THE CONSPIRACY TO FLOOD THE WORLD WITH LSD

In 1978 Dr Christine Bott was imprisoned in Durham Jail ‘H’ Wing with the 36 most dangerous women in the country. Her crime? She believed LSD could help save the human race. She believed it would benefit society, enable a human evolution that would support peace , love and ecological security across the planet.

Now in 2023, psychedelics are being researched into by psychologists, psychiatrists, to see whether they have discovered the most desired ‘magic bullet’.

By sharing Christine’s story , I hope to shine some light onto a sorry moment in history where she was vilified, imprisoned and judged to be someone who was a danger to society.

Please join me on Saturday September 23rd 2023 at Bonnington Cafe, 11 Vauxhall Grove, SW81TD at 3:30pm as I talk to BBC Broadcaster, Jonathan Wingate, about Christine and the impact LSD had on the counterculture, rock and roll and our lives today.

The interview is followed by a Hip Happening in the cafe and ends at 6:30. Free Entry.

You can see a recorded video here:

Short version: https://youtu.be/M_3idrc8Jg8

Longer version: https://youtu.be/mHLpDNVJlM8

Here is the podcast made by BBC Wales based on the first book . My direct contribution is in episodes 5 and 6.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0d6bs79

You can order the books here:

www.theuntoldstoryofchristinebott.uk

Turn On Tune In Drop Out

Since 2020, I’ve become an avid lister to BBC Radio 5 Live’s broadcaster Dotun Adebayo. Occasionally I listen in to the World Football phone in. Together with Tim Vickery, various guests, and various listeners, they offer a dialogue, a conversation that I am beginning to realise, I have waited decades to hear.

This was particularly true on August 29th 2023.

‘The Kiss’ is a reference to the event that happened on August 20th. After Spain had won the World Cup final, Luis Rubiales, 46, kissed Jenni Hermioso full on the lips. It wasn’t a peck, he grasped her head in both hands. She couldn’t have wriggled out without force.

I had been listening to some of the coverage over the following week, and essentially was thinking it was mostly a storm in a teacup. What’s wrong with a celebratory kiss? It felt like too much was being made of what seemed to be a spontanious and natural human reaction to a moment of celebration.

Then Tuesday morning, I could hear a regular contributer, repeat frequently, that it, the Kiss, was a minutiae event. As a feminist she could tell the difference between assault , and the body language revealed that the woman being kissed was happy, was not upset, and that the upset was being invented. The speaker was vehement in her declaration, and the longer the words were repeated, the more she didn’t listen to the counter argument, the more I realised how misguided she, and I were. This was followed by another caller, echoing the sentiment, at least understanding where the speaker had been coming from, and demanding that the broadcasters need to stop living in the past; stating , there is no need to look at the past, but look to the future.

Dotun never expresses a judgement of any caller- he is endlessly respectful, and he expresses a real affection towards all the contributers, which manifests an environment with the potential for people to feel free to express themselves openly.

However, these contributions, I realised, resulted in a need to add my voice . Am I a feminist? I thought I was. Now I think I may be a personist!

My thoughts had developed over a matter of minutes. A memory had been recalled. A moment when a person, slightly familiar, but not a trusted friend, approached me on the pavement, took my head into his hands, kissed me on the mouth, saying ‘you deserve that’. From that point, I did my best to avoid him.

I didn’t ‘slap him’. I didn’t berate him. My body , after many experiences of assault, was trained to not react- for fear of death. The freeze effect is a very powerful form of self defence. I needed to have taken up martial arts at some point. My freeze is what I have, and I understand it in others.

Just last week, I visited a campsite. Someone I do know, who I have shared conversations with, kissed me bang on the lips in greeting. It felt completely natural and mutual. So very different.

When my call to R5L was taken, Dotun surprised me by asking me to pick an inspirational song for the end of the show. He, rightly, suggested, ‘Sisters are doing it for themselves’. I said, ‘yes thats an obvious choice, how about ‘Its raining men?’ We both laughed. Why did I chose that song? Why did it come to my mind.

