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Recent years have seen an explosion in demand for psychological therapies worldwide.
In the UK alone, 1.4 million were in therapy in 2017.
And with good reason..
Research shows that 8 out of 10 people are better off after therapy, than the average person who does not have therapy. That’s a higher rate of effectiveness than antidepressants, sleeping pills, and most medical treatments.
But who are the individuals behind this cultural phenomenon? And what can we learn from their work?
In this lecture series, we’ll explore the key ideas and individuals that have shaped modern approaches to psychotherapy.
You’ll learn:
You’ll learn how these insights can benefit your own life, but also your ability to help others too. Want to give this experience as a gift to someone else? Check out our gift vouchers.
In the world of psychotherapy, John Bowlby was — and to some extent still is — an ambiguous figure. Trained as a psychoanalyst, and with a powerful academic mind, he was keen to place his discipline on a firm scientific footing.
In his attempts to do so he alienated the psychoanalytic community, who felt that he had sidelined the role of the unconscious, and replaced the experiential creativity of mind with a mechanistic model. I shall describe this history, and then outline where I see the role of attachment in contemporary psychotherapeutic thinking. I shall address the themes of mentalising, the ‘ambiguous therapist’ (ambiguity again!), epistemic trust and the neurobiological underpinnings of the therapeutic relationship. I will conclude with some guidelines for the practice of attachment-informed psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Professor Jeremy Holmes was for 35 years Consultant Psychiatrist/Medical Psychotherapist at University College London (UCL) and then in North Devon, UK, and Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 1998-2002.
He is visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, and lectures nationally and internationally. In addition to 200+ peer-reviewed papers and chapters in the field of psychoanalysis and attachment theory, his books include John Bowlby and Attachment Theory, (2nd edition 2013) The Oxford Textbook of Psychotherapy (2005 co-editors Glen Gabbard and Judy Beck), Exploring In Security: Towards an Attachment-informed Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2010, winner of Canadian Goethe Prize) , and The Therapeutic Imagination: Using Literature to Deepen Psychodynamic Understanding and Enhance Empathy (2014) and Attachment in Therapeutic Practice (2017, with A Slade).He was recipient of the Bowlby-Ainsworth Founders Award 2009. Music-making, gardening, Green politics and grand-parenting are gradually eclipsing his lifetime devotion to psychoanalytic psychotherapy and attachment.
Drawing on over a century of international Nietzschean scholarship, this talk will discuss some of the unexplored psychological reaches of Nietzsche’s thought, as well as their implications for psychotherapeutic practice.
Nietzsche’s philosophy anticipated some of the most innovative cultural movements of the last century, from expressionism and surrealism to psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology and phenomenology. But his work on psychology often remains discarded, despite its many insights.
Addressing this oversight, and in an age of managerialism and evidence-based practice, this talk will help to redefine psychotherapy as an experiment that explores the limits and intricacies of human experience.
Manu Bazzano is a psychotherapist in private practice and a visiting lecturer at Roehampton University, London. He facilitates seminars and workshops internationally on Zen and Phenomenology. His books include Buddha is Dead (2006); After Mindfulness (2014); Zen and Therapy (2017); and Nietzsche and Psychotherapy (2018). You can find out more about his work at: www.manubazzano.com.
The era of Carl Rogers and his colleagues was one in which the ideas of Sigmund Freud, BF
Skinner and their successors were predominant. But one or two incidents when Rogers was
working with veterans led him to ask the question “What is actually helpful to clients?” and
the first empirical research into therapeutic effectiveness was born.
Client-Centred Therapy – now more usually termed Person-Centred Therapy – was based on
that research and is still based on the premise that a spirit of open-ness and enquiry is
important. However, the hypotheses developed as a result of that research have now been
tried and tested over many years and have given us a clear theoretical map on which to base
our practice.
This presentation will introduce the theory and practice of Person-Centred Therapy.
Participants will be encouraged to engage with the presenter, ask questions and enter into
Debate.
Janet Tolan has worked in counselling and psychotherapy since 1979, as a volunteer, as a full time counsellor, as leader of Counselling courses at City College, Manchester and as head of the Masters Programme at Liverpool John Moores University.
She has also worked in Management Development and Team Development for organisations as diverse as Manchester Airport and Salford Social Services. Janet now has a small private practice, working with individuals, couples, groups and teams – and also enjoys playing bridge, dancing salsa and singing jazz.
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