BACP Conference 2004 - Keynote speakers

Nick will explore how therapy might fit into and help create different futures. Focusing on the contributions therapy might make to a better future for the planet, Nick will explore therapy's understanding of conflict, of trauma and the developing field of ecopsychology and ecotherapy.

Nick is a psychotherapist and trainer in private practice in Calderdale. Nick has written several books, including Psychotherapy and Politics, Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction. He is a founder participant in the Independent Practitioners' Network.

Margaret Wilkinson 'The way forward: contemporary neuroscience and the psychological therapies, insights for our clinical practice'

Margaret will explore the mind/brain relationship, using insights from contemporary neuroscience to gain an understanding of how we may work most effectively in the consulting room. Margaret will look at neuropsychological and neurobiological understandings of early brain development, memory, emotion and consciousness.

Margaret is a professional member of the Society of Analytical Psychology, and assistant editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. She is a member of the International Neuro-Psychoanalysis School and lectures nationally and internationally on the relevance of contemporary neuroscience.

Margaret will be delivering her keynote speech on the afternoon of Saturday 16October

Dave Mearns 'The Human Curriculum'

The 'tabloid politics' of simple answers to complex problems has created a challenging context for the development of counselling and psychotherapy. The 'politics of helping' that results, and which invades education as well as health, inevitably reflects the same 'deficiency' model that is uncomfortable for a profession essentially oriented to a 'potentiality' model.

Dave explores how we can be depressed or excited about the challenge. Increasingly, a significant responsibility for carrying this human curriculum into the future within social services, health and particularly education, is held by counsellors and psychotherapists. In stewarding the human curriculum we are challenged to understand and, indeed, to appreciate the 'politics of helping' in order to present our alternative more effectively. Can we get close enough to the politics to appreciate them without being usurped by them? Can we know what can be compromised and what must not? Will our efforts fall on deaf ears or will we inspire a resonance in others?

Dave is Professor of Counselling and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education in the University of Strathclyde. He has written six books in the field and currently, with Mick Cooper, is finalising the text Working at Relational Depth in Psychotherapy. Dave is Director of the Strathclyde University Counselling Unit, which is successful not only in training but in managing primary care and school counselling services. Much of his management work, within and outside the university, involves understanding the politics within institutions and articulating these with the human dimensions.

Dave will be delivering his keynote speech on the morning of Saturday 16October

Lennox Thomas 'Is therapy the future?'

The greatest advance in therapy has been the ability of counsellors and psychotherapists to inform other related professions such as education, the personal social services and human resources. The value and usefulness of therapy in future will depend on accessibility and the ability to adapt to new challenges. British therapy has grown in the past 30 years and the emergence of new governing bodies to set standards in the professions is a mark of its vitality and growth. Organisations that encourage cross fertilisation and are not hidebound by past orthodoxy are more likely to produce the best-equipped therapists for future challenges.

In recent years attention has been paid to the social context of psychotherapy and counselling and some organisations have been able to incorporate class, gender, culture and other perspectives. We have a great deal more to do in terms of understanding our personal and professional approached to disability issues and sexuality, which has bothered therapy for generations. Ideas have always been the forerunners of practice yet to be established.

Lennox trained as a family and marital therapist and then as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He worked at Nafsiyat, The Intercultural Therapy Centre, for 19 years, spending the last seven as its clinical director. He has been in private practice for some years as a supervisor and training therapist and works at The Refugee Therapy Centre, a charity in Islington, North London.

Lennox will be delivering his keynote speech on the afternoon of Friday 15October