Hearing men challenge their sexism, their assumptions, be willing to reflect on events and try and completely understand the experience of another is something I have waited decades to hear. For me, if it could ‘rain men’ like that, the world would shift towards something so much better. We need reflection, we need revisiting the past, we need reparation to progress. Like white people need to stretch their imaginations to wonder what life is like if your melanin is stronger, men need to engage in uncomfortable conversations with each other about the sexism that ruins everyone’s life. It belittles us all, which is why I am considering describing myself as a personist.

By belittling the impact of the Kiss, there is danger of describing the similar attitude displayed by saying a rape victim deserved it, because of the clothes worn, or because of their sexual history, or because of their intoxication. Dotun compared the moment of the Kiss being broadcast to the world seeing George Floyd being murdered. A powerful and thought provoking parallel.

Another racist shooting took place this week in America. As a mother, every time I hear that, I get that freeze moment. The fear it could be my child being targeted. The fear that those with high melanin know. The fear that parents of daughters know, the fear of parents of gay or transgender children. How have we got to this point of fear?

In this moment, the Football world cup moment, celebration, and adrenalin running high, emotions celebrational, Rubiales reverted to a behaviour that perhaps his dear relatives adore, a kiss on the mouth, a slap on the bottom. Not the behaviour to a star professional football player who has just participated in a world record for their country.

Since August 20th, Rubiales had the chance to reflect, to reconsider, to grow. Instead he dug in, dug a hole and provided ammunition to feed the battle between the sexes. Now his bereft mother carries his shame, starving herself in her church, humilated by how the world is reacting to his error.

It’s a sorry affair. What is not a sorry affair is how Dotun, Tim and their guests were able to reflect, to express their understanding and to seek change. I’ve waited decades to hear men have that conversation.

It warms my heart, and so

Yes.

Its raining Men.

Hallelujah.

This six part podcast weaves together themes and thought provoking true life events with artistry and intelligence. Each episode is packed with the poignancy of our humanity.

On the one hand a brain washed young policeman, indoctrinated with a narrative he can’t see through, blindly following ‘orders’ in order to bring down an earnest attempt by visionary activists to try and ‘change the course of human history’ and ‘save humanity from inevitable destruction’. Accompanied by the sound of a beautiful Tuba, the farcical nature of their activity is captured muscially through witty and intelligent subtlety.

Then the dealer, a hedonistic chancer. A popular and generous hippy, despite claiming he knew his new ‘friend’ was a copper, did nothing to ring bells through the network he was part of and cashing in on. Doubtless if he’d known the close proximity of the main players behind the ‘conspiracy to flood the world with LSD’, he’d have acted differently. Hindsight is the luxury of the future. To call them a ‘gang’ is misleading.

A teenager, influenced by Hesse, Solzhenitsyn, Le Guin, the anti war movement and Eastern philiosophy aged seventeen thought, ‘I’ll be twenty in three years time and what have I done with my life?’ The innocence and naievity of youth. Driven by an urgent wish to be ‘part of the change’, she puts herself into ever increasing danger, seemingly oblivious to the threat to her life, purely as the result of being young, penniless (so powerless), and born female.

A mental health system only matched by the police force that crashes and seeks to destroy and control all it encounters that is threatening the status quo. They ( mental health services and the polce) sadly remained unchanged to this day, if anything, much is worse. The medical model, and the force of law, determined to hold up the structure of the industrial and capitalist system, is audibly present as the sound of doors being smashed down in order to prevent the actual ‘opening up’ of the ‘doors of perception’. Rather than change the way the system worked, they try to change the way people ‘think’ about life, frequently using blunt and cruel instruments. At this point, in the 60’s and 70’s, society was actually changing at the rate of knots, and as the dealer says, ‘ we were actually turning the super tanker round.’

