repsychl - spring 2022

repsychl

Spring 2022

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING in Psychotherapy and Contemporary Arts

ABOUT

repsychl is a not-for-profit magazine dedicated to exploring the intersection between psychotherapy and contemporary arts.

We believe stories told from lived experience are key for exploring the human condition.

Our aim is to reach as far and wide as possible, so as to gather numerous diverse perspectives.

OUR TEAM

Anna Cutteridge Director

Emily Dodd Editor

HOW TO NAVIGATE Scan or Click on the QR code on each page to view the full article on the repsychl website

Click on the repsychl logo when you see it to find more on the same feature elsewhere in the magazine

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ARTISTS AND THERAPISTS ANSWER: 'Feeling stuck, lost, and without meaning is an experience we all face as human beings. Why do you think that is? How might you approach those feelings in your work?

24-26

THERAPIST SPOTLIGHT: Charlotte Fox Weber

27-29

Tapping: A Routine for Stress Relief

30-35

ARTISTS ANSWER: “Which of your works stands out to you at this moment as being particularly meaningful?

36-41

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Jack Coulter

42-43

Millennial Man's Search for Meaning

44-47

10 Black Female Philosophers You Should Know About

48-49

NOTES FROM: bell hooks on Art

ARTISTS AND THERAPISTS ANSWER: "Feeling lost, stuck, and without meaning are experiences we all face as human beings... ...Why do you think that is? ...How might you approach those feelings in your work?"

WORDS & ARTWORKS FROM: Stuart Pearson Wright | Charlotte Fox Weber | Fergal Styles | Maja Andersen | Joshua Raz | Oded Reitten | Ali Ross | Wayne Horse | Laurent Allard | Jason Herr

Halfboy and Halfsister, Stuart Pearson Wright

"Now I am a father, I realise that my life has meaning..."

“Before I became a father, my work was the only context in which I explored meaning. Often, I was plunged into feelings of existential hopelessness.

Now I am a father, I realise that my life has meaning, and so I never have to plunge so deeply into existential despair anymore, since I am clear about my ultimate purpose and that if I manage to make any worthwhile artwork in addition, it is just a bonus.

Having said all that, I often sit and wonder how on earth to be an artist, where to start, and I have the feeling that really I am still at the beginning of a very long process.”

- Stuart Pearson Wright, Artist

The Loneliest Boy in the Whole Fucking World, Stuart Peatson Wright

“We want to make links.

We want to feel that our existence matters. It’s part of being conscious and having memory. We aren’t just experiencing life in a random, fragmented way. I think what makes us human is our capacity for connection, both with ourselves and with others, and that means making stories out of our own existence so that there’s a kind of arc to our lives, a coherence.

I think the wish for meaning is noble and understandable. We are meaning making creatures, but that doesn’t mean we arrive at some ultimate meaning. I think we can live meaningfully, and that’s a worthwhile pursuit. But ultimate meaning is the horizon we’ll never reach.

As my father often says, the meaning of life is life itself. So, we can live meaningfully, and I love helping people look at their choices and examine their lives closely so they can figure out where they’ve been and where they might go.”

Charlotte Fox Weber, Psychotherapist

The Jesuit's House, Fergal Styles “I think outside of specific teleological frameworks it is hard to find a satisfying answer to why anything is.

Often, we are asking why because we are searching for a kind of narrative finality. In such situations, it may be more fruitful to ask, how? How am I stuck? How am I lost? Asking how might allow us the possibility of understanding the nature of our suffering. By examining causality, we can find a boundary of peace within the wider unknown.

I think my work doesn’t attempt to resolve the feelings. or provide the viewer with the kind of narrative finality I mentioned before. The work is full of ambiguities and that’s okay. I make no strong claim that my work is manifest of my authorial intention, nor do I think that the work has its own subjectivity, and the process of its production remains, in part, a mystery to me.”

- Fergal Styles, Artist

Another Narcissus, Fergal Styles

“Yin and yang. I guess we cannot have one without the other; light without darkness, good without bad, or even life without death… Therapy isn’t about me telling someone how they should think, feel or be, but rather it is about each person finding their own voice and autonomy.

