OxytocinAn Embodied Psychoanalytic Revisioning of Theory

With Dr Doris Brothers and Dr Jon Sletvold

Recorded Friday 15 July 2022

In this theoretical and experiential workshop, Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold will present the body-based perspective they are developing in their forthcoming book Re-envisioning Psychoanalysis as Talking Bodies to re-explore some of the most enduring aspects of psychoanalytic theory.

They will attempt to demonstrate how changes in conceptualisation of the therapeutic process, and the discourse in which this is described, result in transformations in the therapeutic relationship as well as in the supervisory process.

Oxytocin

With Professor Sue Carter, Professor Ruth Feldman and Dr Janice Hiller

Recorded Sunday 26 June 2022

This conference focuses on the extraordinary neuropeptide oxytocin, and how it enables love, safe attachment and affiliative social bonds to flourish throughout life. Oxytocin supports perceived safety, reproduction and even survival, acting as an anti-inflammatory agent that also protects us from certain diseases. It is a natural medicine and a source of pleasure, connection and passion.

The Unanswered Self

With Candace Orcutt, MA, PhD

Recorded Saturday 18 June 2022

James Masterson was a leading figure and innovative thinker in the major psychoanalytic turn from the theory of repressed desires to a focus on relationship and the self. Essential to this shift was the naming and defining of personality disorder, an endeavor that both shaped Masterson’s work and, in turn, was shaped by him. Unwilling to accept his “borderline” patients as “untreatable,” he began an effective synthesis of object relations theory and developmental studies that became the cornerstone of his theory and clinical practice.

The Vast Silence

With Siobhán McGee, Jane Haberlin, Dr Oonagh Walsh, Dr Michael O’Loughlin and Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Recorded Saturday 11 June 2022

From colonial occupation to partition, from the Famine to the Troubles, Ireland has experienced much turmoil and loss. Countless people died in the great hunger, and since 1700, 10 million have emigrated for survival. The scattering of Irish people across the world means that many of us (10m in England) are the descendants of those who experienced the anguished loss of family, history and land.

Working with Domestic Violence and Emotional Abuse

With Dr David Celani

Recorded Friday 10 June 2022

One of the most difficult relationship patterns which can be brought to psychotherapy is domestic violence in a couple relationship. To begin with it can be very difficult for someone on the receiving end of abuse to take this step. Victims often resist intervention until they are in desperate emotional or physical danger. Even then, their commitment to the therapy may waver, especially when the abusive partner offers promises of change and attempts to draw them back into the relationship and away from therapy.

Enmeshment and Merger

With Dr Aileen Alleyne, Dr Tamara Feldman, Mark Linington, Dr Arlene Vetere

Recorded Friday 27 May 2022

In this conference we will explore ways of working psychotherapeutically with those who are drawn into enmeshed adult relationships that inhibit healthy separation and autonomy. Enmeshment as an attachment style may originate with the needs of a narcissistic parent or family culture where personal boundaries are diffused, roles undifferentiated and an over-concern for the other can lead to a failure in autonomous development.

The Many Dimensions of Dreams

With Robin E. Sheriff, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, and Laurie Slade

Recorded Saturday 23 April 2022

At this event, our presenters will take us into the realms of new thinking about some of the more elusive dimensions of the psychoanalytic encounter, from the waking dream to embodied sensations. Drawing in part on the original theories of Wilfred Bion, James Grotstein, and Madeleine and Willy Baranger’s seminal contributions to contemporary psychoanalysis, our speakers will push our understanding of why these theories are so important in the psychoanalytic process.

Dreams and Affects

With Giuseppe Civitarese, Elena Molinari, Fulvio Mazzacane and Andrea Sabbadini

Recorded Friday 25 March 2022

At this event, our presenters will take us into the realms of new thinking about some of the more elusive dimensions of the psychoanalytic encounter, from the waking dream to embodied sensations. Drawing in part on the original theories of Wilfred Bion, James Grotstein, and Madeleine and Willy Baranger’s seminal contributions to contemporary psychoanalysis, our speakers will push our understanding of why these theories are so important in the psychoanalytic process.