The establishment were not going to have it. Even now, official records are inaccesible, even Freedom of Information attempts are refused and everything is locked down until 2070.

A visionary 1960’s academic, tuned in to the subtle energies of life, and a love for the precious earth, Christine Bott, loses her freedom for her dedication to making a change. With the repeated ring of the telephone, an audible ‘alert’ to the pending danger and crisis, echoes throughout the episodes, from the last century to this, the 21st century.

And the genious chemist, Richard Kemp, who believed he was fulfilling his life destiny. ‘ Now I know why I was born!’ Did the loss of the love of Christine, mean he lost hope?

ACID DREAM is an incredible postcard from the past. It shines light onto the messiness of a massive surreal and absurd attempt to change the world. Although the main protagonist may have given up hope, myself the teenager in the story, refuses to, which is why I participated in this broadcast.

The Production team , the writer, the actors, the contributers, have created an extraodinary gift for the listener to reflect on and to start to dare to dream again.

Based on the true memoirs www.theuntoldstoryofchristinebott.uk, the story artfully travels through time. Carefully crafted by the writer Tim Price and sensitively produced by James Robinson, this podcast is an echo of a dream from the past. The beautifully composed soundtrack by Gruff Rhys, and the wonderful sensitive and humourous narration by Rhys Ifans, is a gift to the listener. Hannah Murray voices Christine’s words, heard here for the first time, from beyond the grave. The various twists and turns of this story could never be made up, because its true life.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0d6bs79

Rest in Power

Meeting Pete and Maggie in La Jolla in 2002 changed my life. They embodied ways of being that spoke of celebration, generosity of spirit, respect, value and connection. I had travelled over with Brian Thorne on a bursary of some sorts, had done a fund raiser to get the money for my flight over and for the first time in 14 years had travelled away from my son. It was post 9/11, I was terrified of going, but with the encouragement and support of Brian and Michael Da Costa, I made the journey in order to show the video Brian and I had made called ‘The Cost of Integrity’.

Sitting in the sunshine, there was Pete, along with Gillian Proctor, Irene Fairhurst, and others, whose names escape me. A ‘banter began’. I was asked who I was, that kind of thing. Pete, immediately engaged, teasing me with ‘ oh, you’re a softy southerner’.. So, I earnestly recounted tales of activist groups I’d been involved with in the 80’s the lengths we went to to challenge the Tories in Brighton and London..the marches, the fly posting, the exhibitions, occupations and demos..

Later on that day, outside the hall were Pete and Maggie with their magnificent book stall. I had no idea of the UK wide network for the approach, nor had I seen so many books on the approach. When I first trained, it was all Carl’s writings and Brian Thorne and Dave Mearns’ book’s that I had consumed. This was my ‘first’ conference eight years after I’d completed my diploma with Brian at the UEA. I’d been very much focused on working as a person-centred therapist in the voluntary sector, and also parenting my beautiful son. So the world of PCCS was unknown to me and suddenly I discovered kindred spirits, all inhabiting this beautiful campus in California. Pete and Maggie loaded me up with free books to take back home. In ‘ This is Madness Too’ (Eds: Newnes, Holmes, Dunn PCCS 2001) , Pete had inscribed – ‘ Kate, I mean every word of Chapter 14’.

Written with Keith Tudor, its called ‘ This is Therapy: a person-centred critique of the contemporary psychiatric system’.

The Americans were all so welcoming. I gawped in amazement as Peter Schmid articulated the epistemology of the approach. I could feel my brain expanding. Art Bohart shared his creative way of engaging with research. It was all very heady and inspiring.

