BAATN Conference Speakers
Keynote
Black Child White NannyÂ
This presentation/workshop delves into the lived experiences of Abi Osho and Lola Jaye, both of whom were raised in cross-cultural, privately fostered households. Through their stories, they are able to shine a light on the complexities of identity, belonging, and the cultural displacement such an upbringing can cause. Offering a perspective on what it means to grow up between worlds.
Their journeys have not only shaped their personal evolution but have also become the foundation of the transformational work they now do—creating spaces for healing, self-acceptance, and the reclamation of personal narratives. This is more than a conversation; it is an invitation to explore the impact of cross-cultural fostering through a lens of lived experience, emotional truth, and the power of storytelling.
Keynote
BA Hons(UKZN), BEd(UCT), MA(UCL), MPhil(Cambridge), MBPsS
Re-storying and restoring the inner child
How might our personal narratives about identity keep us stuck or liberated within the power structures and discursive practices that shape the particular intersecting identities and cultures we inhabit?
How do we recognise and process the grief and loss that accompany the prescribed or enforced separations from our cultures of origin in order to embrace Western (Eurocentric and Androcentric) discourses of ‘liberation’ and psychological ‘health’ that may or may not serve us or our narratives of selfhood?
I will share a few stories from my childhood and early life – a girl born and raised solely on the continent of Africa in a Muslim family with Indian ancestry under Apartheid in South Africa – in order to present an autoethnographic snapshot of how a deeply internalised inferiority can come to be held in a body that is gendered, racialised and sexualised in particular ways.
My hope is that the multiple aspects of my life I share in these stories, in some way, provide a gentle invitation or ‘intimate provocation’ (Holman-Jones, 2005) within you, the listener as audience, to reflect on your own stories and to ask more socio-cultural and political questions about the relational contexts from which your narratives emerge.
Keynote
Let Us Play: Playing and Grieving in Adult Psychotherapy
“… it is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found. “– D. W. Winnicott
Here, psychoanalyst and paediatrician Winnicott movingly articulates the tension between seeking space and independence on the one hand, and connection and relationship on the other. He also alludes to the games of childhood, such as hide ‘n’ seek, that might help us understand the child’s attempt to resolve this dilemma. How do we bear the pain of separation and loss, and bare our need for other humans?
I will share how I work with adults to connect with their child selves in order to grieve and heal from unresolved, often previously unnamed losses. I will suggest that an approach of playfulness, childlike curiosity and creativity can be the gateway through which the self can be found and loss can be felt and borne.
Safety and trust need to be established – perhaps for the first time – so individuals can connect with their capacity to play and ultimately, make sense of their world. It may be universal that we don’t play or explore when we feel threatened and fearful. For those of us who inhabit brown, Black and shared-heritage bodies in particular, this can be a painful and limiting reality. I share how I try to support individuals with racialised woundings and/ or oppression, including in relation to their sexual, gender or neurodiverse identities.
My psychodynamic training and long-time interest in human and social psychology are the foundation of my practice. I hope to give a sense of how I also weave in strands relating to somatic understandings, attachment research, grief work, and child development. As we gather together, I will invite you to join me in being with our sorrowful as well as our playful parts.
Keynote
The Mother Wound and Your Money
Shame from childhood trauma combined with systemic oppression can deeply impact our sense of worthiness, visibility and the right to thrive as wellness practitioners. In this session, June will explore the connection between our attachment wounds and how they manifest in our relationship to money and receiving. She will also share her money shame journey, revealing how underearning and overgiving was rooted in unhealed mother wounds. With self-parenting and financial therapy tools, we can heal our relationship with money and build abundant businesses rooted in self-trust, empowerment and sustainability.