Culture Wars

With Dr Syed Azmatullah, Dominic Davies, Alex Drummond, Rima Hawkins, Noemi Lakmaier Eduardo Peres, Michelle Ross-Turner, Joel Simpson, Erin Stevens and Dr Dwight Turner

Recorded Saturday 19 March 2022

In the context of our increasing awareness about power, privilege, race and gender politics in society, and the consulting room, Confer invites you to spend a day learning more about the concept of intersectionality, and how it impacts each of us.

Trauma, Inflammation, and Recovery

With Donna Jackson Nakazawa

Recorded Friday 18 March 2022

Recent discoveries in neuroscience tell us that body and brain are constantly responding to perceived threats from our environment, deciding – on a cellular level – whether we are safe or not. How secure we feel in the world around us profoundly affects not only our physical and immune health, but our brain’s immune health, which, in turn, determines our mental wellbeing.

Working with Depression

With Dr Barbara Dowds

Recorded Friday 4 March 2022

What makes depression so complex, and how can therapists best meet its particular demands? Depression is a multifaceted and layered phenomenon – a set of conditions that vary widely in subjective experience and aetiology. It is difficult to work with because the very psychodynamic patterns that underpin it tend to block therapeutic change.

Embodied, Personal, and Relational Healing: An Innovative Approach

With Judith Blackstone

Recorded Friday 25 February 2022

Although many psychoanalysts observe that trauma has somatosensory components such as freezing, numbing parts of the body or fragmentation between affect and cognition, it is less recognised that the mind/body can become integrated when these dissociated organisations of self/other experience are brought to awareness and relinquished.

The Replacement Child

With Zack Eleftheriadou, Andrea Sabbadini, and Kristina Schellinski

Recorded Saturday 5 February 2022

Families face intense emotional pain when a child has died or gone missing. For complex reasons, this loss and trauma can remain unresolved and unconscious across one or more generations. This powerful psychological atmosphere can impact any other child in the family but it is especially powerful for the child born after the loss.

Synchronicity

With Joseph Cambray

Recorded Friday 4 February 2022

With more than 120 years of analytic experience, models of the mind have evolved in conjunction with various other disciplines.  We are moving towards a new synthesis of knowledge and experience, in which the porosity of subjective and objective states is transcending original binary views. As this opens into a discovery of non-local, distributed aspects of mind and psyche, exciting new therapeutic challenges and possibilities emerge.

Uprooted

With Dr Gabor Maté

Recorded Saturday 29 January 2022

In his bestselling book Scattered Minds, Gabor Maté rejects the narrow genetic perspective. Instead, he proposes a biopsychosocial view. This has profound implications for the treatment of AD(H)D and related developmental disorders in both children and adults. During this seminar, Gabor Maté will elaborate how the circuitry and physiology of the brain are affected by the environment, not only during critical periods of early childhood development but throughout the human lifetime.

Uprooted

With Professor Renos K. Papadopoulos

Recorded Friday 28 January 2022

Drawing upon years of experience in the consulting room, humanitarian field work, international projects and academic research, Renos Papadopoulos will present refreshing perspectives in relation to work with those who have faced severe adversity due to various forms of involuntary dislocation.

Children and the Climate Crisis

With keynote speakers Caroline Hickman and Sally Weintrobe, Judith Anderson, Jay Griffiths, Anna Harvey, and more…

Recorded Friday 21 January 2022

Bringing together voices from many backgrounds, this conference aims to provide meaningful insights into the emotional states which are evoked in young people by the environmental crisis. We will explore how the complexity and depth of their feelings – their anger, fear, and sense of abandonment – can be more effectively heard, understood, and responded to by adults.

Avoidant Attachment

With Linda Cundy

Recorded Friday 14 January 2022

This day is about the challenges faced by people who were ignored, criticised, rejected or utterly neglected within their families of origin and who thus find it difficult to form close and lasting intimate relationships in adulthood. People who avoid close proximity to others, despite their longing for that closeness, often feel more secure and better able to manage deep feelings when they hold others apart, whether sexual partners, therapists, or family members.

Body Mind Entanglements - Live Webinar CPD Event Banner

With Geraldine Godsil, Salvatore Martini and Antonio de Rienzo

Recorded Friday 3 December 2021

This day will present views on psychotherapeutic experiences which illuminate the bodily basis of intersubjectivity. The speakers will elaborate their understanding of the intersubjective space as a field of ‘mutual unconsciousness’, where the two people in the therapeutic relationships meet and transform.