What became evident to me very quickly was how serious Pete was . Despite his natural humour, his great gift as a story teller, his love of music and the stories he shared, he was a relentless activist. It seemed to me his life was work, he dedicated his time to creating change and this drove him for the best part of the twenty years I knew him. In La Jolla, I’d see him huddled in deep conversation discussing the prospect of a publication. On this occasion it turned out to be Howard Kirschenbaum’s ambitious and extraordinary biography of Carl Rogers, now available in paperback : https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/the-life-and-work-of-carl-rogers-1 For Pete it seemed, life was also a kind of duty, a duty to impact change and his action and dedication inspired that in others. It surely did in me.

On returning to the UK, I kept in touch with Pete. I kind of became a self appointed advocate for PCCS and directed all my students, colleagues and friends to their publications. I bought ten copies of ‘Person-Centred Therapy Theory and Practice in the 21st Century’ Sanders 2013 PCCS Books. He told everyone how proud he was of this ‘little booklet’ and was selling it for £1. I could give 9 away. I began teaching a certificate at an FE college. Armed with ‘First Steps’, I knew these young people could wake up their brains also despite the hardship and poverty of the area they all inhabited. Years later one of them contacted me, thanking me for the course. She said, the best advice you gave me Kate was to buy a Thesaurus. This was all because of Pete, his perspective, his trust and faith in me was contagious, it meant I could offer the same to anyone I encountered. Soon Pete had me involved with PCQ magazine and so I became part of a continuing adventure, giving space to reflections, thoughts, ideas- and much controversy and robust dialogue between the BAPCA membership began to emerge. Challenging times. Here are some of us who were involved in PCQ around 2006- 2009.

I would always have piles of leaflets for BAPCA, back copies of PCQ to give away free. Whenever I visited their little office in Ross-on-Wye, Heather or Di, or sometimes Maggie or Pete would load me up with books that had typo’s or errors in them. Always inclusive, always generous. I started to have a bit more freedom to attend conferences. Pete had asked me if I’d met the ‘poster boy’ for the person-centred approach. I had not. He was referring to Mick Cooper. Forever mischievous, but always with a deep sense of loving, no one was out of bounds for Pete’s wit . He also held much frustration. He could not fathom how inactive so many person-centred people seemed to be. Complacent, missing the point, being too ‘niche’. He published a lobbying pack, tutoring people in how to approach politicians, how to make the case for the approach. Despite his efforts, the approach seemed to languish in the margins. He encouraged everyone to go to different conferences, to take the approach to broader audiences, to not remain so closeted. He himself engaged with Hearing Voices and Drop the Disorder and engaged with the broader community, publishing new books with different authors with lived experience challenging the medical model, the pathologizing of distress and the implications of a society that labels and diagnosis people. . Then I did meet Mick at Potsdam, or at least saw him there, along with Robert Elliott, both of whom had been appointed to the University of Strathclyde. That year, there seemed to be much engagement, hope and activity. Academically the approach seemed to be thriving, with papers being published and courses remaining in the University System. There was also the emergence of a lot of private providers of courses, and some of these missed the clarity and discipline of the approach, missing the point, identifying the approach as ‘building blocks’ rather than the ‘work’. I walked past Barbara Tamara Brodley (R.I.P) who was bemoaning ‘Workshops on person – centred approaches to working with horses??? What’s that!! What’s next??’ As it turned out, it was person-centred approaches to dentistry.

I’d been asked by Peter Schmid (R.I.P) to design the cover for a small publication he was doing for the Norwich Centre. Maggie had copies on her stall- ‘Kate, you do realise what this looks like don’t you!’ Suddenly my ‘pretty’ representation of Peter’s notion of a ‘triune’ sat on the cover like a vagina. Better than the usual phallus then… Massive laugh had, my naivety (innocence??) was and remains to some extent, a big part of who I am.

The nature of the approach enables and encourages the person to be creative. Acknowledging this, Pete embarked on bringing this together in the now ‘controversially’ named Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation. https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/tribes . Forever respectful, always prepared to offer a platform, despite his frustration in how some thinkers swayed a long way away from the core principles of the approach, he would not silence people.

