Friday Morning Workshops

What does “being relational” in therapy mean?

Dr Linda Finlay

Over that last few decades there has been a significant paradigm shift in counselling and psychotherapy towards being more relational. Yet the term ‘relational’ is understood and applied by therapists in widely varying ways. All therapy recognizes the significance of relationships in shaping psychological distress/well-being and the therapeutic relationship is valued across all modalities. However, the term, “relational psychotherapy,” is usually reserved for therapies where the therapeutic relationship is seen as pivotal and used as the primary tool of therapy.  In this workshop, we will explore what ‘being relational’ means to each of us, given our particular practice and contexts. In addition to discussing some case studies, I invite you to share any personal experiences of those special, touching, relational moments which have been transformational for you.

Dr Linda Finlay is a relational, integrative psychotherapist and supervisor (UKCP registered) in private practice in York. She also teaches psychology and counselling at the Open University (UK) and works as a freelance academic consultant. She has published many books and articles on psychotherapy, reflexivity, and phenomenological research. Two books of relevance to integrative psychotherapists are: Relational Integrative Psychotherapy: Engaging Process and Theory in Practice (Wiley) and The therapeutic use of self in counselling and psychotherapy (Sage). Her latest book, in the autumn of 2024, is titled: Relational counselling and psychotherapy (Sage). She is a Co-Editor of the European Journal for Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy.

Relational Group Process

Bob Cooke

This workshop will present central elements of Relational Group Process through discussion and demonstration with a small group. Some of the concepts that may be identified include the use of contracts, analysis of ego states, the enactment script beliefs, interruptions to contact, an examination of internal and external contact, the Self-inRelationship model, identifying Relational Needs, and a focus on the Relational Group Process versus Individual therapy within the group.

 

Bob Cooke is a Teaching Supervising Transactional Analyst.

He is the founder of the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy and has been teaching internationally and nationally for the past 35 years.

He runs a comprehensive psychotherapy training programme in Transactional Analysis from an Integrative Perspective based in Manchester UK.

 

‘We Told You To Gamble Responsibly’ – a relational exploration of gambling

Andy Ryan and Michelle Paton

We will use the space to share a brief understanding of where the gambling treatment sector is in relation to current government white paper, Office for health improvement and disparities data, need for support and the gambling industry.

Using our experience of working in the sector we will share some examples of how and why “Empowerment – Empathy – Self Agency” are crucial in the treatment process to help people make sense and meaning of their relationship with gambling. Using our knowledge of different modalities, we will propose methods of working and apply this thinking systemically too.

We will ensure there is space for dialogue and connection to create a collaborative space for some emerging sense making of our own and for everyone’s lived and living experiences.

Andy Ryan. My passion for the subject matter emerges from both lived experience of addiction and having worked in the sector for more than 20 years. I have recently joined a team that has launched the new NHS gambling harms clinics and utilise my experience of delivering addiction services linked to gambling, drugs, and alcohol both regionally and nationally to deliver the workshop. I have delivered training and supervised teams across the UK and in Europe on all matter’s addition, focusing on attachment theory, trauma awareness and my own integrative learning shaped over years of experience.

Michelle Paton. A senior CBT therapist designing, delivering, and developing an NHS gambling harms clinic treatment service. As a therapist with a wide verity of expertise working with the sector, my passion is to lead on understanding the most effective treatment offers for people who reach out for support. I am currently researching the impact of EMDR as a treatment offer and link into the national clinical reference group to share learning.

I am passionate about being with the person and supporting them to make sense and meaning of their experiences. This then ensures that people are experienced as a whole and not as a problem or figural issue determined by a system.

As a team leader I also have an interest in the health and well-being of the team and continue to develop the learning around the importance and impact of a relational approach.

Integrating Parts Work with TA, using Stabilisation to Empower Trauma Survivors

Jo Moores

As TA therapists how do we adapt and integrate our theory and practice to work more safely with trauma and dissociation?

In this workshop we will play with ideas, exercises and movement to help us more deeply understand embodied experiences such as regulation and resourcing, as essential tools for stabilisation.

We will borrow some ideas from Internal Family Systems ( Schwartz 2021) and Janina Fishers (2017) seminal work on healing from trauma,  to explore strengthening Adult ego state ( through psychoeducation and resourcing) and strengthening Child ego state ( Cornell 2003 ) through attunement, tracking and co -regulation).

In addition we will explore the powerful presence of dissociation in the therapy room and how we can integrate our thinking about ‘parts’ with self states ( Novak 2008 ) and ego states.

 

Jo Moores is a PTSTA based in Manchester in the north of England. She works as a therapist, supervisor and trainer and has a particular interest in trauma, neurodiversity and work with the body.

