Disrupting Silence The discussion will be framed in response to a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) in the form of a performance piece by the 4 presenters. Inspired by Kilomba’s (2008) work who turned her research into performance art, we draw from our collective lived experiences as women of colour and psychotherapists to bring alive concepts of power, violence, race and coloniality in and outside the therapy room. We use performance as a creative-relational technique to represent the nuances, convergence and divergence of our realities. This performance will be framed as a provocation to invite the reflections and affective responses from those in the room, to dialogue with and through our stories. This space aims to disrupt the epistemic violence that has silenced our internal worlds as WOC as not being enough evidence to validate our experiences as ‘real’ – subtly unearthing which realities have been more visible in counselling education, the therapy room and beyond.We speak from our embodied experience to bring our intersectional realities to life so you can witness them in motion – inviting the discussants to grapple with these questions with us. This piece is not meant to be ‘published’ but heard, felt and experienced, unsettling traditional notions of research that have historically excluded bodies like ours. Following this, we will facilitate an experiential workshop exploring the possibilities and challenges of collaborative autoethnography as decolonial praxis drawing from our own experiences of writing together. Speaker Bio: Rhea Gandhi is an Indian psychotherapist (MBACP Accred.), group therapist (IGA), educator, researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. She is the winner of the Division of Psychoanalysis (APA - 39) Scholar Award in 2022 the recipient of the American Psychoanalytic Foundation's grant in 2025. She is on the executive committee of the Association of Psychosocial Studies. Her research explores how the dynamics of coloniality manifest in counselling training for South Asian trainees in the UK. Dr. Sarah Nghidinwa is a Teaching Fellow at UoE, psychotherapist and researcher. Originally from Namibia, her work explores the intersections of grief, identity, and decolonial practice in Psychotherapy. Her current work focuses on culturally rooted approaches to loss and the psychological impact of systemic and historical trauma. Kartika Ladwal is a psychotherapist from India and Doctoral Candidate in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. Her therapeutic practice focuses on supporting survivors of gender-based violence within ethnically minoritised communities in Edinburgh. Her research explores art-based decolonial approaches to think with intersections of sociocultural identities and their manifestations in psychotherapy training and practice. Mingxi Li is a doctoral student in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. Her research moves through critical autoethnography and writing-as-inquiry to explore discomfort, relational ambiguity, and the politics of naming and not naming in therapeutic and academic spaces. While juggling the roles of counsellor, postgraduate tutor, and cat companion, she is learning to sit with slow, spiralling thinking and to stay longer with what does not resolve easily. Tags 2025 Nov 14 2025 11.00 - 14.00 Disrupting Silence A workshop on Collaborative Autoethnography as Decolonial Praxis Maclaren Stuart Room, Old College Booking Link
Disrupting Silence The discussion will be framed in response to a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) in the form of a performance piece by the 4 presenters. Inspired by Kilomba’s (2008) work who turned her research into performance art, we draw from our collective lived experiences as women of colour and psychotherapists to bring alive concepts of power, violence, race and coloniality in and outside the therapy room. We use performance as a creative-relational technique to represent the nuances, convergence and divergence of our realities. This performance will be framed as a provocation to invite the reflections and affective responses from those in the room, to dialogue with and through our stories. This space aims to disrupt the epistemic violence that has silenced our internal worlds as WOC as not being enough evidence to validate our experiences as ‘real’ – subtly unearthing which realities have been more visible in counselling education, the therapy room and beyond.We speak from our embodied experience to bring our intersectional realities to life so you can witness them in motion – inviting the discussants to grapple with these questions with us. This piece is not meant to be ‘published’ but heard, felt and experienced, unsettling traditional notions of research that have historically excluded bodies like ours. Following this, we will facilitate an experiential workshop exploring the possibilities and challenges of collaborative autoethnography as decolonial praxis drawing from our own experiences of writing together. Speaker Bio: Rhea Gandhi is an Indian psychotherapist (MBACP Accred.), group therapist (IGA), educator, researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. She is the winner of the Division of Psychoanalysis (APA - 39) Scholar Award in 2022 the recipient of the American Psychoanalytic Foundation's grant in 2025. She is on the executive committee of the Association of Psychosocial Studies. Her research explores how the dynamics of coloniality manifest in counselling training for South Asian trainees in the UK. Dr. Sarah Nghidinwa is a Teaching Fellow at UoE, psychotherapist and researcher. Originally from Namibia, her work explores the intersections of grief, identity, and decolonial practice in Psychotherapy. Her current work focuses on culturally rooted approaches to loss and the psychological impact of systemic and historical trauma. Kartika Ladwal is a psychotherapist from India and Doctoral Candidate in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. Her therapeutic practice focuses on supporting survivors of gender-based violence within ethnically minoritised communities in Edinburgh. Her research explores art-based decolonial approaches to think with intersections of sociocultural identities and their manifestations in psychotherapy training and practice. Mingxi Li is a doctoral student in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. Her research moves through critical autoethnography and writing-as-inquiry to explore discomfort, relational ambiguity, and the politics of naming and not naming in therapeutic and academic spaces. While juggling the roles of counsellor, postgraduate tutor, and cat companion, she is learning to sit with slow, spiralling thinking and to stay longer with what does not resolve easily. Tags 2025 Nov 14 2025 11.00 - 14.00 Disrupting Silence A workshop on Collaborative Autoethnography as Decolonial Praxis Maclaren Stuart Room, Old College Booking Link
Nov 14 2025 11.00 - 14.00 Disrupting Silence A workshop on Collaborative Autoethnography as Decolonial Praxis