Then in 2008, the massive investment was announced by the government into psychological therapies. Pete and Andy Hill began the epic task of creating a ‘manual’ for the person-centred approach that would be acceptable to the NHS. At this time I had much contact with Pete. This was a crunch time for the approach. If we didn’t challenge the exclusion of person-centred counselling in this investment, it would remain languishing in the margins. I had taken it on myself to offer a presentation to East of England Commissioners about the person-centred approach. However as BACP had its investment into it, as an individual I could not be a facilitator, I had to be an academic.

Pete and I spoke about strategies. He joked, ‘Well Kate, you may have single handedly saved the person-centred approach, I suggest you speak to Janet (Tolan)’. My thinking was that BAPCA (The British Association for the Person-Centred Approach) needed to take some lead in this.

In 2010 or 2011 can’t recall, I took a presentation to a BAPCA conference called something like, IAPT, CFD , PCA and BAPCA. I wanted to find a way for our person-centred community to start engaging with the prospect of being employed in the NHS to offer free person-centred counselling. Pete was right there, supporting me, and that same time I met David Murphy and Stephen Joseph. I met some engaged and enthusiastic people from Nottingham, all who had been students of David and Stephen. There was a familiar energy present, to that I’d encountered from Pete, and seemed like a safe harbor. BAPCA however was not keen to support this development. I knew if it was to really thrive we needed to agitate for person-centred practice to be perceived as equal but different. The ‘depression’ was a description and not a ‘diagnosis’ the association was always navel gazing and it couldn’t grow. Within months I was part of the University of Nottingham and finally facilitating the courses in PCE-CfD. Pete joined me for one of the first, sharing his thoughts on the book and finding contributors for some of the content.

Always inclusive, always democratic. ‘ So ‘, says Pete, trying to tackle to emotion focused elements that were adding to the evidence that was acceptable for the BACP expert reference group…’systematic, evocative unfolding’.. or as I like to call it, ‘talking about it’…

I tried to advocate for person-centred approaches to management, supervision to recording ‘data’ to be included in the NHS services. I attended IAPT conferences and would be the only person-centred person there. Even Therapy Today, the journal for BACP rejected my articles. Andy Hill had retired, there was no one left who understood the project in the organization.

Pete was never short of wit, of kindness but with an incisive awareness of what was and what was not humane.

Then the terrible news of Pete’s heart failure in 2015 threw a hurricane into the person-centred world. It seemed what ‘we’ had was now going to be borrowed time .

Despite that, Pete was still there, encouraging, contributing and agitating.

On Saturday 5th of February 2022, I shared a post on facebook, one that I had written in this blog last year. I said ‘Written over 4 months ago, I couldn’t have known how true it would be for me personally as I contemplate my future’. Pete commented immediately and then, there he was on messenger, sending me extraordinary encouragement, wit and humour.

I felt so loved, so ‘met’ so valued by those shared words, that I was able to let some tears fall, the burnout was no longer numb, I could feel something.

He also shared that he felt his 45 years of dedicated work was being trashed and knew he was not alone in this. The IAPT project, the move away from non-directivity, the muddling of the approach becoming instrumental rather than principled was a real threat, and we are facing the commodification and the appropriation of the approach, so it joins the ‘dreaded’ ‘toolbox’.

Sunday, the next day, I received the news from Paul Wilkins that Pete had died on the Saturday.

It has made this loss feel so very abstract. Having been working online since early 2020, with no physical contact with colleagues, I was now reeling from this virtual ‘farewell’. I was also deeply touched to have been able to say the day he died, ‘Love you so much Pete’. I’m sure I spoke for so many.

Pete Sanders was the Rock and Roll of client-centeredness. When Pete was at a conference, you knew you were going to be enlightened, entertained, encouraged and berated, all rolled in to one ‘Pete’.