Whilst her main modality is TA, Jo has trained in and received supervision for many years around working with complex developmental trauma and dissociation. She is currently undertaking additional training in Family Constellations, to explore a systemic view of transgenerational trauma and how this shows up in our individual psychological process.

Jo’s background is in social justice work and she is interested in exploring themes of intersectionality and Social Trauma and how issues of power, privilege and oppression show up in our work.

Attachment, Autism & TA

Dr. Jonathan Lloyd and Theo Lloyd

In this 2 hour workshop there is an exploration of Attachment Theory and how different types of insecure attachment can be confused with autistic traits. We overlay recent research with personal experiences and how the lens of the TA model views this phenomenon.

 

Jonathan is a psychotherapist and supervisor. He runs a busy private practice in South Manchester (Calm Minds) and is the CEO & founder of Calm Minds Healthcare Ltd.

Theo Lloyd is Jonathan's son who was diagnosed with Autism at the age of four. He is currently studying to become a psychotherapist at MIP.

Friday Afternoon Workshops

Connecting to the Psyche for Empowerment, Empathy and Self-Agency

Jocelyne Quennell

This workshop will enable participants to take some time to reflect on their own experiences of the themes of the conference. This will include facilitated engagement with the creative process, compassionate enquiry and reflective dialogue, working with personal process and connection to lived experiences.

There will be opportunities to explore, connect to and discover a meaningful relationship to the Self through working with creative media. The aim is to explore the inner life to find those agentive elemental forces in the unconscious which can enable, regeneration, transformation and change.

“It is the realm we enter in sleep. We carry it within ourselves forever. All the ogres and secret helpers of our nursery are there, all the magic of childhood. And more important all the life potentialities that we never managed to bring to adult realisation, those other portions of ourselves are there, for such golden seeds do not die. If only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of day, we should experience a marvellous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life”. Joseph Campbell

There is no requirement for any previous experience of working with the arts.

Jocelyne Quennell is an Integrative Arts Psychotherapist and former Principal of the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE). She has been responsible for developing courses at post-graduate and undergraduate levels for three decades for psychotherapists, counsellors, arts therapists, therapeutic wellbeing practitioners and supervisors promoting standards in the profession.

With a distinctly humanistic and integrative orientation, she has an MA in Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies and experience teaching and learning around approaches from analytical psychology. She has worked in health, education and social care with many different client groups with a lifetimes commitment to enhancing quality and increasing access to therapeutic practice. She has been a course leader for creative and therapeutic trainings all her working life and remains inspired by the resources that people find within themselves.

Therapeutic Mistakes and Psychotherapeutic Presence

Ruth BirkBaek

Therapeutic Mistakes and Psychotherapeutic Presence

How is it that we sometimes fail a client even when we are so carefully trying not to? We may even reproduce a real failure in the therapy, which resembles client’s own childhood trauma.

During this workshop we will focus on the small and subtle mistakes made by the therapist as a result of misattunement, which can lead to ruptures in the therapeutic relationship. How clients will use these mistakes to reinforce their self-protective life script system.

This workshop will focus on the significance of presence and involvement in the therapeutic relationship.

 

Ruth Birkebaek started her career in Brazil in 1989 as a Plastic Surgeon. After graduating from medical school she became interested on the impact of the mind on the development of physical illness, and did trainings in Psychosomatic Medicine and Jung Therapy followed by a 4-year training in Transactional Analysis. In 2003 she moved to the UK and started a 5-year training in Integrative Psychotherapy with Richard Erskine. Ruth works full time as a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice in London, and delivers training and workshops internationally.

Ruth is a UKCP registered Psychotherapist, a Certified Integrative Psychotherapy Trainer & Supervisor (CIIPTS) by the IIPA (International Integrative Psychotherapy Association) and a Certified Transactional Analyst – Provisional Trainer & Supervisor (PTSTA).

Empowerment, empathy and self-agency when working with therapeutic regression.

Anthony Jannetti

Therapeutically supported regressive therapy is one way to help clients resolve early childhood traumas, reclaim their lost potential and to heal. The therapist’s use of empathy, helping clients empower themselves and to gain self-agency are vital skills to help them learn how to get their relational needs met as adults. This workshop will include a live demonstration followed by a discussion of the theory and methods used.

 

Anthony Jannetti is a Supervising and Training Member of the International Integrative Psychotherapy Association. He has presented and conducted workshops in several European countries and Turkey. He has a private practice in San Francisco, California.

Healing the world – One client at a time!

