In this interview, our Senior Clinical Advisor, Helen Macdonald, sits down with Katy Grazebrook, President of EABCT in celebration of International Women's Day where this year's theme is Accelerate Action.

Helen:  Hello,. Katy, can I ask you to introduce yourself?

Katy: Yes, sure. My name is Katy Grazebrook and I am the President of the European Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, EABCT.

Helen: Well, that sounds amazing and congratulations on being the President. Can you tell us a little bit about you, Katy, and how you came to be not only the president, but also a president who's a woman of this organisation?

Katy: Well, I'm a clinical psychologist, trained as a clinical psychologist in Liverpool, in England, and worked as a clinical psychologist and a CBT therapist for all of my career. And my last post was as head of psychological therapists for the borough of Greenwich in Southeast London running an IAPT service and also the other psychological therapy services in Greenwich. So that's my professional career. But I have always since training as a clinical psychologist been involved in the BABCP. I was involved in the Manchester branch back in the 90s, long time ago now. And then I was also lucky enough to be elected onto the national board of BABCP and have worked in many roles on the national board, including two terms as Secretary. And it was through BABCP that I then became involved in the European Association. So I was the representative of the British Association to the European Association. Again, for many years, I served several terms in that post. And then I was elected onto the board of EABCT, again, as Secretary. And then I served two terms as Secretary and then I was elected as President. So that's how I became the President of EABCT. So I'm not an academic, I'm not...you know, an author or anything like that. I think it's more through kind of organisational experience and service to BABCP and then EABCT.

Helen: I wonder if you'd be willing to share some of the things that you have experienced being a woman in our field. I'm aware that you've been responsible largely for the Women in CBT project. And I wonder whether you could talk about that and a little bit more broadly about women in CBT and your experience being a woman in our field.

Katy: One of the things that really struck me when I became President of EABCT was that I was only the second female president in 50 years. The previous female president was Irene Oestrich back in 1990. So it was 30 years before they had another female president and I was encouraged to think about that and perhaps do something for the Belfast Congress back in 2021.  We were celebrating our 50th year of EABCT, and yet I was only the second female president, and so I got together a group of women which included Irene Oestrich and we put on a round table at the 2021 Congress. Initially it was really to celebrate women in leadership positions in CBT. We, of course I didn't do it by myself because I never do anything by myself, I always do it as a collaboration or cooperation with others. I think one of my aspects of my character is that I always want other people to, well, its reassurance seeking really, I suppose. I never really feel that my idea alone is good enough and I feel much more comfortable when there are other people that I'm working with and together we build something. And so this group of women that got together who were some of the representatives of EABCT and Irene Oestrich came up with this idea of the Women in CBT project, which expanded way beyond the actual Belfast Congress. And we ended up interviewing 19 women who were in leadership positions or prominent positions in CBT; nine women from Europe and 10 women from the United States and Canada. And it was such a lovely opportunity. So we interviewed Edna Foa, Christine Padesky, Judith Beck, Melanie Fennell, Anke Ehlers, Janet Wolfe, Rosemary Nelson-Gray, who was the first female president of the American Association for Behavioural Therapy. And she trained with Isaac Marks and Hans Eysenck actually, she came by boat to Europe to study. She's really one of the pioneers. And so it was such an inspiring thing to do to interview these people. And when you ask them the similar question that you've just asked me, what was it like being a woman in the world of CBT? And so I would say we've got at least 15 hours of absolute gold of the interviews in full on our EABCT website. So I'd love people to go and access those and listen to the interviews in full. But what was interesting was the themes that came out of those interviews. So obviously we asked specific questions, and they were, what was it like to be a woman? What helped or hindered you? Did being a woman help or hinder you in your career and what advice would you give to younger people coming through? And the themes that came out were interesting. There were lots of kind of different experiences of being a woman, both positive and negative experiences, some people had experienced sexism and outright discrimination, whereas others felt that being a woman was an asset and really, really helpful in their careers.

Another theme was the impact of our own gender role stereotypes and how they can really hold us back. There were lots of examples there about assuming that the author of a paper was a man rather than a woman, or assuming that the person didn't mean us when they were asking for somebody to step forward to do something.

Another theme was the value of expectation and encouragement. You know, how important that was to have people encourage you and have high expectations for you yourself. Another one was the power of community and activism. Certainly, the older women that we interviewed who had their careers were in the 60s and 70s, were on the edge of that feminist movement, particularly in the States. And they were talking so much about how important it had been to have a community of women to speak to and support them and encourage them to endeavour to continue in their careers.

