Working with planned and unplanned breaks in clinical work

EVENT POSTPONED

Saturday 01 July 2023

A live webinar or In Person event with Charles Brown, Linda Cundy, and Prof Joy Schaverien

CPD Credits: 3.5 hours

  • Includes a subtitled recording of the event and a transcript, with access for a year (14 days post the event)
  • Bookings close at 9:00am BST Wednesday 28 June

This conference will explore the roles and meanings of planned and unplanned breaks in therapy, how they may be experienced by client and therapist, and their impact on the therapeutic process.

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FULL PROGRAMME

13.30 BST
Registration and Coffee (attending in person only)

14.00 
Introductions

14:10
Linda Cundy
The spaces in between: from separation anxiety to security

How clients respond to breaks in therapy encapsulates their core pattern of attachment and defenses against separation. While some patients welcome time out, perhaps introducing extra breaks by missing sessions, others protest or collapse in the absence of the therapist. Unexpected breaks due to therapists’ life events are particularly challenging and sometimes catastrophic. But, while the regularity and rhythms of therapy help to create a secure base, the spaces between appointments are essential, holding different meanings at different stages of the work. Drawing on both Attachment Theory and the work of Winnicott, this presentation also considers the aim of psychotherapy and how breaks, including the therapist’s holidays and sabbaticals, provide essential developmental opportunities.

Learning objectives

  • Identify clients’ core pattern of attachment through reactions to gaps between sessions and the therapist’s holidays.
  • Evaluate how to help clients manage their anxieties during breaks, taking into consideration their core pattern of attachment.
  • Explain why breaks apart from the therapist contribute to the development of secure attachment.

15.00
Q&A with Linda Cundy

15.15
Break

15:35
Charles Brown
Breaks in online ‘remote’ therapy: Avoidance, intimacy and loss
This presentation explores some of the challenges regarding the experience of breaks, comparing screen-mediated practice to traditional in-person therapy. Referring to Freud’s seminal paper, Mourning and Melancholia, the presenter considers both macro breaks such as gaps between sessions, holidays and due to illness as well as micro disruptions and moments of disconnection in online ‘remote’ therapy. Charles will explore the more profound, unconscious ways in which clients and therapists respond to the experience of loss as it emerges through breaks in therapy.

Learning objectives

  • Evaluate the impact of technology on the therapeutic relationship and breaks.
  • Examine how to provide a psychic space for thinking for processing challenges.

16.20
Q&A with Charles Brown

16.35
Break

17:00
Prof Joy Schaverien
Breaks and the Repetition of Trauma. A Hidden Aspect of Boarding School Syndrome

Why is it that some adults, who attended boarding school as small children, may seem impervious to breaks in analysis? Abandoned, Bereaved and Captive, children in boarding school learn to Dissociate. This is the ABCD of Boarding School Syndrome. This is not a single psychological wound but a series of traumas that is repeated every term time and every holiday break. The pain of these broken attachments is such that, unconsciously, children learn not to be aware of their own suffering; they cut off from feeling. Many people are traumatised in childhood; and abandonment, separation anxiety and abuse are not exclusive to ex-boarders. But it is the repetition of these losses that makes ex-boarders particularly sensitive (or insensitive) to breaks in the frame.

Learning objectives

  • Identify the suffering and ruptured attachments caused by boarding away from home; this includes children in other situations such as residential care
  • Analyse breaks in analysis and how those traumatised by early boarding may react, or apparently not react
  • Assess how the therapist may need to attune to the client but be more active than in other analytic situations.

17.45
Q&A with Prof Joy Schaverien

18.00
Panel session with all speakers

18.30
End

FEES

Bookings close at 9:00am BST Wednesday 28 June

Live Webinar:

£70 (Member £56)
(Click here to become a member)

This Includes a subtitled recording of the event and a transcript, with access for a year.

In Person:

£120 (Member £96)
(Click here to become a member)

CPD

Certificates of attendance for 3.5 hours will be provided.

To receive the full CPD credits, you are required to attend 100% of the live event. No partial credit will be given.

Please note that if you are unable to attend all of the live event, you will need to undertake our event specific test in order to receive the CPD certification. This will be made available soon after the live event has taken place.

VENUE

Live webinarZoom

Zoom is free to download and use.

For more information about Zoom click here.

To download Zoom free of charge click here.

In person:

Confer
Strype Street
London
E1 7LQ
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SCHEDULE

Saturday

13:30 BST Registration and Coffee (attending in person only)
14.00 Introductions
14:10 Linda Cundy
15.00 Q&A with Linda Cundy
15.15 Break
15.35 Charles Brown
16.20 Q&A with Charles Brown
16.35 Break
17.00 Prof Joy Schaverien
17.45 Q&A with Prof Joy Schaverien
18.00 Panel session with all speakers
18.30 End

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By attending this event, participants will be able to:

General Learning Objectives

  • Illustrate the importance of breaks in the therapeutic process.
  • Examine the meanings and implications of planned and unplanned breaks for client and therapist.
  • Recognise how central a client’s core attachment style may impact the experience of breaks in therapy.
  • Explain why some clients will create breaks in the work whilst others will find breaks a challenge.

BOOKING CONDITIONS

Regrettably, refunds cannot be given in any circumstances except as follows:

  • You cancel in writing to info@confer.uk.com 60 days before the first date of the event you have booked, in which case you will be entitled to a 100% refund.
  • You cancel in writing to info@confer.uk.com 30 days before the first date of the event you have booked, in which case you will be entitled to a 50% refund.

This does not apply to parts of an event such as a seminar within a series but only to a whole event or complete series. You may give your place to another person if you let us know that person's name at least 24 hours before the event begins.

We reserve the right to change a speaker at one of our conferences without offering a refund. However, if a solo presenter cancels we will offer a full refund OR transfer of your fee to another Confer event. If the entire event is cancelled we will offer you a full refund.

We reserve the right to change our prices at any time. Regrettably, discounts offered after you made your booking cannot be claimed or applied retrospectively.