Guilaine Kinouani

Thank you. It makes me think of workplaces but also education settings, inc. doctorate university settings/trainees who may feel unable to name for specific (similar and different) macro-violence.

Yep. Same difference.

I also value the clear and strong linking of micro to macro, SO NEEDED as a form of creative resistance.

Thank you. Yes, it is vital to link the micro to the macro. Group analysis is very good at this. Possibly well ahead of all other therapeutic disciplines.

In addition to capturing the micro-macro, your model also beautifully articulates how the oppressive system restores its equilibrium at the expense of POC. This is so important. I can’t find words but it also feels like it’s depicting something about time & temporality.

Thanks Kate. Interesting. I was not consciously thinking about temporality but your words made me think about how time stands still or behaviours in the here and now can reproduce older structural configurations...not sure that’s where your thinking went?

Yes that’s it! The incident is a moment in time, an episode. As the POC’s experience moves round the clock face (as it were) the acute encounter reveals chronic oppressive condition. Agency has been thwarted. I imagine it’s not simply traumatising but also surfaces old trauma.

Yes. It does. One thing I did not include in my adaption of the Malan triangles is the social unconscious. I was aware that the transference issues could be historical in the collective sense rather than interpersonal (from the worker’s past). This is complex, right?

This is great. May I ask what the relationship between denial and naming is in the flowchart? Perhaps it’s just the tiny phone screen but I don’t see arrows (and I’m interested in understanding it better, this the question)

There should be arrows. Naming brings into existence. Denial is the act of refusing the very existence of what is rising from silence into existence. I’d say the higher the level of denial, the higher the need to name & establish one’s sanity & one’s existence/experience, maybe?

Understood. Interrogating my own WP reactions I see ‘diffusion’ as a powerful paralysing tactic that seems mild to WP but can be very effective at defence. Eg asking for more info, making someone repeat their story endlessly, deferring action. In other words, not outright denial

This is still denial

They will see it as ‘not actual denial’. I shall muse on this and when I understand it better, see if I have anything of use to offer. In the meantime I would love to have permission to print out and display (or better, screensaver it - bigger!)

They might. They would be mistaken. Denial is loosely any response that helps us to circumvent painful of discomforting material. Denial is the mother of all defense mechanisms...

Thank you. I very naively thought this was a one off when it happened to my daughter in the NHS recently, but have experienced tears and victimhood from people I have called out at work since.

Very helpful. Is it obvious to note that denial seems to be a standard response to violence that isn't subtle as well?

Much less so...the more subtle the easier it is to deny.

Just reflecting based on some comments at a recent Youth Cafe. Outrageously clear racism was simply denied. As Donald Trump does all the time.

Donal Trump is possibly an outlier in terms of his open bigotry? Generally ambiguity leads to more projections/defense mechanisms.