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Palgrave Macmillan

Balancing on Quicksand

Reflections on Power, Politics and the Relational

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Editors:
  1. Martin Milton

    1. Regent's University London, London, UK

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  • Explores the challenges in understanding and dealing with the relational aspects of clinical practice practices when addressing differences
  • Provides a more nuanced understanding of relational-reflective practice, cultural competence, and anti-oppressive practice
  • Examines the confusion, awkwardness and uncertainty that is part and parcel of any deep therapeutic work

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
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  2. Introduction

    • Martin Milton
    Pages 1-7

  3. What Place Authority?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-11
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    2. Rolling in the Muck, Dancing with the Law: A Story of “Addiction” and the Remaking of a Self

      • J. P. Marshall
      Pages 13-24

    3. Breaking the Rules

      • Alison Greenwood
      Pages 25-36

    4. Disturbing the Peace: Madame X vs Westminster Council

      • Martin Milton
      Pages 37-45

  5. Judgement, Discrimination and Stigma

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-95
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    2. Drama of Phantom Hatred

      • Parizad Bathai
      Pages 97-101

    3. Reflections from a Junkyard Room

      • Yetunde Ade-Serrano
      Pages 103-114

    4. “I’m Not as Bad as You”

      • Carter Jacobs
      Pages 115-123

    5. Is There Something You Need to Tell Us?

      • Julia Brewer
      Pages 125-135

  6. The Uncanny

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-138
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    2. Being a Refugee in a World Without Refuge

      • Anastasios Gaitanidis
      Pages 139-144

    3. An Uncanny Resemblance

      • Elena Manafi
      Pages 145-154

    4. Making the Invisible Visible

      • Martin Milton
      Pages 155-162

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 163-170
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the precarious nature of life, and the ways in which power, binary ways of thinking and Othering create personal, social and political difficulties. By exploring an array of different concerns –including loss and grief, our relationship to other animals, race and sexuality - contributors explore how attention to our own subjective experience and relational ways of thinking can help manage these difficulties. The many contributing authors go well beyond formulaic academic discourse. They adopt a far more personal and reflective approach to their topic areas. As a result, some chapters are emotional, others political, and some professional. Throughout, readers are offered examples of how useful a reflective stance can be, to understanding some of the more meaningful things in life, or as a corrective to our power based, normative, instructive discourses. 



Reviews

“This book reads like the kind of writing we all want, really - an intimate conversation, riveting, unruly, a private “in” to other worlds of feeling, without instruction or the impositions of academia, a broader canvas, open and porous, gently meandering through art, fiction, memoir and therapy. “Balancing on Quicksand” is an inclusive act, (continuing to) disrupt the personal/professional boundary and psy-orthodoxies – the personal is (still) political, the political is (still) personal. Expect tears!” (Professor Isabel Henton, Regent’s University London, UK) 

“Prof. Milton and his colleagues offer us a deeply engaging, stimulating and thought-provoking collection of reflective essays that eloquently illustrate the value and significance of relational thinking towards attaining psychological and social health and social justice. Each contributor’s personal reflective journey of engaging with a key human dilemma in relation to power, politics and the relational is an invitationto the reader to reflect on our own stance and engagement with the key human dilemmas explored in this book.” (Dr Stelios Gkouskos, University of East London, UK) 

“Sometimes the release of a book comes at just the right time . . . after a year of social distancing and COVID quarantine, I can think of no better time to read about how relational thinking plays out in the real lives and lived experiences of practicing psychotherapists as they grapple with the professional, personal, psychosocial, and political.” (Dr Markus Bidell, Hunter College, City University of New York, USA)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Regent's University London, London, UK

    Martin Milton

About the editor

Martin Milton is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the School of Psychotherapy and Psychology at Regents University London, UK. He also runs an independent practice in psychotherapy and supervision. He is the author of books including, The Political is Personal: Stories of Difference and Psychotherapy (2018), and Sexuality: Existential Perspectives (2014). His interests include in the way that differences are constructed and experienced and the impact this has on people. Martin is an avid photographer and nature lover and has had photographs published in both photography and psychology publications.

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