And then the last theme was about how important the role of men as allies really is to us as women. So there were lots of nuggets of gold in those interviews. But kind of thinking back to my own experience, I was brought up by a woman, my mother, who was a real feminist in the 70s and 80s. I was being fed feminist literature as a teenager. So I always had quite high, well not high expectations, but it didn't occur to me that I could not have a career and have an equal position as other people.

And in my personal life as well, in my marriage, yes, I'm married, but I've always been the major breadwinner. And my husband has taken equal, if not more, responsibility for looking after the children. And I think that that has been really, really important to me as a woman in my career, to have that support of my husband and the expectations initially of those around me. And then during my career, having the support of female mentors and bosses who have encouraged me, who've said, why don't you do this, Katy? And me as a fool, I said yes all right then, not necessarily realising the implications.

Helen: And that's just a fabulous summary, ranging from leadership in the EABCT, what your career's like, how that interacts with your personal values and personal life experiences as well. And I just think that what you said first about only being the second female president in 50 years and yet coming, like me, from the background where you were perhaps the main breadwinner in a partnership where my husband is also a man, did more of the childcare perhaps than I did and yet still being in that position where that key leadership position is much more likely to be taken by a man, even in a career where more people enter the profession as women. And I just wonder if there are any thoughts that you have about other things that people in CBT can do, perhaps EABCT particularly to promote women's equality in every area?

Katy: Well, certainly I think that some of the things that we are doing in EABCT is, I mean, the conference is a case in point whereby we are trying to ensure that there's an equal distribution or equal representation of women and people from different ethnicities and abilities as keynote speakers. We're modelling ourselves actually on BABCP, who I think are really doing a marvellous job in the area of inclusion and diversity. There's always a lot more to do.

In terms of EABCT, most of the representatives are female and they are usually the presidents of their associations. And I think that has changed over the last 10 years. We did a bit of research for that 2021 round table at the Congress where we, as you say, we noticed that the majority of members of the Associations are female. But also the majority of people on the boards are female as well. So I think it's happening and I think that we need to continue to encourage and support.

The American Association has a special interest group, and they have provided mentoring and leadership training for women, which I think is a marvellous idea. And these are some of the things that have been proven to be successful that could be replicated, I think, in other associations.

Helen: I think that's a great idea. And again, the British Association is looking at leadership opportunities for people, for example, people who perhaps contribute at committee level and developing people as leaders. And we have a special interest group on women and gender. And again, leading the way on thinking about how people of all genders may experience differences in opportunity or bias or something along the way. And so there's quite a lot about what you've said in terms of your own experience and things that are happening, not only in Europe, but around the world that are really positive, but still perhaps more to do. So if you had one key thing that you would want people to take away as a message or a motivator, what sort of thing would you be saying?

Katy: I think one of the things that is really important is that those internalised expectations, the impact of our own gender role stereotypes and how we really need to challenge those because they are internalised. So I think it's important to be able to recognise our own thoughts and feelings about these things and not necessarily take them at face value. I think having a mentor as well is really helpful. Someone who you trust and can talk to, to help you question that little voice that's sitting on your shoulder telling you, you really think you can do that? Yes, you can do it. So I think it's important to recognise that internalised voice and to be able to challenge it.

So that’s our internal thoughts and beliefs. A bigger challenge is the external environment and the need to ensure there is equality and equity for women whatever their ethnicity or socio-economic status. I know that’s easy for me to say as a white, middle-class woman. Monnica Williams, one of the women I interviewed advised people to expect discrimination and to challenge it, that white women had NOT been her allies, and that really struck me and we need to change that. And I don't have all of the answers around that at all. But I can use my position to ensure diversity and inclusion is definitely on the agenda, and together, I think we can work things out so that they are better in the future than they currently are

Helen: So one of the things that you didn't mention that I would really like to say is that not only are you the only the second female president of the European Association, you're also the first president who has a majority of women on the board in those leadership positions. And I just think that's worth celebrating, seeing as we are talking about International Women's Day today. So I'd like to say a massive thank you Katy for finding the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it and happy International Women's Day.

Katy: Thank you. Happy International Women's Day to everybody out there.

You can find the interviews with the Women in CBT that Katy talks about here: https://eabct.eu/resources/video-series/

And the highlights in a compilation here: https://eabct.eu/compilation/