Susan Cousins

I'm absolutely delighted to welcome her to this episode of the Therapists Connect podcast. Well, first of all, thank you very much for doing the podcast. I really appreciate it. And and I suppose we should crack on with some questions. First question, which obviously I've asked everybody who's done the podcast so far is kind of what made you want to be a therapist, kind of what drew you into this profession in the first place?

hope. And leaving that session, that I felt that change was really going to be possible, and I no longer kind of need to be held hostage to my past, I felt there was a, there was some hope out there for me and a healthier, better future. So I remember, just in one session, words just gushed out of me at such high speed. And my counsellor just didn't say anything at all. At the end of the session, well, I've just been talking the whole time, at

her. And I said to her, well, I don't really understand why I've not allowed you to say anything, and why you haven't said anything. And she turns around, and she said to me, because you've got a lot to say, and no one's been listening to you for a long time. And those two things were, were, absolutely quite profound to me, I did have a lot to say, you know, I come from a very large family, and I wasn't actually listened to a lot. And I did, you know, I did have a lot to say. And so her

answer was just incredible. For me, it was profound to me. And it left a very strong impression. And I also thought, so listening to somebody and being present with another person, and trying to make sense of their thoughts and their feelings has such a healing capacity. And it just became something I really, really wanted to learn how to do. And, and that kind of experience of validation. And that kind of empathy was a powerful experience and never really left

me. And, and it was after that first counselling session that I decided that's what I wanted to do. And I went on to have a year of counselling provided by the NHS those days. And my recovery was slow. And it took many years to kind of shift a lot of feelings of shame and loss and aloneness, and the kind of survivalist mentality that I have into a kind of healthier person. And, and it was just an

exceptional encounter. And there was something even more strange about that encounter was that I realised, as we slowly got to know each other that she actually knew my mother. And she, they shared a close friend, and had met my mother on several occasions. Well, you know, this, my mother, and I, didn't live anyone near each other. This was in Bristol and I was brought up in the Midlands. And so that was that was weird. That connection

was really, really strange. The one thing I wanted to say about, that is why I wanted to do counselling, but one thing of the things I wanted to say about that meeting was that race was was never ever mentioned in that session.

well. Race isn't a subject that I tend to go anywhere near So it was okay, it was okay.

transnationally adopted. And growing up in a multiracial family, how did that impact on your identity as a therapist?

parts. And yet the glue that holds it together appears to make it perfectly. But the glue is always separating those two parts. So I don't think I'm ever going to be as strong than I would have been originally, I feel, I feel sort of kind of quite broken by that. And I feel sad for the loss of language and

my culture and my family. But I also feel on the other, the other part of me glad to have grown is the person that I am now and to have had the kind of experience that I had, within my quite extraordinary family, you know, seven brothers and sisters from different backgrounds. And I, you know, James Baldwin said, made a statement, you know, where you come from, and I do

know where I come from. And where, that feeling of knowing where I come from, has kept my feet firmly on the ground, particularly in relation to expectations of life. And I, I don't think I have a Western expectation of life in the sense that I, I don't think its days gone by, where I haven't thought about the death of allthe children that day, death in general, a lot of the children were left behind in that orphanage and how some of them probably didn't survive, and

that I did. And it's given me a different worldview on existence and the fragility of life. And life is something I've never been able to take for granted or kind of to relax into. And I've, and this is, you know, this is sad, because, you know, I've lost five members of my family, I lost my younger brother died in front of me when I was very young, in a very trofferaumatic accident, I lost a brother in a house fire, and my sister was the 19th person in the UK to die

of swine flu. And when my family had to make the decision to turn off the ventilator, and I, I was with both my parents when they died. So given the family history, and the low mortality rates, I kind of wake up in the morning, and I'm always amazed that I'm still here. And I never really expected to live this

long. And I know that sounds really strange, but when you've lost so many members of your family, I don't think that's accidental, I think the whole process of transnational adoption, I think, you know the care system in itself, and I think it reduces life expectancy. But I don't know, I don't know if there's been any

research done on that. And so, you know, I was brought up in this kind of incredibly diverse family, brothers and sisters, black, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian mixed race, and mixed parentage, mixed heritage. And, and we were all brought up from the age of two. And I think that it kind of gave me this, it was just very powerfully useful, because I can identify with lots of different people from

different backgrounds. And it's like, I've been blessed with the kind of flexibility working across cultures because this is how I was brought up. And I was determined to offer BAME people access to counselling, because it wasn't, wasn't.. it's a real kind of inequality and still is, in the provision of therapy for BAME people. And it's almost as if people could easily identify with with my background, because I thought, they thought I was

their background. So I've been mistakenly thought of as African Caribbean, I've been mistakenly thought of as South American. And so I think I've been mistakenly thought of as many different things. So when the BAME person sitting in front of me, they sort of think that I'm the same as their background, which has been just incredibly useful. And so yeah, it's offered me that my background's offered me enormous amounts of flexibility in the way that I work.