At one of the many I attended, Pete invited everyone to participate in a competition. It was to describe in two or three sentences the person-centred approach to your grandmother. I can’t recall what I wrote, but I won. The prize was a badge: ‘Birmingham, Its not Shit’ I wore it the day Pete died, not knowing he was dying, but to celebrate our friendship on a day when he had reached out and made me feel like I actually mattered. The news of his death was devastating and its still hard to accept. Pete was a person who grieved deeply. Many will remember the impact of Tony Merry’s and John Schline ‘s deaths had on Pete.

I woke up on Feb 14th thinking, I’ve not been born to participate in practices that line the pockets of the rich .. or, as Pete would say : Fuck the Tories.

I knew it was time to write about Pete. With heartfelt condolences to his beloved wife Maggie, all his children, grandchildren, family members, and to our community of activists and agitators.

Rest in Power Pete.

This is how you always made me, and I believe other’s feel in your presence

On October 30th 2021 I was interviewed on Zoom by the broadcaster and DJ, The ice cream Kid (aka Matt Day), on his program alongstrangetrip. We spoke of Christine, her book and the relevance of her life to the challenges we are facing now. With a sound track provided by the Grateful Dead from May 1977, Matt has created a thought provoking radio piece. Its in 4 parts. I took the photographs as I was walking between two villages, listening to my interview on the long strange trip. You can hear the broadcast as it was heard on the Radio by clicking here- available for 5 weeks, the November 18th broadcast https://www.bayfm.org/shows/a-long-strange-trip/

Since the World Association of person-centred and experiential psychotherapy and counselling (WAPCEPC) conference was held at the University of East Anglia in 2008, I have focused my energies on the development of the person-centred approach in England in the NHS. At that conference, it was announced that for the first time, the government was going to invest in psychological therapies to the tune of  millions of pounds.

At that time, there was no plan to involve counselling and psychotherapy in this funding. ‘Counselling’ was potentially at risk of being wiped off the agenda, CBT was going to be the only show in town, with huge implications for academic institutes and independent training bodies across England. The BACP got themselves into action and using the body of evidence that showed the person-centred approach was the main way their members identified their practice, gathered together an expert reference group and agitated for counselling, in the form of the person-centred approach to become part of the IAPT programme.  Since then various institutes have been involved in offering those employed by IAPT as counsellors , the person-centred experiential cpd  qualification for use in IAPT.

 BACP has changed dramatically since  2008. At one point, this qualification was unknown to the new people who took over the positions previously held by Andy Hill and Helen Coles. Despite numerous emails I sent, I had no response. At the time,  the 2^nd edition of the course handbook had just been published  and were agitating to have the approach named correctly in IAPT- as the term ‘counselling’ had become a meaningless term, and we wanted the name of the approach to reflect the pedagogy it came from. The person-centred approach, a growth approach to change, not burdened or  obscured by short cut pathologies or diagnosis.  Interestingly, I finally had a response when I sent a ‘tweet’ to BACP, and that was the only way BACP began to re-engage with our project. Sadly, it seems the new managers at BACP lost sight of the fact the person-centred approach has a different (but in my view, ‘equal’ stance,) and has sacrificed the non-medical stance to be involved in the medically driven counselling ‘industry’. 

The development of a taxonomy that mirrors the hierarchical approach of mental health services is threatening the entire understanding of the person-centred approach. Employers are demanding their staff are accepted to attend a course before they employ people to their service. Let’s not forget what that implies. Someone who has gone through any person-centred counselling training, which we know takes much commitment, cost and dedication, is not deemed to be ‘qualified’ to be employed, or practice, unless they are accepted to attend an IAPT approved course. The implications of this are really troubling.

 When we started offering our courses at the University of Nottingham in 2013, people could choose to  participate in the training. As the years have passed, it has become mandatory. However, the systems supporting person-centred counsellors are not matching this mandatory expectation. It is  rare for an IAPT service to have person-centred supervision in place. Ways of measuring a client’s experience or growth are  not established in services, and the only tool that is used to evidence a client’s process is based on a form developed by Pfizer to monitor the side effects of pharmacological medication. Despite this, the evidence still showed that counselling was equal to CBT.

