Audio & Video Talks and Interviews
June 2022 'Motherhood in a Climate Crisis'. A conversation with Judith Anderson, chair of Climate Psychology Alliance, Sophia Cheng, collaborator on the creative, 'Motherhood in a Climate Crisis' project and myself. 'Motherhood in a Climate Crisis' is a collaborative creative project involving personal stories from self-identifying women wrestling with these two topics. Sophia and co are seeking to challenge the taboo and put this conversation on the map, rather than positioning women against one another, exploring the nuances around how the climate crisis is shaping how (and whether) we mother. My book, 'Other than Mother - Choosing Childlessness with Life in Mind' was, at the time of its publication in 2016, ground breaking in exploring the terrain of this decision-making process, including the cultural changes brought about by the rise in childfreedom, including ecological and environmental considerations and living with the decision not to mother. Catch up on this podcast (32 minutes in length).
March 2022 'Gateway Elderwomen Fireside Wisdom: #Childless #Childfree is it a binary that age softens?' It was an honour - and very enjoyable! - to be invited by Jody Day, founder of the internationally-renowed Gateway Women network, and several other invited panel guests for the latest in a series of regular 'Fireside Wisdom' sessions online. Catch up online at Vimeo (1 hour, 14 minutes in length).
April 2020 'Be well, be happy'. I wrote 'be well, be happy' a #lettertotheearth which was read and live-streamed on Earth Day, organised by 'Culture Declares Emergency'. You can listen to playwright Sudha Buchar reading the letter aloud here on You Tube, 11 minutes and 47 seconds into this video - the others are well worth a listen, too.
April 2019 'Human Baby, Human Being' Interview with Matthew Appleton. I recently had the good fortune of interviewing Matthew - psychotherapist, pre and peri-natal psychologist and craniosacral therapist - ahead of the Human Being, Human Baby conference in Bristol in June on behalf of Somatic Psychotherapy Today. This link will take you to a transcript of the interview where we talk about the conference and Matthew's pre and peri-natal work with babies. You can also subscribe to Somatic Psychotherapy Today to hear the audio version on the same page, or visit Matthew's website.
January 2019 BBC's 'Cut Through the Noise' - 'Climate change: Are children really the future?' I was involved in this episode of Cut Through the Noise which focused on hearing from people whose concerns for the future, and particularly for climate change, meant that they were either rethinking whether to have a family, or had remained childfree.
October 2018 Aashna interview about 'Otherhood'. An online conversation and Q&A between Emma and Pretish Raja-Helm, co-founder and director of the Aashna Centre, ahead of the workshop on theme of otherhood and childlessness/childfreedom on 24th November 2018.
April 2018 CONFER's Online eco-psychotherapy module. This CONFER module 'synthesises ecology and psychotherapy in practice and theory'. It includes a talk I gave at CONFER's 'Eco-Psychotherapy: Healing and the Natural World' event in March 2017 at the London Wetlands. I also authored three of the study guides.
November 2017 'Eve's Dawning'. A 15 minute talk given at Stillpoint Spaces, London. This talk followed a performance of 'Eve's Dawning', setting it in ecopsychological context. 'Eve's Dawning' weaves storytelling, live music and animation in telling the dystopian fairy tale of Eve, the last girl in the world, as she navigates a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Eve's fate unfolds as she experiences loss, betrayal and strange joy, before finding an unlikely companion in the form of a straight talking and highly persuasive fox. The excellent 'Eve's Dawning' was created by playwright Joel Samuels, singer/songwriter Lydia Samuels, and artist Jeanine Moros-Noujaim.
October 2017 'Excellent Knowledge and Wild Fox (Transformative) Spirit'. A 35 minute key note talk given at the 'Transpersonal Narratives in Ecopsychology' CONFER event at the Eden Project in Cornwall, 24-26th November 2017. A roaming exploration of the relevance of 'wild fox spirit' (from Master Dogen's 'Shobogenzo' or 'Treasury of the True Dharma Eye' book) in the context of the practise of ecodharma, ecopsychology and psychotherapy.