The Trauma Series Part IV - Live Webinar CPD Event Banner

With Dr Janina Fisher, Dr Ruth Lanius, and Dr Pat Ogden

Recorded Friday 19 November 2021

In this final session of “The Trauma Series” our three expert clinicians will come together to answer your questions on their work in the context of working through the coronavirus threats. After a year of intense threats to our survival, coupled with the stress of social distancing, self-quarantine and isolation, most people will suffer some after-effects even when there is a return to ‘normal.’

The Trauma Series Part III - Live Webinar CPD Event Banner

With Janina Fisher, PhD

Recorded Friday 12 November 2021

Disconnection from self in the context of traumatic experience is a survival strategy that allows victims to disown and distance themselves from what is happening. But it comes at a cost: long-lasting shame and self-loathing, difficulty self-soothing, internal conflicts and struggles, and complications in relationships with others.

Without internal coherence or compassion, fragmented individuals are vulnerable to suicidality, self-harm or substance abuse, and often marginalised by the label of “borderline.”

Planting Hope

With Ozichi Brewster, Mike Morgan, Sue Stuart-Smith, and Dr Maggie Turp

Recorded Saturday 6 November 2021

As COP 26 begins, 6 November 2021 has been declared a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice in which communities all around the world will come together to build power for systems change. This event is part of our contribution to this day and we are inviting psychotherapists and others to join us in thinking about food, soil, land equity, and the balance of our relationship with the earth in the wider context of the environmental crisis.

The Trauma Series - Part II

With Dr Pat Ogden

Recorded Friday 15 October 2021

Traumatic events, attachment failures, and systemic oppression (historical and current) can become the central defining experiences that powerfully influence our implicit predictions and expectations of ourselves, others, and the world.

The Trauma Series - Part I

With Dr Ruth Lanius

Recorded Saturday 2 October 2021

Developmentally traumatized people frequently feel estranged from their internal and external world. They often do not know where their body is in space, leaving them feeling clumsy, uncoordinated, and unable to engage in purposeful action/agency.

Freud's Pandemics

With Dr Doris Brothers and Professor Brett Kahr, and with discussants Dr Valerie Sinason and Professor Neil Vickers

Recorded Friday 1 October 2021

Sigmund Freud devoted much of his professional life to the treatment and cure of many severely traumatised patients. But it may well be that Freud actually endured far more trauma in his own private life than most of his analysands.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

With Anthea Benjamin, Dr Lucy Carter, Koya Cassandra Conteh, Tiane Graziottin, and more…

Recorded Saturday 18 September 2021

In the wake of COVID, this conference will address the highly topical issue of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and a therapeutic approach, Trauma Informed Care (TIC), which has been found to be highly effective in addressing the needs of people who have been neglected, abused, or otherwise traumatised in childhood.

The Boston Change Process Study Group

With Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern M.D., Heather Churchill PsyD, Karlen Lyons-Ruth Ph.D, Alexander Morgan M.D. and Bruce Reis Ph.D.

Recorded Saturday 11 September 2021

In this webinar, our speakers will explore this process of mutuality as a developmental process of moving through and being moved by another’s experience of the self and the world. While psychoanalytic thinking has moved far beyond the neutral analyst and now fully encompasses the mutual influence between patient and therapist, the nature of those two-person influences has only begun to be articulated.

The Truth About Trauma and Dissociation Part II

With Dr Valerie Sinason and discussants Zoe Hawton and Mark Linnington

Recorded Saturday 10 July 2021

Valerie Sinason is a world leader in the study of traumatology and has pioneered some of the most difficult work in the field. In the first part of this presentation, she focuses on the clinical implications of extreme adverse childhood experiences, disorganised attachment and resulting dissociative identity disorders.

Becoming Shameless - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Doris Brothers, Jane Haberlin and Professor Andrew Samuels

Recorded Saturday 3 July 2021

Shame is often felt to be one of the most excruciating emotions, perhaps because it threatens one’s deepest sense of being loveable. For many, a sudden sense of having been inappropriate is embarrassing.