time. And because I was the darkest,but that's a whole other area of conversation.

you're all doing. And that, although it was all of those things, you talked about how actually the reality behind all of that was much more complicated and much more nuanced than maybe what that programme had got across?

hand, amazing and wonderful. And on the other hand, something that's taken me all my life to work through and fill. And, you know, still, the impact of that is affecting my life and who I am, as it's bound to have done, it was extremely traumatic. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't brought up in this wonderful, loving family that was presented on that programme. My parents did actually try to challenge

that, to be honest. And but I think that, you know, it's kind of like, where do you, where would you want to go to the programme like that, for the sake of my brothers and sisters and to protect my brothers and sisters, and I don't think it would have been very useful for the family to have gone into it any real depth.

BAME people. And I used the term BAME, and I apologise for it, but I'm not sure about the 10 people of colour, because the people who are not of colour who are mixed race, mixed heritage who don't physically look of colour, so like everybody else, I'm struggling with categorization and terminology. So just thought I'd better say that Peter, actually.

kinds of experience. I didn't I kind of, you know, challenging people about race is incredibly difficult to carry out and it's kind of full of pitfalls, barriers and obstacles, and I didn't want to bring race into my course because I was the only BAME counsellor training there. And so it was incredibly

difficult. So I left, as I did in the counselling session, I left the race out of it completely, but I made the decision to write every single essay even was about Freud, or Jung, or about integrative

therapy. Whatever we learned in that time, I can't remember it was quite a long time ago, 25 years ago, I wrote it about race, every single lesson, so so I bought books that weren't on, weren't recommended reading, I kept getting much lower grades, and my tutors kept saying to me, Susan, you know, you're not scoring, you haven't reached the

10 point criteria. And I said, well, I know, I'm not interested in reaching the 10 point criteria, I'm happy to get six points as long as I pass, because I want to do the reading that I want to do. I don't want to do your reading, I don't want to read all your books, I want to read the books I've got about the same subjects. And so I made

a really conscious decision. And the reason I was able to write the book that I've written was because I've got so many books from that course, that fed into the book and informed me about the overcoming everyday racism. And so I felt, you know, I felt extremely isolated on the

course. It's kind of like a, it's like some counselling courses that they were then, very rigid structures, but you know, the edges of it were quite soft, you know, the tone of voice that's kind of, ultimately sometimes excluding and controlling. And I didn't find it safe, I knew I wasn't going

to fit. So I knew the course would fail to take into account, you know, social political environment structures, and it would project blame onto my individual experience, which is why I didn't feel safe talking about my individual experience. And at some point, I thought I'd be called out, to take personal responsibility, because in those days, Peter, there was this thing about all those BAME people were, were behaving like

victims. And so when they were being attacked, attacked, it was because they look like a victim or walk like a victim. And I remember literally trying to walk differently down the road. And, and so I thought,' Oh, it must be me, I'm not walking, like I'm assertive enough'. And, and I really took this on board. And I sort of tried walking differently, I thought it would stop people spitting at me or shouting at me or abusing at me in the street. And of course, that wasn't the case. So that

was a very damaging view. And, and sort of loose and lazy thinking that was ignoring the complexity of the situation. So I'm, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, I'm wary and wary of that kind of thinking and very wary of it. And

the end of the course. And I went to my tutors and said, I'm not going to, I don't want to attend this course. And they said to me, 'Well, why Susan, why why must come along'. And I said, I don't want to go, because I know I'm going to hear a group of white people, who I built up a relationship with, who I like, and I'm close to, talk about racism in ways that I'm going to find emotionally upsetting. And I just don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear

denial. I don't want to hear people kind of overreact to normal, everyday experiences of racism. And I don't want to hear that kind of white response to racism in a room full of people, when I'm the only person and my tutors said we must come Susan because you know, it would be really good to have you there and it will really improve the conversation. It will, it will empower the conversation. You know, you're such a good talker, Susan, you'll be able to really

help people. I went along, then I ended up, after up two or three hours of putting up with all sorts of nonsense walking out in tears. And because I was hearing all the things that, you know, I didn't want to hear. I didn't want to hear people challenging the racism that really existed. I didn't want to hear oh we need some evidence that racism is like; I didn't want to hear that kind of denial. I didn't want to have the projection. You know, I just

didn't hear it. And you know, the lesson I learned from that was to trust my instincts - I shouldn't have gone in the first place.