Some people initially come to therapy hoping that their therapist will have all the answers, and they may even be disappointed when the therapist is asking more questions rather than providing answers.

Of course, when we are lost, we want somebody to show us the way. A significant part of psychodynamic therapy is to challenge a client’s perspective. For example, a person may be absolutely convinced that they are worthless, unlovable or fundamentally flawed in some way, a view that can only come unstuck when challenged. This is naturally done in a gentle and respectful way, with kindness and care. Once someone shows us care, the idea of being ‘worthless’ is automatically challenged.”

- Maja Andersen, Psychotherapist

Maja Andersen

"Once someone shows us care, the idea of being ‘worthless’ is automatically challenged.”

On Thin Ice, Joshua Raz “Primarily, this sensation seems tied to the age-old dilemma of human selfawareness and our ability to add context to our own actions and those of others around us. Yet, I believe that this neurosis can be exacerbated by the systems that prop up the civilisations we have created. They tether us to routines which most are not adapted to find meaning within.

Meaning requires narrative, and the stories that we are told make less and less sense by the day. Within my work, I paint figures that are subsumed by the environments that they inhabit. Subjects often present as dissociated in the wake of a grand or warped landscape.

Joyride, Joshua Raz

Despite each landscape feeling somewhat tethered to reality, each environment depicts nowhere in particular. They can only offer each figure a shaky foundation on which to sit rather than stability. The way in which the figures within each painting circumvent each other is a consideration too, especially between the works that feature as part of the same body. In this, I hope to reflect the negotiation between a desire for individual identity and a desire to connect with others.”

- Joshua Raz, Artist

Oded Reitten “Sounds familiar. I’m not entirely sure; maybe meaning for us is like any other resource, we need to work at it or wait for it, consume until it’s gone, and then have to find it again? These are probably like the Yin side of the Yin-Yang, the bitter of the bitter-sweet etc. Nevertheless, we really don’t like to feel this way and often see it as a fault, either in ourselves or in the world… Why is that? Perhaps our Western idea of having to endlessly progress?

Everything that slows this down may seem like a problem. Human ‘solutions’ to finite resources always seem to create new problems on the planet as they tend to interfere with the complex web of reciprocal relationships things have with each other.

As we are forgetful beings, we forget that lost-found, meaningmeaninglessness are two sides of the same thing, mutually dependent on each other as one system. Once when I was really sad I wrote this poem, it’s somewhat relevant:

The good and the bad are matched (and in conflict) so much like brothers, so much in common yet nothing at all, they know each other the best the worst and not at all.

Wanting one and rejecting the other is of the same mother and father.

The chest sinks endlessly a rock off a cliff no sound.

The eyes weep lost images wrong choices feelings fantasies A time that was non (and not really gone) Regret; and if I’d done it differently am I free of burning loss Pain goes missing without a face And if I had and have am I happy do I stay, what else do u want will I ever get it. No. Nothing like the best the worst the ugliest the kindest has no limits the pain does eventually I leave and stay again I remain ready open prepared to be unprepared again and maybe drop better maybe not Make your brother a friend and a friend your brother

I allow them to be, and treat them the same as I do with more enjoyable feelings; something that I sometimes find challenging to do with myself (by myself), yet other people in my life help me with that too. These feelings are never pleasant, yet perhaps the ‘problem’ starts when I see them as a fault, like not supposed to happen, or when I forget of the cycle and get lost in one side of it; often paradoxically, by the gravity that is created of wanting to change them.

So in therapy, I try to talk about them less as oppositions that are fighting each other, like the good and the bad in Lord Of The Rings, and more like the polarities of the same thing, like day and night, leaves growing and wilting etc.

I remind them (and myself) that every meaning that we get or make is unstable, uncertain and temporary, in its time will also evaporate, and make space for more and other things. I use a lot of ‘of-course’ in my speech, ‘of course it changed’, ‘of-course we forgot’, and so on.. to remind them of the unstable nature of things, and try to get myself and them more familiar with it and somewhat even anticipate the flips.”