But for someone who has never felt certain of their worth, a minor encounter with personal limitations can feel like a catastrophic reminder of one’s supposed inadequacy: of being insufficient, not quite what’s wanted, unacceptable.

The Art of Letting Go - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Joshua Engelman, Anouchka Grose and Mary Morgan

Recorded Friday 2 July 2021

Human existence is maintained by a web of connections, attachments and resources. These are inevitably transient yet held together by a person’s sense of ‘going on being’ with a possible future. People leave or die, relationships end, and a life passes through developmental stages that must involve some shedding of former self-states.

Silence and Space - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Eugene Ellis, Siobhán McGee and Dr Maria Pozzi Monzo

Recorded Friday 18 June 2021

Mindfulness is simply the deliberate practice of paying attention to what one is feeling and thinking from moment to moment. Usually, the process involves observing the incoming and outgoing breath, noticing and releasing the thoughts and emotions that inevitably arise.

Mutual Regressions - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Allan Schore

Recorded Saturday 12 June 2021

Citing his recent volume Right Brain Psychotherapy (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019), Allan Schore will discuss the critical clinical role of transient synchronized mutual regressions. He defines these as the process of returning to an earlier stage of development as a conduit to developmental growth.

The Polyvagal Guide - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Deb Dana, LCSW

Recorded Friday 11 June 2021

The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living, powerfully shaping our experiences of safety and influencing our capacity for connection. Porges’ Polyvagal Theory provides a guide to the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviours and beliefs. It gives us an understanding of the body-to brain neural highways that give birth to our personal stories of safety and survival.

Sudden and Unexpected Loss - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Lisa Forrell, Cathy Rentzenbrink, Julia Samuel, and Dr Lucy Selman

Recorded Friday 21 May 2021

In this conversation we bring together a panel of distinguished academics, writers, and psychotherapists to explore together the many ways that the death of a loved one can be accommodated in order to free the bereaved to continue to live their lives.

Conscious Uncoupling- Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Christopher Clulow, Liz Hamlin, Dr Avi Shmueli and Kate Thompson

Recorded Saturday 24 April 2021

In contemplating divorce or ‘uncoupling’, couples are assaulted with change on multiple levels. They may face separation from their children and experience shame at their relationship’s failure. Feelings of betrayal, abandonment or relief are commonly reported but rarely equally shared between spouses.

The Truth About Trauma and Dissociation Part 1 - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Valerie Sinason

Recorded Saturday 27 March 2021

Valerie Sinason is a world leader in the study of traumatology. After decades of working psychotherapeutically with some of the most psychologically wounded people, she has found a way to talk about their unbearable experiences with extraordinary insight, compassion and balance. In this webinar she will describe what she has learnt about hearing, accepting and responding to their accounts.

Separation Sickness - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Bayo Akomolafe, Amrita Bhohi, Roger Duncan, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Mary-Jayne Rust and Mary Watkins

Recorded Friday 26 March 2021

Healing the Intergenerational Disconnection from Ourselves and the Land. In our post-industrial world it is not mysterious that depression and anxiety are so prevalent and that the demand for psychotherapy is increasing. As therapists in this context, how do we understand this collective malaise?

The Race Conversation - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Aileen Alleyne, Dr Neil Altman, Eugene Ellis and Jane Ryan

Recorded Saturday 20 March 2021

This conference invites psychotherapists of all backgrounds to consider the intricate and complex challenge of talking about race, both within and beyond the consulting room. It rests on the premise that examining the subjective experience of inequality across painful racial divides in our society is inevitably a confronting and emotionally charged endeavour: frustrating and saddening for black people; shame laden and unnerving for white people.

Somatisation - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Julianne Appel-Opper

Recorded Saturday 6 March 2021

In this embodied and experiential webinar, Julianne Appel-Opper will offer new perspectives to explore and work with somatisation and embodied communications. Julianne has developed a way of working – “relational living body psychotherapy” – that is theoretically rooted in integrative gestalt psychotherapy and intersubjective psychoanalytic thinking. This approach also draws on the research fields of attachment, developmental psychology, neuroscience and somatisation.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Velimir B. Popović

