Diversity, Power, and Difference in Counselling
Saturday, 30 January 2027 | 10:00 – 16:00
This workshop explores how our position in society shapes the way we listen to clients and make sense of what they tell us. It introduces two approaches to working with diversity in counselling. Intersectionality helps us understand how aspects of identity interact and why people who share a background may experience the same situation differently. Anti-oppressive practice asks us to examine how we use our ‘power’ as counsellors and what we can do when our assumptions or ways of working disadvantage a client.
We will consider race, gender and sexual orientation alongside class, disability, faith and other aspects of identity. Participants will reflect on their own position, including where they experience privilege, where they encounter barriers and which parts of their identity they rarely have to think about. We will also explore what people value about their identities and communities, including the belonging, pride and support they find there.
Workshop Outcomes
Participants will have the opportunity to:
- Apply an intersectional lens to a clinical example and identify what a focus on one aspect of identity might miss.
- Reflect on how their own social position and beliefs about family or independence shape assessment.
- Distinguish between prejudice, discrimination and structural inequality and consider how each affects access to counselling.
- Recognise how a counsellor’s own cultural assumptions can shape a psychodynamic interpretation.
- Explore how power shapes who feels able to name a difference or challenge an interpretation in therapy.
- Identify a practical response, such as revisiting an interpretation, exploring a bias in supervision or addressing a barrier to access.
Eleni Henderson
Eleni Henderson is a BACP-accredited psychodynamic counsellor who delivers workshops on working with gender and sexuality across a range of counselling centres. At Highgate Counselling Centre, she is the Allocations Consultant and a Counselling Skills tutor on the Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling.
Eleni’s lived experience across different cultural contexts informs her particular interest in belonging and the experience of being seen as ‘other’. Her teaching brings psychodynamic thinking and anti-oppressive practice together, encouraging counsellors to examine how their own assumptions shape what they hear, what they ask and how they understand their clients. She is currently undertaking an MSc in Psychosexual Therapy with Tavistock Relationships through Birkbeck, University of London.
Workshop fee:
£32.50 HCC members | £65.00 non-HCC members
How to book:
Please email training@highgatecounselling.org.uk to reserve a place, and let us know if you are an HCC member. We will issue an invoice at the relevant rate, and your booking will be confirmed once payment is received. Payment can be made online via the link on the invoice.