- Oded Reitten, Psychotherapist

“Part of existence is being lost to ourselves because to be in constant focus and attention to oneself is exhausting and intolerable. We lose concentration and focus no matter what the subject. No mood is constant or pervasive. Even chronic pain ebbs and flows. Sometimes being lost is a helpful drifting away; a break from ourselves; other times, we get lost for so long that we don’t know who or where we are anymore and we become stuck. Life is always changing and we are changing within it, so even if we find meaning, it rarely survives for long and we get lost again.

I find myself regularly drifting in and out of feeling stuck, lost, and without meaning. My personal therapy and life as a therapist have helped me understand this as part of existence and, even in moments of despair, find ways to gently find my way back to myself, wherever and however I am then settling back into myself. I offer the same process to my clients, helping them find themselves again now, as they are, finding out what that is like, and helping them to consider if they want to stay there for a time or move again. The more we go through this process, the less lost we feel, the more nuanced our self-understanding, which informs how we can better choose how to live our lives.”

- Ali Ross, Psychotherapist

Ali Ross

Wayne Horse “I use my work to help me. It gives me an opportunity to let loose and later look at my feelings manifested and try to make sense of it.

I wish for everyone to have one or the other relief form similar to this.

Life in itself is absolute unexplainable madness, so feeling lost is nothing to be ashamed of in the least.”

- Wayne Horse, Artist

Wayne Horse

Laurent Allard “I think that this somewhat desperate feeling of powerlessness that we can feel in our societies is part of the things that unconsciously guide my work. The characters (mostly cartoonish objects, made of porcelain or candles) and the objects are often in a state of distress (melting, stretching…), but this distress is mocked by the grotesque form my images take and the ideas they illustrate...

Laurent Allard ...Everyone has their reasons for feeling this way, but I think that in general there is a need to find meaning in what we do. More and more, we know that the whole system is not going in the right direction. Feeling blocked is not being able to project yourself in what is proposed to you as a society. But sometimes such a serious subject deserves a little derision and humour.”

- Laurent Allard, Artist

Jason Herr

“I think we have a negative bias because of how our brains evolved.

Fear and trepidation keep us safe, but being part of a close group made us feel safe. Today, we are constantly triggering the fear mechanism to keep up with the modern world, but we are also more isolated and lonely.

I approach this in my work by putting myself into each character I make.

Often, they are ugly characters in bizarre situations - they are not me, but I’m in there. The self-portrait hidden by a mask.”

- Jason Herr, Artist

Jason Herr

THERAPIST SPOTLIGHT: Charlotte Fox Weber Charlotte Fox Weber is an Existential psychotherapist and author. She has a profound interest in emotional issues, working relationally with clients where they feel lost, stuck, or without meaning.

In this interview, Charlotte shares her story, her influences, inspirations, and greatest lessons she has learned as a therapist.

Read on to find her latest book, 'What We Want: A Journey Through Twelve of Our Deepest Desires', available now for pre-order.

What were the main influences drawing Who or what inspires you the most in the you into the world of psychotherapy? world of psychotherapy today?

I started off with a deep interest in Freud, literature, and philosophy. I was always curious and desperate to understand the inner lives of people. I found that novels and literature contained more clues than most other places, and I still think that literature can be deeply illuminating for psychotherapy.

I’ve got an insatiable curiosity about people’s motivations, intentions, feelings, desires. I always want to know more so becoming a therapist gave me permission to find out what people are willing to explore.

Are they the same influences which keep you in the field today? How have they evolved?

I find myself returning to certain influences again and again. I love Yalom, Winnicott, Bowlby, Camus. I like rereading and revisiting ideas that have consoled and guided me in the past. And keeping up to date as well.

The thing I love most about this profession is that we never stop learning and growing. So, going back to old sources and embracing new ones is a constant thing. There’s always more to find out and discover.

The thing that continues to influence me the most are my clients. They grow and change and evolve, and help me expand my thinking just constantly. It’s the therapeutic encounters themselves that teach me the most, more than some abstract theory or approach to human beings.

Yalom is my hero. He’s retained his kindness and empathy, and joie de vivre.

People inspire me. My clients. When I see them look at themselves with unflinching honesty, I’m deeply admiring of their courage and their capacity to grow. I feel very privileged to be let into their inner worlds.

