Chair's Welcome
a message from Nicola Barden - BACP Chair

"There are some sharp points of focus for counselling and psychotherapy in the UK at the moment; regulation, the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies project, changes to voluntary sector funding, to name a few. It is helpful sometimes to take a step back from these important but, in some ways local, concerns and take a look at the bigger picture.

This is the space that the 2007 Annual Conference inhabits: Counselling on a Global Canvas. The title brings with it both inevitable and interesting concerns. Is there such a thing as global therapy? Is there even a shared understanding of what therapy means across seven continents? Does it actually mean anything when using that broad a brushstroke?

To make sense of this canvas it helps to move away from an approach that seeks for a unified identity towards a more pluralistic notion of identities. There is no one 'therapy', but there might be many. And, in the general sense of finding a way to address distress through communication, all cultures have ways of doing this, each appropriate to its own society and structure. Therapy is continuously developing, whether in America or Kenya, China or Australia, India or the UK.

At this conference we might be able to learn from the richness inherent in diverse definitions and the potential of dialogue between them. My hope is that this will be reflected in the conversations between ourselves as participants, with workshop leaders and speakers, and within the whole conference community over the two days.
On Friday evening two other events of note, to which all are warmly invited, are: the Association's AGM and the BACP Counselling and Psychotherapy Awards and Fellowship presentations, in which we can recognise and appreciate some of the outstanding work achieved in the field over the past year.

However much of the conference you are able to attend, I hope it is a constructive and thoughtful space for you, and look forward to meeting with you there."