Recorded Monday 1 March 2021

Jung’s encounters with the unconscious that he described in The Red Book were especially fruitful for his followers.  He described his dialogues with various unconscious images and these developed into the concept of active imagination as a therapeutic technique. Yet, unfortunately, this process was never fully elaborated for future analytical psychologists.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Frances Sommer Anderson, Georgie Oldfield MCSP and Dr Nick Straiton

Recorded Saturday 27 Februrary 2021

This multi-disciplinary conference will examine the early foundations of chronic pain and how to work with these conditions therapeutically. The impact of the ongoing pandemic on people who experienced early life adversity will be acknowledged. Our speakers include a psychologist/psychoanalyst, musculoskeletal physician and physiotherapist.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Ashok Bedi

Recorded Monday 22 Februrary 2021

Life is a series of road bumps, detours, and breakdowns. Most of the time, our consciousness can manage these crises with its default mode of operation. However, if our ego consciousness is overwhelmed by the trauma, then the deeper layers of our psyche are activated to master the situation. At such a juncture, our collective consciousness and the cumulative archetypal wisdom of our ancestors triggers the imagination to create a new image or a symbol to help us to navigate such overwhelming situations.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Bayo Akomolafe

Recorded Monday 8 Februrary 2021

Jung’s active imagination is believed to be the heart of his massive contributions to depth psychology and central to his psychotherapeutic enterprise. There are many guides on how to experiment with active imagination – the process of making dreamed images objectively intelligible in a process of healing and transformation.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Maria Grazia Calzà

Recorded Monday 1 Februrary 2021

To Jung, our imagination is the door to divinity: it serves as a symbolic intermediary allowing for the imaging of the imageless divine; images allow mystics to stand in relationship with the transcendent. This seminar will relate Jung’s idea to the numinous images of this “Imaginative Presence” which over-flowed medieval mystic women’s consciousness and was transmuted and grounded in the body.

Psychotherapeutic Forms of Love - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

With Dr Andrea Celenza, Professor Paul Gilbert, Dr Richard Gipps and Dr Joy Schaverien

Recorded Saturday 30 January 2021

This project began with a discussion between people working at Confer on whether love of the client is essential for the therapeutic process to work. Some thought it would be strange if a slowly emerging, intimate experience of deeply knowing another, and being known, did not result in love of some kind. Others wondered how a therapeutic stance of being loving might inhibit the client’s need to use the therapist as a hateful object.

Active Imagination Seminar Series - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Dr Murray Stein

Recorded Monday 25 January 2021

In classical Jungian psychoanalysis, active imagination is one of the key instruments for contacting and working with the unconscious. It has summoned a wave of interest among Jungian practitioners since the publication of The Red Book by C.G. Jung in 2009, demonstrated by the recent publication of four volumes of essays by Jungian scholars in the series titled Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions.

Intimate Strangers - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Dr Reenee Singh

Recorded Friday 22 January 2021

In the UK, 2.3 million people are living with or married to somebody from a different ethnic group, and one in 10 relationships is intercultural. The figures for London are even higher and it is predicted that by 2030, fifty percent of people living in the capital will be foreign-born.

The Hungry Ghost - Live Webinar CPD Event Abstract

A Webinar with Dr Gabor Maté

Recorded Saturday 16 January 2021

For twelve years Gabor Maté was the staff physician at a clinic for drug-addicted people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where he worked with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV, including at Vancouver Supervised Injection Site.

Toxic Shame - Live Webinar CPD Event AbstractSecrets and Lies - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Dr Aileen Alleyne, Dr Chip Chimera and Professor Arlene Vetere

Recorded Saturday 12 December 2020

This conference explores the psychotherapeutic challenges of working with shame, one of the most painful yet insidious emotions because of its potential to attack the deepest sense of self. Shaming is often a mechanism of emotional control in dysfunctional families.

Embodied Intersubjectivities - Live Webinar CPD Event AbstractSecrets and Lies - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Roz Carroll, Ruella Frank and Margaret Landale

Recorded Friday 4 December 2020

As therapists move their practices online, what are we discovering about the significance of embodied presence in the shadow of its absence?

Surprisingly, therapists have reported that certain kinds of connection are actually intensified online. For example, close-up facial expressions provide an immediate intimacy between the two.