"Cleverness matters, but not as much as kindness."

What are the greatest lessons you have learned as a psychotherapist?

Paying attention is a form of love. It goes such a long way. We need to be sophisticated and insightful and deeply intelligent, but we also, as psychotherapists, need to be kind and receptive and engaged, and warm. Being decent. Being attentive. Caring. These rudimentary things don’t stop mattering — to the contrary, they matter just so incredibly. Cleverness matters, but not as much as kindness.

"The lives and problems of psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber's clients vary, but all are united by a common question: what do I really want?

In What We Want, Charlotte Fox Weber takes us on a journey through twelve universal wants and desires, bringing us behind the closed doors of her practice.

It is at once a fly-on-the-wall look at what binds us all, an expression of the profound importance of understanding and articulating our desires, and a practical toolkit for living well."

Charlotte Fox Weber's latest book, 'What We Want: A Journey Through Twelve of Our Deepest Desires' is now available for pre-order.

Click the link below to pick up a copy: https://geni.us/whatwewant

Tapping: A Routine for Stress Relief Stress is becoming what some dub as the ‘health epidemic of the 21st century’, and there’s no surprise stress has detrimental effects to our immune systems by reducing its ability to attack antigens and increasing susceptibility to infections. In fact, stress has also been linked to anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and even chronic pain.

While there are countless tools and products available on the market that can help relieve stress and promote calmness, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) has been shown to lower cortisol levels and it doesn’t require any financial investment or expertise.

EFT Tapping, sometimes called ‘psychological acupressure’, is a psychophysiological technique that combines ancient Chinese acupressure with modern psychology and elements of cognitive therapies that helps to alleviate physical and emotional stress.

Its simple process can help with anxiety, lower cortisol levels, improve sleep, relieve pain, increase productivity, and more.

While it is still being researched, EFT has been shown to be effective as a self-help tool as well as a practiced method by medical and mental health professionals in healthcare settings, with particular success seen in those experiencing intense anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression.

Alongside a wealth of anecdotal evidence, there are now more than 100 papers published in peer-reviewed professional journals, including clinical reports, randomised controlled trials (RCTs), meta-analyses, outcome studies, and mechanism papers.

Read more to find out how EFT Tapping can be used to cope with difficult emotions, physical pain, trauma, cravings, limiting beliefs and other issues.

(Scan or click on the QR code to read the full article and learn how to do tapping techniques yourself.)

The Origins of Emotional Freedom Technique Its initial concept, termed 'Thought Field Therapy' was created by psychologist Roger Callahan in 1980, who combined his knowledge as a psychologist with studies in traditional Chinese medicine.

However, this complex technique required a trained practitioner to carry out. A decade later, having been trained

by Dr. Callahan, Gary Craig developed the process to create a simpler sequence that was repeatable and easy to learn, which he coined 'Emotional Freedom Technique'.

What is Tapping?

Sometimes referred to as EFT, Tapping is a self-help technique for managing and relieving stress.

The method integrates elements of ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology; combining fingertip tapping to apply pressure on key meridian points on the body alongside positive affirmations that follow the principles of neuro-linguistic programming.

It’s easy to learn and can be practised by anyone, anywhere - whether at home, in the office, or on the train for immediate effects.

Professor Gary Craig, the developer of EFT, believed that difficult emotions and pain are caused by an imbalance of energy which could be addressed through a sequence of tapping on various meridian points. It is thought that the meridian flow can be affected by factors such as stress and anxiety to dietary issues and health problems.

Where are the meridian points?

A concept in traditional Chinese medicine, meridians are energy channels that run throughout the body and connect with specific organs. Along each of these channels, multiple acupressure points can be found which can be stimulated through needling (acupuncture), pressure, or heat to help balance the energy flow to maintain positive mental and physical health.

There are twelve major meridian points on the body which correspond to an internal organ. EFT usually focuses on nine key points, the majority of which are either entry or exit points on the meridian system. These are shown on the next page:

ARTISTS ANSWER:

“Is there an artwork of yours that stands out to you in this moment as being particularly meaningful?”