Susie Hewitt

“COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide.”  World Health Organisation

“Young people who went through the pandemic were more likely to experience increased depression, social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and worsening general mental well-being.”  University of Oxford

“The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that in situations of armed conflict, ‘Around 10 percent of the people who experience traumatic events will have serious mental health problems, and another 10 percent will develop behaviour that will hinder their ability to function effectively.’ Depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic problems such as insomnia are the most common effects.”  University of Utah

Wars, pandemics, and ecological destruction over the past few years have significantly increased the prevalence of complex mental health issues in our society.

How do we hold the systemic healing in mind as we treat our clients?

To answer this question, we return to Berne’s (1968) concept of Physis – “The force of Nature, which eternally strives to make things grow and to make growing things more perfect”.

How do crisis and aspiration combine into one powerful systemic force for good?  How does the world’s pain show up in our therapy room, in both ourselves and our clients?  How do we create therapeutic relationships that treat not just the individual, and, also assist in healing our world system?

In this workshop we will seek to explore these questions with a critical examination of the systemic impact of treating the individual with the world context in mind.

Susie Hewitt TSTA-P; MSc Psychotherapy; UKCP Reg.; BACP Accred.

Susie Hewitt is a Primary Course Tutor at the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy. In Private Practice since early 2009, she is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst.  Susie has been developing a particular way of applying Transactional Analysis ‘systemically’ for several years.

Psychological flexibility, Mindfulness, and Transactional Analysis

Abigail Taiwo

Psychological Flexibility defined as the ability to contact the present moment fully as a conscious human being, and to change or persist in behaviour when doing so serves valued ends is a concept that is seen as conceptualised by Hayes et al. (2004a, b, 2006).  This implies that this concept may have existed in the past but not fully emphasised or understood. This factor has been described in the literature as super skill of resilience and mental health, centre of healthy functioning, and considered as the pinnacle of emotional health and well-being. Literature showed that psychological flexibility leads to psychological benefits and adaptive behaviour change.  Most research on psychological flexibility and related constructs were conducted in the context of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) but most have explored psychological inflexibility which is the opposite of psychological flexibility (Dooley, et al. (2020).  Other studies have explored the associations of the dimensions of psychological flexibility with adaptive processes, quality of relationships and parental and child functioning in families (Daks & Rogge 2020).

In this workshop, the reviewed latest information on psychological flexibility will be shared. We will together explore how psychological flexibility is measured within psychology and psychotherapy discipline and its relationship with variety of context.  We will also explore this concept of psychological flexibility within the context of integrating adult ego state (Berne, 1961; Erskine, 1988, 1991; Tudor, 2003) in Transactional Analysis and consider Mindfulness based Transactional Analysis (Zvelc, Cernetic and Kosak, 2011), including the proposition that Mindfulness training positively impacts psychotherapists’ relational qualities such as empathy, openness, acceptance and compassion.

It is hoped that this engaging workshop will stimulate discussions on the current ways of assessing and improving psychological flexibility.  I will share the result of our study on the efficacy of Mindfulness course on psychological flexibility and consider current literature on what works in building psychological flexibility.

Dr Abigail O Taiwo is currently a whole time equivalent fixed time Senior Lecturer and research tutor on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme at the University of Hertfordshire. Abigail holds a BSc (hons) in Psychology, MSc, PhD (Clinical Psychology) and an Advanced Diploma in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy from MIP. She is a Senior fellow of higher education academy, Associate Fellow of the BPS, Fellow of the NPA, HCPC Chartered and registered Clinical Psychologist. Abigail has over 24 years post-qualification experience of working within academic and clinical spheres both in Nigeria and UK combined, including in the NHS. Prior to joining the University of Hertfordshire Clinical Psychology programme, Abigail worked at the University of Wolverhampton for years, and was programme lead for the professional doctorate in Counselling psychology, and later pioneer Course lead for the Masters in Integrative counselling and psychotherapy programme. Abigail has researched widely, and her current research interest focuses on physical health, Gender based violence, migration trauma, older adult psychological wellbeing, and the psychology of pro-environmental behaviour.

Imprisoned and empowered by a vow

Enid Welford

Therapists and clients can feel disempowered when a client works their way through layers of script and makes considerable changes yet cannot express their full potential and find autonomy.

In this workshop participants will explore the difference between decisions and vows, and I will introduce some ideas from Sarah Peyton, neuroscientist, about early vows to limit ourselves. We will explore possible ways to free ourselves and our clients from these vows and find our way to more lasting change.

The workshop will be experiential with some discussion and a small smattering of theory.

Enid Welford is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst based in Manchester. She is always on the search to expand her tool kit in working with client’s issues.  She is an enthusiast for the value of a systemic approach to therapy and has written articles on the interface between Transactional Analysis and Constellations work.