Presenting: Black Existentialism: Singing the Songs of our Lived Experience

Black Existentialism: Singing the Songs of our Lived Experience. Existentialism, from its very inception, has always been seen as a Eurocentric modality. The idea that how we live life, how we walk with death, our sense of freedom, isolation, and how we manage anxiety presented through the lenses of predominantly white,male, European or American scholars. This therefore means that there has always been a struggle for psychotherapy clients from other cultures and other racial groups to see themselves mirrored existentially via ways and means which do not sit within these Eurocentric paradigms. This presentation differs in that it will take a Black/British approach to understanding existentialism by recognizing that much of existential thought and idea is not just academic. That for other cultures, including those located in diaspora, the philosophical also resides within the arts via the words the poetry or the lyrics in our music, for example. Black existentialism in therapy involves the creativity of British Artists of Colour, which means that there is a wealth of material which, when gathered together and placed correctly alongside traditional existential paradigms, broadens out how we might better work with our clients.