Earlier in October 2021, those of us who are offering courses were ‘told’ about a new qualification that is being funded by IAPT which is at MA level. They put the course out for tender- with a deadline of 15 days to apply. Anyone involved in academic work will know any new qualification takes much longer to be approved. This expectation to get an instant response is typical of how so many managers operate in the mental health teams across England. It is matched by an expectation of a ‘quick fix’ approach, monitoring counsellors through outcomes and results and in the meantime missing the humanity , not only of the client, but also of the counsellor.

 What became clear on reading the proposed curriculum, was that it mirrored the  medical approach of IAPT . In the meeting we were basically told how lucky we are that we even got a seat at the ‘table’. I think some ‘tables ‘ represent a diminution of values, ethics, and a threat to pedagogical understanding. BACP was not interested in seeking any input from academic colleagues. We have two Professors in our department at the University- neither have been contacted by the BACP or IAPT to seek their consideration about this new qualification. To me it indicates a disrespect and lack of regard to those who have dedicated their careers to the thinking  behind and implications of this ‘revolutionary paradigm’.

It is time for the person-centred experiential approach to take its own stance, separate to the BACP as it is evident, the values of the approach are for sale. Some will think- ‘we knew that at the beginning’. I guess I held out hope for growth and change. It seems now, that hope is really being crushed, and I wanted to make this known to those sympathetic to my position. It is why I resigned my membership from BACP, and why I am looking forward to retirement.

 I will continue to offer what I can to the people I am delighted to meet who come to our courses, but unless as a group of person-centred practitioners we speak up, the approach will soon be used as a technique to manipulate people rather than be the radical revolutionary approach Rogers, Bozarth, Schmid ,Thorne,  Mearns, O’Hara, Bohart and many others brought to the twentieth century.

My dear friend Christine died in 2007. We met in the 90’s when we both bowled up at the University of East Anglia to study the person-centred approach under the guidance of Professor Brian Thorne and Dr Judy Moore. We became firm friends. In 2021 I have finally self published the story she wrote about her involvement in a ‘caper’ that aimed to change the world. Here is the introduction:

The existence of the ‘underground’ in the 60’s and 70’s was known to those ‘in it’ and unknown and potentially unimaginable to those that were not.

 Despite the cultural revolution that was taking place, there was a kind of obstinate denial by those in the seats of power of the deep changes that were in action across much of the Western world, now influenced by Eastern philosophies, alarmed by the Vietnam War , the legacy of the slave trade,  the nuclear threat and the environmental crisis. This societal division may explain the harsh treatment that was met on my friend Christine Bott when she was arrested in 1977.

The British Government assured the World Health Conference (76) that the manufacture of the hallucinogenic drug, LSD ‘was certainly not taking place in the United Kingdom’.

Within months of this announcement the Operation Julie police team retrieved eighteen million dosage units from a small cottage in Tregaron Wales.

‘The Caper’ as Christine called it, grew out of the exploits of a handful of idealists, motivated by a genuine desire to change the whole of the western world.

Christine was in love  and lived with the principal chemist, Richard Kemp. After her arrest she was sentenced to nine years in prison and then disappeared into anonymity.

Christine never wavered from her strongly held belief, up to her death in 2007, that LSD, used in the correct way at the right dose,  could ‘bring about positive change in the world’.

