deinstitutionalising

My deinstitutionalising work comprises one-to-one and group mentoring sessions, tailored and public workshops, and free resources for those who feel uncomfortably placed within institutions and want to think about ways of navigating them differently, or navigating out of them. This work is intended as a support for anyone with the desire to engage in deinstitutionalising work.

Why I offer this work

Institutions are collapsing and we are feeling it. And even if we don’t feel it, we need objects that can help us to understand the institutions that we are in so that we can navigate them differently and generatively. As someone who worked in academic institutions for over fifteen years, I know from the inside how institutions can discipline, harm and constrict our sense of joy, creativity, worth, and our capacity for emergent and necessary thinking.

My desire in this work is to provide liberatory spaces and resources for those whose have had limiting encounters with institutions – such as at school and work, as well as within ideological institutions such as heteronormativity and compulsory monogamy. How have institutions shaped us? How might we want to move differently?

See below for the kinds of services I offer in this work or drop me a line if you'd like to talk about working together.  

offerings

  • an image of two hands in the soil cupping a shoot

    free resources

    The deinstitutionalisation now resource list is an evolving, collaborative list (and playlist!) to support anyone looking to navigate institutions and for those interested in deinstitutionalisation as a process and orientation in the world. Find it here.

    V2 of the deinstitutionalisation now resource list and other free resources coming in Spring 2024.

    Got a suggestion for this list? Get in touch.

  • an image of three dots joined together with a line on a background of lined paper

    one-to-ones & group support

    I offer tailored one-to-one and group sessions for people who feel uncomfortably placed within institutions and want to think about ways of navigating them differently, or navigating out of them.

    N.B: these are not careers sessions! Rather, we'll be doing the important work of feeling into our lives as institutionalised bodies, as a way to free up somatic and creative capacities that might have been stymied by these spaces .

    Interested in working together? Get in touch.

  • the text 'deinstitutionalise your writing' against swirls of orange, blue, pink and black

    workshops

    I run workshops around the following (among others):

    • making and working with institutional stories

    • making and working with stuckness, grief and anger

    • reclaiming your ideas

    • embodied deinstitutionalisation

    • deinstitutionalising your writing

    Need a deinstitutionalisation workshop? Get in touch.

    For current public workshops, see here.

testimonies

  • Working with Ruth was a nourishing experience where I felt safe and supported in deep exploration of my feelings, stories, attachments to and disconnections from academia. It allowed me space, time and the invitational framework to find ways of relating to these experiences that fostered my creative work with these feelings and memories. Ruth held the space with compassion and clarity, and the sessions left me with feelings of transmutive and agentic possibility at a time when I was feeling stuck.

    Karen

  • This was frankly amazing and exactly what I needed, at that point in time. Ruth has a unique gift of enabling the group to be honest, vulnerable, and reflective together. She uses a variety of means to create a supportive and challenging space - storytelling, crafting, story-listening. I don't know if I will ever leave academia; but it helped me to truly engage with the side of me who sometimes does and is disenchanted, and to make being there a choice.

    Hannah

  • Ruth was a terrific group leader, and the wandering was an eye-opening and soul-healing experience that allowed me to think about my relationship to my, frequently troubling, academic and creative life. I would recommend it highly for academics, ex-academics, semi-academics, and others struggling with writing, their creative and critical practice, or the world of higher education.

    Pam