Secrets and Lies - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Dr Françoise Davoine, Trudy Gold, Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, John Simmonds and Dr Reenee Singh

Recorded Saturday 21 November 2020

Many families have needed to shed a past identity in order to build new lives. Especially those who have been subjected to social shame or exclusion. Often, unacceptable aspects of that family history are expunged from the family narrative; histories that are considered too painful to recount – either to protect the teller or listener – are deliberately or unconsciously hidden.

The Free Energy Principle - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Professor Jeremy Holmes, Dr Barnaby B. Barratt and Dr Saadia Muzaffar

Recorded Saturday 14 November 2020

The aim of psychotherapy is freedom: to liberate sufferers from repetitive self-defeating patterns of thought and relationship. Its clients feel stuck, unable to move forward, trammelled by depression, anxiety, physical and/or mental pain and cut-offness.

In this webinar we shall consider psychotherapeutic freedom from three different, but related, viewpoints.

Transforming Attachments – Can psychotherapy make you secure? - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Linda Cundy, Siobhán McGee and Dr Kathrin Stauffer

Recorded Friday 6 November 2020

It is perhaps a given that, whatever someone’s starting point for coming into therapy, they have a wish to change – to suffer less – and that one way of thinking about that is as a desire to be securely attached. Of course, most people don’t come into therapy framing their problem as an incapacity for secure attachment, but psychotherapists who think of emotional suffering as rooted in childhood deficits may view the work through the lens of attachment theory.

The Disrupted Frame – What are the Therapeutic Implications of Working Online? - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Dr Pierre Cachia, Professor Alessandra Lemma and Dr Jill Scharff

Recorded Saturday 17 October 2020

Today’s panel will consider the implications of holding the psychotherapy session in cyberspace – something that most psychotherapists have, however reluctantly, adjusted to during the pandemic. Many have expressed regret at the loss of embodied contact, the familiar physical rhythm of the sessions and the lack of access to non-verbal cues.

Healing From Collective Trauma - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Dr Sousan Abadian, Dr Doris Brothers and Dr Jack Saul

Recorded Friday 9 October 2020

While we can’t know the global consequences of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, we can predict that the felt experience of facing this particular existential threat will leave a lasting shock-wave through our emotional systems; that time and space will be needed for grief and anger. But can we also think about this processing as an opportunity for certain kinds of emotional and social enrichment?

Domestic Violence - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Led by Dr Arlene Vetere

Recorded Friday 2 October 2020

This webinar will outline the systemic safety methodology for safe relationship therapy when physical and emotional violence is known to have occurred. It is in response to the increase of violence in the home during the lockdown period, and the challenges of working remotely with these clients. It will assist practitioners to assess when it’s safe enough to work relationally, and when to offer alternatives.

On Not Knowing - Search for Meaning - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Judith Pickering, Meg Harris Williams and David Henderson. Chaired by Alice Waterfall

Recorded Friday 25 September 2020

In this conversation, we will examine the connection between spirituality, mysticism, contemplation and psychotherapy. Exploring the qualities that inspire growth, healing and transformation in the therapeutic journey, the speakers will consider the many qualities that contribute to these less tangible processes: presence, attention, mindfulness, calm abiding, analytic reverie and compassion. We will ask how these contribute to insight and wisdom, and how they can be

Breaking the Trauma-Bond between Your Patient and Their Family - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

An Object Relations Approach to Resistance in Treatment – Led by Dr David Celani – Chaired by Alice Waterfall

Recorded Friday 18 September 2020

This workshop will address one of the most frustrating and often repeated events in a psychotherapist’s daily practice, when a client, who seems to be making progress, suddenly begins to aggressively defend his family of origin and angrily abandons treatment. This sudden resistance to therapy is provoked when the patient realises that s/he is pulling away from their family of origin, both internal and external, and cannot imagine surviving alone.

Embodying Power and Difference in the Clinical Relationship - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A one-day exploration led by Carmen Joanne Ablack and Dr Rae Johnson – chaired by Eugene Ellis

Recorded Friday 11 September 2020

In today’s increasingly complex and polarised social world, many psychotherapists are being called, pulled or pushed into addressing issues of social justice. This is evident in our work with clients, in our relationships with colleagues, and in our own lives.

For those without a background in activism or anti-oppression work, it can be challenging to know where to begin, how to recognize our privilege, unpack our own history of oppression, and to navigate cultural misattunements with clients with honesty and grace.