like that, yeah. White people learning on the emotional, being, and that being an emotional burden that people have been involved in that, in that training, and I, I've done that training myself quite recently. And it's just been, I just thought, I don't want to do this. And it's just been horrific. For the white people who have learned on the back of the emotional upset of the black people in the room including my own even recently, when I did it. And I really, I don't know, I don't know..

different people. And the balances of that really, of people being comfortable enough to share and choosing to, versus people feeling forced to share, and, and the kind of balances of that, really, and I, I really appreciate what you're saying there in terms of, you know, everyone needs to be able to have the choice about what they want to talk about, and it's not individuals' responsibility to be educating the group is it, you know, it's the group's responsibility to educate itself.

approach. And I kind of like, I mean, I'm, you know, that's kind of that's held me, and it kind of some, I suppose we could put into the mix there, some existential stuff around making meaning out of everyday life, because that's actually something I find fascinating about the creative possibilities that exist in the space of a day, in people's lives. And, and I think that's also, you know, particularly now under lockdown,

well, not under lockdown. But we are a little bit more under lockdown than Wales, Peter, but not been released quite as much. But that's really kind of put into focus, isn't it, that kind of what is our, the meaning of our everyday life? And I, I've always found that a fascinating place in which to work with people. Rather than necessarily working with depression, or anxiety, of course, I've worked with those things. I've been working for a long time, or supervising people around those

issues. They think that what is contained within a day, and how one uses one day, and what is in in that day, is has been something that's not really an approach to working is it but it's something that I'm always considering in the back of my mind. So obviously, the past is important, and the future is important. But the hear and now is, is has always been very important in my work. And, you know, in a lot of the work that I've done, I have been working with victims of violence and

race hate crime. And so I've I think worked with people's behaviours, I worked in a CBT way in terms of, you know, supporting people in increasing their confidence in entering public spaces if they've been attacked in public spaces, and working through thoughts and feelings. And, you know, I remember I developed kind of mantras like, with people who've been attacked or assaulted, and because of their race, because the street becomes, becomes a

place of harm. And I kind of said to people that these pavements are just as much yours as they are everybody else's; claim the pavements for yourself and particularly when working with with them, young black men, who feel that, you know, as people walk towards them, that they're a threat just by the marker effect just by being black walking on the pavement and having people walk away from you and touch their handbags and

all those kinds of things. And the street becomes a place where you've got got to reclaim that for yourself, to be brave enough to walk it. And so yeah, so I've kind of, I've had my relationship with CBT, and the more mechanistic approaches like everybody else, and who comes from a, from a different approach on the humanistic approach. And I've learned that it's, you know, it's been incredibly useful. And I guess I wouldn't introduce anything like that with a client if I hadn't

discussed it with them. You know, I've had some brilliant supervision. And people have said, the CBT supervisors, you know, saying to me, have you thought about this, Susan, and, you know, works completely outside my comfort zone. But also kind of, really like the whole notion of acceptance, and that, you know, working with people who've been attacked, or been abused, because their race, I kind of know, talks a lot about accepting certain levels of anxiety and hyper vigilance.

And I feel like that myself, you know, I've been physically assaulted as a child and several times as an adult. And I know that I, I'm never going to feel safe and kind of that's okay for me. I've adapted, I change my behaviour. I don't feel I've got to live up to the expectations of others to be different or to somehow get over that or to be stronger. And or to be stronger against the whole society. That's kind of ritually isn't it? I. No. So I've got all sorts of protective things around me.