You can find the book here https://www.facebook.com/ktazze

Person-Centred Approach and White Privilege

Its April 21st 2021. For me it’s a significant day. I am a white woman (she/her) and, today, or probably yesterday taking in time differences, a white man in America who was a policeman, has been convicted of 3 counts of murder and is unlikely to see ‘freedom’ for 40 years for murdering a black man who was reported for handing over a dollar bill identified as a counterfeit dollar. Mr George Floyd was murdered as a result of Chauvin kneeling on his neck for Nine minutes and Twenty Nine seconds. Witnessed by his fellow police officers, Chauvin and his fellow officers, evidently considered this an appropriate action . What he may not have realised was that it was filmed by a courageous teenager, Darnella Frazier. I am unsure how Darnella managed to contain her shock and horror as she held her phone, but I am white. How or why could I know how she maintained her steady determined gaze. For her, in some ways , this would be an all too familiar scene of a person , a black person, being apprehended by white officers, but, in this instance, not a random immediate FATAL shooting by an officer, but a considered, physical, intentional action where the person involved was near the heartbeat,on the skin, in physical contact, and willfully ignoring the gasps and fear ‘we’ all heard from Mr Floyd, through the internet as a result of Darnella’s tenacious courage, during the first few months of the global pandemic in May 2020, for the entire horrific 9 minutes and 29 seconds.

The global outrage was unprecedented.

My sorrow for Mr Floyd, for his family and for the millions of others subjected to this brutalisation over centuries is impossible to articulate in words.

Roaring Fury is what I can say and is what I live through.

For me as a person-centred therapist, I was devestated by the ‘white’ silence. People are used to me posting about issues regarding racism and the need for white people to wake up to their collusion. I wonder sometimes if I am essentially a noise , an uncomfortable noise, an irritating noise that will pick up these aspects and my public posts can be ‘liked’ on social media, but then the silence on their public profiles deafens me. The audience remains self referential, discreet, cosy, and then sustains the collusion. Don’t rock the boat, life is hard enough without considering white privilege and why would a person-centred therapist need to confront racism as its all there, all in the theory, ‘we’ evidently dont ‘do’ racism. Yet the evidence is very very different.

The evidence is, in my view, in exploring how many black doctoral person-centred academics are employed by Universities in the UK?

Please let me know.

In 1993 I set up a network for families in East Anglia whose children were considered black as a result of their parentage. In the 80’s,(not the boom version, the radical version), ‘Black’ was a term used to identify anyone who was not part of ‘white privilege’. I’ll let you work out who that includes.

As a result of that, I met a remarkable woman . We struck up a friendship and I suggested she may be interested in the work of Carl Rogers. It turned out this was actually something she was interested in, and by quirks of fate , she ended up on a course studying the approach. The tutors, who were running the programme left the course. I , unaware that she was there, applied to the position and was appointed and delighted to see her there. I was dismayed to discover that the cohort had basically found it too difficult to meet her in her expereince as a black woman born in east anglia who had a lived experience of racism. Not from within her own family, but in other more specific, general social and institutional ways. When I became the tutor, I was able to engage with and validate that experience and invited Colin Lago in to run a conciousness raising day, on white privilege for the delegates willing to participate. Twenty years later, I am facilitating a personal development group in the same region and when I raise the idea of white privilege am accused of calling the ‘white cohort’ racist. Unsupported by the course leader, I resign from my post as essentially the dominant white group refused to work with me. Fortunately that course no longer exists, but there will be others, and I suspect ‘equality’ will be on the tick box agenda. Whether it is fully encountered will depend on the courage of the facilitators. Without encounter, without being met, the potential for meaningful change will be lost.

I maintain that the person-centred approach is rooted in social justice, in challenging privilege and by its essence, encounters the most difficult and uncomfortable feelings of the human experience in a way which promotes growth.

Today, my ex student/ally friend, (who has a significant and influential post in a very important local service for children and young people),offered her time to facilitate a group of person-centred trainees at the university I work in, on the subject of privilege. difference and racism. The moment is one I wish to acknowledge and celebrate. It is not insignificant and it matters.

‘We’ can never give up, the fight is lifelong, it is essential, it is at the core of person-centred philosopy .It is powerful, effective, compassionate, complex, complicated and not part of a tick box ‘to do’ list. It is about BEING a PERSON.