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Season 6, Episode 20: Jenny McGrath and Danielle Rueb Castillejo on Subverting Supremacy in our Practices
Description
In this episode, we explore what it means to stay human in a time of collective trauma. We talk about messiness as a core part of being alive, how purity culture and rigid systems disconnect us from our bodies, and why agency, consent, and clear yeses and nos are essential forms of resistance. Together, we unpack how supremacy shapes therapy, relationships, and identity — especially through individualism, whiteness, and disembodiment — and imagine more liberating ways of practicing care, connection, and community. The conversation weaves personal reflection, cultural critique, and somatic wisdom, inviting listeners back into their bodies, their grief, and their shared humanity.
Subverting Supremacy Culture in our Practice: Part 2
Friday, January 30, 2026
2:00 PM 4:00 PM
VIRTUAL
https://www.shelterwoodcollective.com/events/subverting-supremacy-culture-in-our-practice-part-2
Working with people means navigating power, race, and trauma.
This workshop will help you notice supremacy culture in the room and resist it. Due to the way Christian nationalism works in the US we create space to engage Christian supremacy and its manifestations of racialized heteronormativity that affects all bodies — regardless of religious or non-religious status. You will learn embodied, relational tools to strengthen your practice and reduce harm. Danielle S. Rueb Castillejo (she/her), Psychotherapist, Activist, Community Organizer; Jenny McGrath (she/her), Psychotherapist Writer, Author, Body Movement Worker; Abby Wong-Heffter, (she/her), Psychotherapist Teacher, Attachment Specialist; Tamice Spencer-Helms, (she/they), Author, Theoactivist, Non-Profit Leader are collaborating to create a generative learning space for therapists, social workers, educators, organizers, spiritual leaders, healthcare providers, and community practitioners. Together we will work with the ways supremacy culture shows up somatically, relationally, and structurally in helping professions. We will examine how dissociation, fragmentation, and inherited oppression narratives shape our work, and develop practices to interrupt these patterns.
This workshop addresses diversity and cultural competence by:
Examining how supremacy culture impacts Black, Indigenous, and People of Color differently than white-bodied practitioners. Naming cultural, historical, and intergenerational forces that shape power dynamics in clinical and community settings. Offering embodied, relational, and trauma-informed tools to practitioners working across racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences. Developing the capacity to recognize and intervene in oppression harm while maintaining therapeutic integrity and accountability. Participants will engage in reflective dialogue, somatic exercises, case-based examples, and guided exploration of their own positionality. The intent is not perfection but deepening collective responsibility and expanding our capacity to resist supremacy culture inside our practice and in ourselves. The workshop is designed to meet the Washington Department of Health requirement for two hours of health equity continuing education (WAC 246-12-820).
The Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy
By Teju Ravilochan, originally published by Esperanza Project
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-06-18/the-blackfoot-wisdom-that-inspired-maslows-hierarchy/
Danie