I think it's okay to be like that. So I guess there's, yeah, I work in many, many different ways with people. But I'm grounded in in, in person centred and a multicultural perspective.

particularly appropriate. But those people still come up to me today and thank me in the street, because I live quite near this resource centre. And so, you know, I couldn't have done such a bad job as a newly qualified person with severe difficulties. But, um, so that's, that was, that was my first job. And then I was the very first black counsellor to be employed by the then South

Haven Health Authority. And, and I was, you know, dealing with the traumatic experiences of racism in people's lives, being physically attacked and negotiating white workspaces, managing college, university, identity, you know, being possibly over medicalized, and all sorts of things. I was like, yeah, I mean, that was it. It was, it was a very, it was tough. Those years were really tough. And I felt like I was very alone. I didn't, I never

had a BAME supervisor. I didn't really have anybody to talk to about how different it was - the people, people that I was working with, and the context in which I was working in and there was one experience that I had, because all the people I worked with in this, it was called an ??? actually, we worked for nine general practices and they were all white. And I remember I was working with this woman, who had been assaulted and she rang me

up. And she wanted to know how to get to the health centre, go down there, and I was giving her a very detailed description of how to get to the health centre. Now, and then a white practitioner said to me, in the middle of this conversation, said, 'You're disempowering your client'. I was asbolutely, I was, I thought I said, I sort of I put my hand out, essentially

to stop her talking to me. I was, I never ever thought I would be able to get her to come to the counselling room, and never be able to get her to come to the health centre. So I was trying to do everything I possibly could to reassure her. And you know, and I suppose that's the kind of thing that was when, you know, I didn't, you didn't have the language, then I didn't have the language to, to actually say to this person, this other practitioner that had said this to me. It was

outrageous. And so I think I probably, I can't remember what I said. But that really stuck in my mind is, you know, what it's like sometimes to be a BAME therapist working in an all white service. I think there's an absolute, definitely a role for white allies. But it's kind of like, you know, can't be kind of slacktivism, it's got to be, it can't be performative. It's got to actually meet, there has

to be action. And you know, you can you can, you can tell it's performative, when there's silence and not understanding, when there's denial or lack of acceptance, or, you know, the power gets just gets taken away from you in an unexpected fashion in a meeting or something. I mean, there are so many ways in which white allies

can make a difference. And I, you know, the structures that are in place, I guess that that white allies need to think about curriculum changes, think about mentoring, need to think about supervision, and basic vision of what people want, it's about choice, isn't it? And you think about maybe across, I think, if I was running a course, I might set up, you know, the different courses usually don't go in different year groups and setting up, you know, a BAME

support group. Within that, I think there are just many, many things and, you know, input into curriculum change all sorts of stuff really, I imagine. Yeah, so there needs to be some resource behind this. Because that is definitely affecting the amount of BAME people that go on courses, that simply having the money and the time, and it's because everybody knows that, but, and I was involved in a project many, many years ago, which was about raising some money to support people to come

into counselling courses. And so I think those kinds of things are really, really good ideas. And I, you know, I know it's difficult, but you know, having a BAME supervisor is such a hard thing to find, a BAME supervisor. If you if you, you know, you're going through training. I don't know, I guess with all the stuff around zoom and everything, it's more possible to do that, because you don't have to necessarily look

within your own town. Recently, I've had conversations with BAME people just saying that they wish that when that thing happened in that meeting, that white people, you know, didn't act as bystanders and challenged it. And I think that's where a lot of BAME people get hurt. Because it just takes you back, it takes you by surprise, oh hang on, I've been working with

this person for years. And I thought they were, you know, they just didn't stand up to me, they didn't really notice it, or they said they didn't notice it. And, and that's why I think for me, to me, and white allie-ship has got an incredibly important role in the here and now of the way race interacts in white spaces.

And I wondered what else you've got planned for the future, if you got any other projects, or maybe another book that you're potentially working on at the moment.

everydayness of life. I don't, I don't really feel like making plans at the moment. I think, I'm, I suppose the only plans I've got, is I want to be with my children, I want to stay safe. I want to be healthy. And I'm grateful for the life at the moment. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm kind of, yeah, I just want to stay with what I have. Yeah, I don't want to move too fast into anything else, because I'm, you know, a little bit now Peter, and you know I might get some crazy idea, start doing this and

start doing that. And I have, I am quite somebody who kind of is really annoying, and I wake up in the morning with a lot of energy and a lot of ideas. And so I'm just trying to calm that down inside of me at the moment, because life feels fragile, but it also feels incredibly precious? How are you feeling now?

you're going. And I think, yeah, it just made me reflect on that, really, and think, I think if we're looking at this whole idea of lockdown and what's happened over the last few months, it's probably given a lot of us more opportunity to kind of reflect on our own lives and maybe maybe a bit more of a deeper way than we have done before.