Abstract
Turner successfully introduces the theme of this book in his first sentence: ‘I am a black, male, heterosexual, able bodied, academic, psychotherapist, and I live and work in the United Kingdom’ (p. 1). This sets a challenge for me as a reader, a White, British academic and dramatherapist who has to acknowledge the notion of White privilege, no matter how uncomfortable that makes me. This book is a difficult read, as we might expect, not just because of the subject matter but also due to the complexity of the academic rigour, and the issues which historically have been seen as Black versus White or White versus Black. This book does not dwell on these over simplistic constructions but delves into a much more nuanced difficult and challenging debate.
Chapter 1 deals with oppression from multiple intersectional perspectives (ageism, racism, sexism, etc.) before considering the challenges of systemic oppression. Turner does this through a simple but also very complex diagram which illustrates that collective prejudice equals systemic oppression. Chapter 2 considers the challenging ideas around intersectional privilege and ‘the other’. Throughout the book, Turner uses a variety of vignettes to explore these complex issues especially around the idea of intersectional privilege which is a way of considering the variety of specific personal and physical conditions (such as wealth, health, class, gender and sexual orientation) that affect us all, non-White people more so. Turner argues this further in Chapter 3 by surmising that intersectional privilege leads to, as the chapter title suggests, ‘hatred, shame and the unconscious other’. Turner argues that it is important to understand the importance of the concept of othering and the unconscious other which reflects, anything or anyone perceived to be different from the accepted norm and devalued or de-humanised as a sub-entity. We see this specific devaluing of some groups, for example, as dramatherapists when working with refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East who appear in the media to be treated very differently to refugees from Ukraine. We have to constantly be alert to this idea of othering as dramatherapists, so that we don’t push our own clients into the Jungian shadow, or as Turner might suggest into being ‘othered’, and allow our own unconscious prejudices to impact on the power dynamics. We are reminded that we need to gain conscious understanding of the ‘other’ in the therapeutic space as Turner concludes that ‘while the other might think it is free of the influence of the subject, this internalised hate and shame, this internalised superiority, will still be present unless challenged in some fashion’ (p. 68). This is a timely reminder for us all on how these unconscious states can affect our view of ourselves and others both in the therapy space and beyond.
Chapter 4 deals with death in relation to ‘the other’. Turner argues that for each of us to be acceptable, society asks us to kill off that part of ourselves that is seen as unacceptable, unpalatable or unworthy, our own ‘other’. This is challenging for us all but even more so for people who do not conform to White, European, middle-class and heterosexual identities. Turner points out that this death of the other affects our ‘own sense of otherness, and the deaths we endure on such a regular basis that we are often unaware that it is happening to ourselves’ (p. 100).
Finally, Chapter 5 entitled ‘Individuation, Privilege and Otherness’ becomes much more personal to Turner himself. Instead of using client material, he uses a heuristic process to examine himself, his own dreams, personal diary entries and personal discussions with colleagues. Over a number of months, he slowly and at times painfully came to terms with attempts at his own individuation and othering, pulling together the strands of self, as they affected his own notions of privilege and otherness. I was really struck and moved by his honesty and the example of his own family who as immigrants tried to fit in and did not allow themselves to be othered. This has made Turner himself, both as a child and an adult, to repress his own rage, anger and ‘internalised whiteness and patriarchy’ (p. 132).
This book is dense with complex ideas, academic rigour, and some considerable personal pain for Turner, expressed in a metered but by no means apologetic way. This book and its complex intersection of ideas around privilege and race in psychotherapy and other forms of psychological training, such as dramatherapy, should be required reading for students, practitioners and especially those of us who manage such training institutions, as we slowly and hopefully begin to decolonise dramatherapy teaching programmes over the next decade or two.