor and black identity wounding
Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, December 2004, Vol. 15, No 10: 48-50 In this paper, the author puts forward the concept of ‘the internal oppressor’. This is a deep-seated, long-established aspect of black identity which operates alongside current experiences of racial oppression. It is to be distinguished from internalised oppression and can be viewed as the enemy within or internal adversary.
Black and White Issues in Training Groups: A Psychodynamic Approach
T. Mistry and A. Brown (eds) Race and Groupwork, pp 204-226, Whiting and Birch Ltd, 1977. This chapter develops a psychodynamic model of training on race issues as part of an Equal Opportunities and anti-discriminatory practices framework.
Which Women? What Feminism?
B. Seu and C. Heenan (eds), Feminism and Psychotherapy: Reflections on Contemporary Theories and Practices, pp. 43-56. Sage, 1998. This chapter considers the question of ‘the other’ and addresses the experiences of black women within the context of a feminist psychotherapeutic discourse.
The Internal Oppressor - the veiled companion of external racial oppression
UKCP The Psychotherapist, Issue 26, Spring 2005 This paper reworks the theme of the internal oppressor and workplace oppression.
Invisible injuries and silent witnesses: The shadow of racial oppression in workplace contexts
Psychodynamic Practice – Individuals, groups and organisations. August 2005, Vol. 11, No. 3: 283-299 In this paper, the author suggests that internalized oppression is the primary means by which all of us hold unto and re-enact our unresolved difficulties. She examines this concept with specific regard to black people’s experience of racial oppression in workplace contexts and their capcity for resilience in these difficult and often traumatic circumstances.
Working with clients who are experiencing harassment in the workplace
BACP Information Sheet (G10), July 2006 An information sheet written for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and specifically devised for practitioners who are working with clients who are suffering harassment in the workplace. The paper offers a theoretical understanding of the nature of harassment and gives guidance on working with the effects of this particular kind of trauma.
Working therapeutically with hidden dimensions of racism
Chapter 12 – Working therapeutically with hidden dimensions of racism – Aileen Alleyne. In Fernando & Keating (Eds)/Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society: A Multidisciplinary Handbook:2nd Edition (2009). Pub: Routledge. © Aileen Alleyne. Published 2009 by Routledge.
Overcoming Racism, Discrimination and Oppression in Psychotherapy
Chapter 10 – Overcoming Racism, Discrimination and Oppression in Psychotherapy – Aileen Alleyne. In Colin Lago (2011) The Handbook of Transcultural Counselling & Psychotherapy. Pub: McGraw-Hill, Open University Press.
Shame and Its Vicissitudes
To cite this article: Aileen Alleyne (2022): Shame and Its Vicissitudes, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2022.2080431. To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07351690.2022.2080431 In this article, I address the theme of shame and its impact on Black identity wounding. In particular, I focus in on what has often been left out of the shame discourse: a consideration of shame that emerges in Black and White relational dynamics. As such, I specifically address the historical and generational underpinnings that play a significant role in Black shame and White responses to shame, as well as the possibilities of healing shame in these contexts. To further clarify these dynamics, I offer some personal reflections on significant elements of my own childhood shame. These experiences illustrate the profound impact racialized shame can have on racial identity formation and development. I identify key therapeutic issues and themes that need to be addressed in the clinical context as well as some key challenges that can arise for White practitioners working with their own unacknowledged shame in such an intercultural analytic setting. I conclude with my reasoning for why I consider sublimation as the single most important concept in understanding the work of healing and managing shame. I end the chapter with an illustration of how the power of spontaneous expression – poetry offered as an example – can redirect negative energies and the impact of racialized shame.
Understanding racial hauntings in Therapy Today, October 2022
https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/therapy-today/2022/october-2022/understanding-racial-hauntings/ The subject of this article, and of the book from which it is extracted, is an unheeded dimension of trauma that is, paradoxically, omnipresent. It is everywhere in our midst but, like a virus, is unseen yet impactful. I have coined this as ‘racial hauntings’, advancing and offering a new perspective on the Freudian analytical concept of ‘hauntings’ explored by Professor Stephen Frosh in relation to victims of the Holocaust. My aim is to reveal its presence and to shine a light on its complex workings, offering an in-depth understanding of a historical phenomenon that produces deep psychological wounding to a collective of people. © This article was first published in Therapy Today, the journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
Contact Info
Phone: 07985 445972
Email: aileen@kisskadee.com
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