WORDS & ARTWORKS FROM: Philip Harris | Jack Coulter | Nil & Karin Romano | Connor Tudor | MURUGIAH

'Figures at Ebb Tide' - Philip Harris

I think ‘Figures at Ebb Tide’ is a painting that I find meaningful on many levels. It is an almost infinitely complex painting technically with layers of meaning that, in my opinion, work perfectly together, or at least exactly how I wanted them to. To have so much in a painting and for it still to be easily digestible or comprehensible on an instinctual level is probably my greatest achievement in painting.

Part of the theme of that painting is the passage of time and change within that time, so it’s particularly meaningful to me because the figure in the foreground is my mother who died fairly recently.

It’s a nice reminder that change and renewal is the essence of life.”

- Philip Harris

“It’s titled ‘1994’, a very old work of mine I did at 18. It’s around 100 x 127 in. It was an influential time in my life, I felt it needed channelling. As well, in hindsight, the piece could deem to be important. I knew if I could match, if not outdo certain paintings I saw from the great abstract expressionists at such a young age, I could potentially reach that level as life progresses.

Naivety in your formative years is quite an inspiring thing, there’s a youthful innocence/energy to it. I titled that piece after the year I was born, it strangely encapsulates my past, present, and future artistry.”

- Jack Coulter

The other drawing that we got attached to recently is called: ” I Want To Pull The Sadness Out Of You”.

The drawing shows two gay muscular figures, one crying and the other enveloping him with love and support and pull him upwards in order to lift him from his pain. We made two versions of this piece, one as a black and white drawing and the other as a painting with bold colours on a big size canvas. It’s hard for us to even tell which of the two we love more because they touch us both, they are the same but yet so different from one another.”

- Nil & Karin Romano

'Room Full of Grief' - Nil & Karin Romano

“We have a special soft spot for one in particular called “Room Full Of Grief” (The Funeral). We did this piece of work when we were in the process of losing someone we really love , who was such a unique person. Our aunt was a true rebel in her heart, so we found it easy to connect with her on a deeper level. She got ill and we prepared ourselves for the last goodbye when making a painting about loss. It helped us cope with the situation in the most personal way...

'I Want to Pull the Sadness Out of You' - Nil & Karin Romano

'Remnant 1' - Conor Tudor

““Remnant 1” is probably the most meaningful to me. It depicts a singular broken pint glass sitting atop a lacquered, worn wooden table with a dark green horizon. The thinking was of what we’ve lost during this past year and what we’ll have afterwards.

It’s a little hopeful though, the horizon, a historical symbol of there being something more, something after, acts as a reminder that we will continue to move on. We'll mourn the time and ones lost but, ultimately, we’ll all continue onwards. Wherever that may be.”

- Connor Tudor

'Herald' - MURUGIAH “I would say my piece of work “Herald”. It wasn’t the first piece in this newer style developed in early 2020, but once I had made it, I had a realisation that I could make work in a more unique way that felt personal to me.”

- MURUGIAH

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Jack Coulter Jack Coulter is an Irish artist whose paintings capture his experience of synaesthesia (seeing sound). His earliest memories of this date back to childhood, as he remembers seeing his own heartbeat reverberating pulses of colour.

Throughout his adolescence he would paint whilst listening to jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, translating their sounds onto canvas.

Today, he has been commissioned by Anne Hathaway, Coca-Cola, Antoni Porowski, the Freddie Mercury Estate, and others to transform various musical compositions into art pieces.

In our interview, Coulter tells me which artwork of his stands out as being particularly meaningful to him, which harsh truths he prefers to ignore as an artist, and whether or not he believes there are limits to human creativity.

Mr. Bad Guy – Freddie Mercury (commisioned by The Freddie Mercury Estate, 2019) 60 x 48 in. (152.4 x 121.9 cm.)

In terms of painting firstly, I feel it’s all about belief, do you believe it? There’s a reason certain works collectively engage the general public, as Tracey Emin said, ‘You have to crack a code.’ It can be an accident, or purposeful. It truly depends on the piece of art, or artist for that matter. In genre it’s very similar, except it leans more toward feeling and intent. I think abstraction is the most universal art form, it’ll never die or lose potency. It’s difficult to say if one genre of art is more valid than another, certainly some are more informative than others.