Confronting Mortal Threat Death - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Dr Richard Gipps, Professor Paul Hoggett, Dr Merav Roth and Dr Estela Welldon – chaired by Anouchka Grose

Recorded Saturday 5 September 2020

As the pandemic has brought us all face to face with death, either in reality or in the imagination, we will be talking about how the mind negotiates this gross affront to our sense of survival. The sudden risk of catching a fatal illness brings out some extraordinary capacities, such as adaptation, connection, altruism, but it also amplifies the deepest fear we may have of ceasing to exist.

The Making of Destructive Leaders - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A developmental perspective on pathological narcissism and power

With Professor James Gilligan, Professor Joy Schaverien and Dr Felicity de Zulueta

Recorded Friday 31 July 2020

In a year of multiple crises in many Western democracies, from the Covid-19 pandemic to the uprisings against racism, to the unfolding economic disaster that is a product of austerity, many will be asking the question: what type of person is governing us? This question relates not simply to specific individuals, their political parties and ideologies but to the mental states of those who are supposed to be offering benign leadership.

The Highly Sensitive Person - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A Workshop with Dr Elaine Aron, Dr Art Aron and Dr Michael Pluess

Recorded Saturday 25 July 2020

We often think of highly sensitive people as having less structured boundaries than others: their heightened responses can be confused with poor ego function, with personality or mood disorders. But in this conference we will be looking at new work with Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) as those who have an innate trait of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).

Polyvagal Theory, Oxytocin and the Neurobiology of Love and Trust - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Stephen W. Porges, PhD and Sue Carter, PhD

Recorded Saturday 8 June 2019

In this workshop Porges and Carter will demonstrate the clinical applications of their research into Polyvagal Theory and oxytocin and social behavior. Their scientifically validated advancements in neuroscience offer a new way of considering brain-body medicine. Safety is critical in enabling humans to optimize their potential. The neurophysiological processes associated with feeling safe are a prerequisite not only for optimal mental health and social behavior but are also relevant in the clinical setting.

Understanding Reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Stephen W. Porges, PhD and Sue Carter, PhD

Recorded Saturday 18 July 2020

The spread of the SARSCov2 virus presents an unprecedented event that rapidly introduced widespread life threat, economic de-stabilization, and social isolation. The human nervous system is tuned to detect safety and danger, integrating body and brain responses via the autonomic nervous system. Polyvagal Theory provides a perspective to understand the impact of the pandemic on mental and physical health.

Active Imagination - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With speaker Murray Stein

Recorded Friday 17 July 2020

Active imagination is one of the pillars of Jungian psychoanalysis. Along with the developmental concept of individuation, the activation of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams, active imagination is a key component that constitutes the essence of Jungian clinical work. Paradoxically, however, active imagination has been neglected as a method by many Jungian psychoanalysts since Jung’s death in 1961.

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Linda Graham, MFT

Recorded Monday 6 July 2020

Developing Resilience for Clinical Work in Challenging Times

Resilience, the capacities to cope quickly and skillfully with any crises or catastrophe, is especially needed in times of sudden transition and upheaval such as we’re experiencing with Covid-19. This webinar will provide practitioners with the very practical tools they need to help clients manage anxiety, distress and overwhelm and to maintain their own clarity and well-being.

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Orit Badouk Epstein

Recorded Monday 29 June 2020

From Proximity Seeking to Distance Regulation, a Case Presentation On Working Online with a Client Who Comes from a Disorganised Attachment Style

The abrupt appearance of Covid-19 invading our consulting room has thrown us all into a state of disorientation and forced us to work online only. While slowly adjusting her practice to this new norm, to her surprise, Orit found that not much has changed for those clients who suffer complex trauma with disorganised attachment styles.

Trauma and Somatic Memory - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A Two-Day Workshop with Dr Janina Fisher PhD

Dr Janina Fisher

Recorded Saturday 13 and 20 June 2020

In this workshop, we will look at how the neuroscience and attachment research of the past twenty years has transformed our notions of “memory”. We now know that “the body keeps the score,” that our most painful experiences are less often remembered than encoded in wordless somatic and emotional memories.