June 2017 'Embodying Social Justice'. This 6 minute film encapsulates themes from last year's conference of the same name at Roehampton University in London. Several of us who were facilitators and key note speakers were interviewed about the importance of embodying social justice in our therapy and social justice work.
May 2017 'The Practice of the Wild: starting from where we are'. In this 42 minute video key note lecture (available via a subscription) I explore how - borrowing the words of Gary Snyder - our 'practice of the wild' can be the foundation of our nascent or established practise of ecopsychology and ecotherapy. I invite an exploration of a therapy practice of the wild - practice which can take place both indoors and out, potentially taking us to the heart of our own connection and disconnection with ourselves, one another, and other-than-human and more-than-human life. This key note was delivered at CONFER's 'Eco-psychotherapy and the natural world' at the London Wetlands Centre, 18th March 2017.
April 2017 - 'Longings and Legacies'. A 10 minute introduction to a 'Longings and Legacies' workshop here in Bristol. The invitation of this day - to those childless, childfree and in the decision-making process - was to gather, share stories, and reclaim or reconnect with our creativity, purpose, longings wherever we are: in the midst of deciding whether or not to have children, coming to terms with being unable to have a child, or looking to re-orient our lives having known for some time that we don’t want children - or for those approaching elder years without child.
November 2016 - 'Calling the earth to witness: telling our earth story'. Introduction to a workshop at CONFER's Psychotherapy and the Natural World conference at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Recollective practices are an important facet of ecopsychology and ecodharma. Inspired by the imagery of the Buddha calling the earth to witness during the night of his enlightenment, as well as my own practises of meditation, journalling and photography, I am fascinated by the telling of our earth stories. In the understanding and telling many things emerge. My wish is that this collective earth 'storying' resources us and the biosphere as well as giving us another way of working with our clients.
November 2016. 'Childfree by Choice - Buddhist Faith'. A documentary made by Abbie Rogers, for her undergraduate degree at Bournemouth University, to which I was a contributor.
July 2016. 'Buddhist Voices - Kamalamani - Other than Mother'. An audio interview with Satyalila published by the BuddhistCentre.com. Satyalila interviews Kamalamani about a strong decision in her life as a Buddhist, ecopsychologist, and ecodharma practitioner - to forego having children - and her subsequent decision to write a book about it. A great conversation between two good friends about a long, challenging, ultimately affirming personal process and choice.
June 2016. 'Choosing Childlessness and Cherishing Life'. A short video for Buddhist Action Month, inspired by the theme of the bodhisattva ideal. Kamalamani explores how the decision to remain without child has, in part, arisen from her expression of the bodhisattva ideal.
April 2016. 'Unclassified Woman'. An audio interview about 'Other the Mother' with Michelle Marie McGrath's as part of her 'Unclassified Woman' series featuring women without children.
March 2016. 'Other Than Mother: Contemporary Womanhood and Reproductive Choices'. An evening talk given by Kamalamani, hosted by Psychoanalysis on the Streets (London) and Stillpoint Spaces in London. What sort of expectations do women consciously and unconsciously carry around today? What are the consequences of living in a pronatal society? What's the effect of what Melanie Holmes refers to as The Mother Mandate - the idea that life for women is incomplete if they haven't had a child?
April 2015. 'Introducing Sustainable Sangha'. A talk introducing a 'sustainable sangha' practice day at the Bristol Buddhist Centre. The practice day was a 'warm up' for Buddhist Action month (in June 2015) and explored ecodharma and ecopsychology themes to support practitioners in their social engagement.
February 2014. 'Introducing Wild Therapy'. An introductory talk for Taunton's Association for Psychotherapy. In this talk I explore my practice of Wild therapy and it's origins; the interface of Embodied-Relational therapy, Process-oriented psychology and ecopsychology.