What does it mean to you to be vulnerable as an artist?

Being vulnerable is freedom as an artist.

If you don’t wear your heart on canvas so to speak, it won’t translate. My mental health wasn’t great when I started everything. Art truly saved my life; I owe everything to it. Allowing myself to be vulnerable at that time is what kept me alive, I channelled it even in that state.

Vulnerability can shift into power.

Translation (2) Color Of Change (collaboration with Epic Records & The Black Eyed Peas, 2020.) 60 x 48 in. (152.4 x 121.9 cm.)

Do you think it’s possible to objectively state that a piece or genre of art is more artistically valid than another?

Detail of ‘Omolara’ (recent collaboration with Nordoff Robbins, ‘We Are Listening’ campaign, 2021)

"Allowing myself to be vulnerable at that time is what kept me alive, I channelled it even in that state.

Vulnerability can shift into power."

What harsh truths do you prefer to ignore as an artist?

It’s important to realise you can’t please everyone, especially in abstraction. I don’t ignore negativity; it adds fuel to the fire.

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor (painted live with the London Chamber Orchestra, 2018)

Detail of ‘Gloria’ – Patti Smith (1979) Germany (commissioned by Anne Hathaway, 2020) 60 x 48 in. (152.4 x 121.9 cm.)

Do you believe there are limits to human creativity?

I don’t at all, unless you’re physically or mentally unable to create. Even then, Frida Kahlo still painted wearing a fullbody cast for three months. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip in a bus accident, her pelvic bone had been fractured, her abdomen and uterus had been punctured, her spine was broken in three places, her right leg was broken in eleven places, her right foot was crushed and dislocated, her collar bone was broken, and her shoulder was dislocated. The accident had also displaced three vertebrae. For that reason, I don’t believe there are limits. The term ‘artist’s block’ frustrates me, it’s quite a privileged thing to say.

If there were an artwork that depicted your current experience of the world, what might it look like?

I would say either Another Storm by Lee Krasner (1963) or 12 Hawks at 3 O’clock

by Joan Mitchell (1960)

Millennial Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy Logotherapy is a form of therapeutic intervention centred on the belief that a will to meaning is the most compelling motivation in human beings - an idea formulated by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl in his book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ - based on his experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

According to logotherapy, we can discover a meaning in life in three different ways.

And importantly, in the words of Frankl, ‘every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age needs its own psychotherapy to cope with it’. This article will therefore explore how Frankl’s ideas and logotherapeutic techniques could be relevant in the age of millennials.

Throughout his time as a Holocaust prisoner, he experienced many around him falling victim to the ‘existential vacuum’ – an inner experience of misery, emptiness, and desolation. Meanwhile, he saw that those with a robust sense of meaning were much more likely to survive the camps. He therefore asserted that a definitive sense of meaning and purpose can bring positivity and significance to one’s life in spite of any circumstances.

(Click or scan the QR code to read the full article on repsychl.)

Why Millennials?

Throughout the post-war period, poor living conditions were rife as countries struggled to rebuild economies and recover from the horrors and losses of war. A lack of faith in purpose and progress was conveyed in postmodernism, the period in which Frankl’s ideas took form, and were impacted by the ‘man machine’, mechanisation of individuals leading to widespread alienation. Over several decades, in counteraction to this sense of hopelessness, a new message of aspiration and empowerment arose that was passed on to millennial children: that anyone can achieve and make a difference in the world.

Millennials are therefore stereotypically narcissistic, lazy, and entitled - made to feel special and valuable no matter what they put forward nor how hard they try. When thrusted into the real world, a shattering of self-esteem can result, due to the comparatively harsh reality.

Faced with this instability, one can experience a meaning crisis akin to the existential vacuum – a neurosis described as a ‘private and personal form of nihilism’, manifesting as a state of continual flux between boredom and distress. In this state, it is no wonder that a number of millennials may feel insecurity, worthlessness, guilt, and a lack of real purpose.

Under these circumstances, how might Frankl suggest millennials find a sense of meaning?

