Psychology and Lore

Creating Space Project

Jenny and I are in an Open Dialogue group that examines how Western psychology is linked to colonisation. Both emerge from the same place. Because of this, psychology can sometimes do harm to people who have been colonised. In the group, we look at ways our own psychology practice can perpetuate colonising practices.

Jenny, an Aboriginal woman, talks about how the term ‘decolonise’ is offensive for her.

It evokes bloodshed and massacres, families torn apart, languages lost, disconnection. The word doesn’t communicate love. It communicates only pain.

The Open Dialogue group is attempting to re-imagine clinical psychology as a place of dialogue, collective action and resistance to injustice.

As Jenny says, “there’s a group of passionate people that want to see change.”

In Open Dialogue, “everybody gets to hear what everybody has to say. But also all the feelings are acknowledged and then you can sit back and assess what was heard.”

Simply finding a word or phrase to represent our intentions and conversations requires finding a middle ground, a place for both psychology and lore.

Photo 'Corellas' by David Warren Noble