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Anna Santamouris

Recorded Monday 22 June 2020

Anna will introduce her talk with psychoanalytic theory as a background to problems of addiction in clients. The talk will address states of narcissism and how these pertain to the addictions, including the mirror transference (mirroring and reflection), a preoccupation with self and inner reality, the imbalance between objective and subjective aspects of the self and the difficult relationship to reality that shows itself in a withdrawal from object relations alongside illusions of self-sufficiency

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Dr Reenee Singh

Recorded Monday 15 June 2020

Families and couples are under considerable stress during this period of lockdown. At one level, most families experience the more “ordinary” stresses of having to share space, work remotely and supervise virtual schools, while at another level, there are anxieties about health and mortality among immediate and extended family members, which may be exacerbated for migrant families.

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Dr Aaron Balick

Recorded Monday 8 June 2020

Since the Covid-19 crisis struck in the middle of March, talking therapists have moved their practices online wholesale and globally. While some will have had previous experience of online work, most will have had little to no training and may even have strong prejudices about working in this way. Working online is no longer a choice, but a necessity, and it is the duty of every psychotherapist to do so ethically, responsibly, and critically.

COVID-19 - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

Therapy In The Time Of Covid-19 Seminar Series

Dr Christopher Clulow and Kate Thompson

Recorded Monday 1 June 2020

Couple relationships form a bridge between the internal worlds of each partner and their external environment. As individuals they constitute an important part of their partner’s environment, and as a couple they are affected by the wider environment they inhabit. Threats from any of these sources affect the quality and stability of their relationship, both consciously and unconsciously.

Conversion Hysteria - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A day with Adam Phillips

Recorded Saturday 14 March 2020

This one-day discussion focuses on the question of what constitutes an acceptable picture of change in psychoanalysis. We will begin with a talk by Adam in which he will explore the uses of the word “conversion” in psychoanalytic discourse and the idea of change within the thinking of key theorists.

Inflammatory Response - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Antony Haynes and Dr Elisabeth Philipps

Recorded Saturday 1 February 2020

Many of us, including our psychotherapy clients, may suffer from unexplained symptoms of debilitation, and of depression, without a clear context. In fact, general practitioners say that about 25 per cent of their consultations are with patients for whom they cannot give a medical diagnosis or treatment and this can be a key issue in psychotherapy.

On Loneliness Solitude - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Lesley Caldwell, Dr Richard Gipps and Dr Akshi Singh

Recorded Saturday 18 January 2020

Why is it that some people never experience the emotion of loneliness, while others feel excruciating anxiety in solitude? This conference will attempt to understand aspects of an individual’s psyche that predisposes them towards either tendency.

Being Present With Suffering - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

A one-day seminar led by Nigel Wellings and Elizabeth Wilde McCormick

Recorded Saturday 23 November 2019

There is something about everything that makes it not quite satisfactory. Even things we really love are spoilt by not being quite enough or – the opposite – going on too long. People entering psychotherapy want to feel better – more authoritative, less anxious or depressed, more whole – and although it can help, an enormous amount of difficult and painful emotions continue to arise. After years and years of therapy many of us feel as mad as ever. There is no ‘happy ever after’. This all begs the question; what is the place of suffering in human experience and how best can we be with it?

Is psychotherapy a relationship or a cure? - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With speakers Shoshi Asheri, Dr Richard Gipps, Professor Dany Nobus, Dr Jay Watts and Judy Yellin

Recorded Saturday 21 September 2019

Last year we asked the thought-provoking question What is Normal? as the topic for our think-tank conference to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Somewhat beyond our expectations, the question generated some brilliant, fresh and new perspectives about the therapy process. And so we have posed another challenging question for our speakers to answer in this event: is psychotherapy a relationship or a cure?

Learning From Life: Psychoanalytic Wisdom - On Demand Psychotherapy CPD Event

With Patrick Casement

Recorded Saturday 20 April 2013

In his fourth and most personal book Learning from Life Patrick Casement gives us a fascinating insight into fundamental questions concerning the acquisition of analytic wisdom and how personal experiences shape the analyst’s approach to clinical work. In this 3-part recording from a one-day seminar delivered in London he talks to us about how the psychoanalytic self comes into being, and how our own emotional truths consciously or unconsciously shape our practice and theory.