1. Create Work or Do a Deed Frankl was against the ascribing of value to individuals in terms of socalled ‘social usefulness’, determined through power and financial success.

Rather, he suggested one could find meaning through creating work or a deed that brought about a sense of real meaning and personal value.

For millennials, this could mean looking for opportunities without any primary intent in egoistic advantage or achievement.

"The 'size' of suffering is entirely relative" 2. Find Meaning in Unhappiness Frankl said the ‘size’ of suffering is entirely relative. That is, suffering occupies the soul and conscious mind, no matter how ‘great’ or ‘little’. In logotherapy, any attempt to undermine or dampen this inner tension would not be made by the therapist...

10 Black Female Philosophers You Should Know About In 2007, the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers (see number 5) had their first meeting to gather together Black women in the field.

There still remains an uphill battle in recognition of female philosophers and philosophers of colour. There is a tiny percentage of Black philosophers, and the number of women within that minority is even smaller.

Here is a list of ten Black female philosophers we should all be paying (over)due attention to.

(See QR code at the end for the full list on repsychl)

1 – Angela Davis “Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.”

– in An Autobiography (1974) Angela Davis is an American philosopher and political activist who writes and lectures on issues surrounding women's rights, race, class, and the state of the American criminal justice system.

Angela Davis by Unknown

2 – Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie was a Nigerian feminist, poet, critic, and editor whose work focused mainly on the oppression of African women.

She was in the leadership of feminist and gender studies in Africa, writing for numerous academic and general publications.

4 – Gloria Jean Watkins a.k.a. bell hooks bell hooks was an American feminist who writes on the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender.

She published over 30 books as well as a number of scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and given public lectures.

3 – Hortense Spillers Hortense Spillers is an American literary critic, Black Feminist scholar and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University.

Her work focuses on Black feminism and African-American literature. She draws particular focus on the matriarchal family structure in Black communities.

She is best known for her essays on African-American literature, collected in Black, White, and In Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture (2003) and Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text (1991).

In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky.

5 – Dr. Kathryn Gines Dr. Kathryn Gines is an American philosopher working at Pennsylvania State University. A great proportion of her work centres on increasing diversity within Philosophy, acknowledging the Black female identity in relation to overcoming oppression.

She is the founder of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, an organisation created to make Black women visible in the field of philosophy and to permit greater networking and mentoring opportunities for these women.

Kathryn Gines by Shawn Calhoun

6 – Lory Janelle Dance Lory Janelle Dance is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).

One of her most recent publications includes “Performativity Pressures at Urban Schools in Sweden and New York,” published in Ethnography and Education in 2014.

Notes from bell hooks on Art In honour of the late great bell hooks, we present a selection of quotes from a number of published works and conversations where she discusses the purpose and value of art in contemporary society.

"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible." (1)

"Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible." (2)

"No Black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much’.

Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’... No woman has ever written enough.” (3)

“The uses of time, the choices we make with respect to what to think and write about, are part of visual politics… As we think and write about visual art, as we make spaces for dialogue across boundaries, we engage in a process of cultural transformation that will ultimately create a revolution in vision.”

(4)

​“The art that I make is intentional. The stories are personal, and I draw on African-American experience – that to me is the foundation – but the values in my work transcend the specific and address the universal as well.” (5)

References 1.

Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, 2012.

2. in Conversation with Maya Angelou, 1998.

3. Remembered Rapture: The Writer At Work, 1999.

4. and 5. Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, 1995.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The interviews in this first issue of repsychl are the product of a series carried out over the past several years, with artists and therapists spanning modalities, genres, and continents.

We owe huge thanks to everyone involved in its creation - for all of the wisdom, insight, and vulnerability you have shared with us.

Thank you to all of you (in order of appearance): Stuart Pearson Wright Charlotte Fox Weber Fergal Styles Maja Andersen Joshua Raz Oded Reitten Ali Ross Wayne Horse Laurent Allard Jason Herr Philip Harris Jack Coulter Nil & Karin Romano Connor Tudor MURUGIAH

COLLABORATE WITH US We welcome any contributions to repsychl - whether that be through your own stories, articles, or projects.

If you would like to collaborate in our next edition, please get in touch via the platforms below.

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