# Workshop Title: Difficult Conversations: Black Maternal Health, Black Existential Thought and Therapeutic Practice

How do we remain present when there is no resolution? How do we hold stories of harm when the very systems intended to care have contributed to suffering?

This experiential workshop invites therapists, counselling psychologists and other mental health professionals to explore Black maternal health through the lens of Black existential thought and phenomenology. Using composite case material, reflective dialogue and experiential exercises, participants will examine the complex intersections of race, embodiment, trauma, disability, systemic inequity and care.

Moving beyond traditional trauma-informed approaches, the workshop considers how Black existential perspectives offer a richer understanding of maternal suffering, identity, recognition and survival. Together, we will explore the ethical tensions that arise when working with experiences shaped by structural harm and consider how therapeutic practice can move beyond the impulse to fix toward an embodied practice of presence, witnessing, and accompaniment.

Throughout the session, participants will critically reflect on their responses to uncertainty, discomfort, and non-resolution, while developing practical ways to integrate Black existential thought into therapeutic formulation and clinical practice.

Participants will:

Develop an understanding of Black maternal health as both a clinical and existential concern.

Explore key concepts from Black existential thought and their relevance to therapeutic work.

Consider how race, power, embodiment and structural inequity shape maternal experiences and the therapeutic relationship.

Reflect on the ethical challenges of working with trauma that cannot be easily resolved.

Develop greater confidence in holding difficult conversations through an existential and phenomenological approach.

Leave with practical insights to inform human responsiveness and

ethically attuned and reflective therapeutic practice.

Description supplied by the event organiser.