The Clinical Site—New London Workshops Announced

by site.admin | Apr 5, 2016 | The Clinical Site

The SITE is bringing together a number of distinctive voices to offer workshops for qualified clinicians and trainees. The workshops will explore key topics for contemporary psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, with workshop leaders considering these topics in new ways.

The Workshop series will begin with a launch event, Talking About Clinical Work, with Adam Phillips on Wednesday September 28, 2016 at 7.30pm.

Details on our FLYER

 Time: 2-5pm

Venue: October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AL

Cost: £50.00 or £40.00 if you book 3 or more workshops at the same time. £20 for the launch evening.

£30 reduced fees for trainees from the SITE and other organisations.

To book:

Please pay by electronic transfer of funds to: Unity Trust Bank, The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Sort code: 60-83-01; Account No: 20099428.

Please insert your name as reference and email siteenquiries2015@gmail.com to confirm which of the workshops you wish to book.

If you have any questions or wish to pay by cheque contact siteenquiries2015@gmail.com

CPD certificates will be provided

Workshop Details

What’s the Point of Technique? with Andie Newman

Where do you stand on the role of technique?

 “Technique is a necessary set of guidelines which can be taught and which, if followed thoughtfully and sensitively, will protect the practitioner from the excesses of ‘wild analysis’ or narcissistic distractions, and keep the treatment on the right ethical and therapeutic track.”

Or…

“Technique is an outmoded and discredited distraction from the fundamental goal of establishing a strong therapeutic relationship, being fully open to the other without preconceptions and without using theory as a defense against not knowing.”

What status, if any, should we give Freud’s papers on technique? Might they offer a useful compass, or are they relics to be enjoyed and ignored by analysts today? And if there is a place for technique, what are the ethical implications of doing this or not doing that?

We will be addressing these questions and others to explore what a contemporary psychoanalysis has to say about technique.

Andie Newman is a psychoanalyst working in private practice in both central and north London. She trained at The SITE for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and is also a member of the College of Psychoanalysts UK. www.andienewman.com

‘LIKE A HAND-GRENADE GOING OFF’: THE IMPACT OF SUICIDE ON FAMILY, FRIENDS & THERAPISTS A clinical workshop with Paul Gurney

A medical colleague, who had experienced suicide in the family, referred to its impact as being ‘like a hand-grenade going off’, ie: the damage can be wide-ranging, unpredictable and devastating. Through discussion of personal and professional experiences of suicide, we will be exploring a number of issues, including the effect suicide and its aftermath may have on professionals involved with the person who has died. We will also be drawing on participants’ own experiences in this area, attempting to address clinical, theoretical and ethico-legal matters.

Paul Gurney has a background in philosophy and subsequently trained in counselling at Goldsmith’s College and then in psychotherapy at the Philadelphia Association, qualifying in 1998. He has been in clinical practice since 1987. Between 1995 and 2014 he worked in in the NHS in primary care in south London. He is currently in private practice -also in south London- and teaches on various psychotherapy trainings.

THE RESPONSIBLE SUPERVISOR with Jim O’Neill

“(T)he responsibility of the supervisor is not to the patient whose case is ‘under’ supervision, nor to the supervisee, but to psychoanalysis itself.” Darian Leader, 2006.

Recently the responsibility of the clinical supervisor has been cast in the role of an inspector monitoring the safety and outcome of their supervisee’s work. She is also called upon or happily assumes the role of an “older and wiser” practitioner, in effect teaching and treating more junior, less experienced, colleagues, whether they have asked or wish for it, or not. What is often lost in the compulsion to comply and to explain is the very practice of psychoanalysis itself. In this workshop we will be trying to re-define and re-claim the role of the supervisor’s responsibility back to the discipline of psychoanalysis and in doing so making ample opportunity to engage in the artful and expressive practice of giving an account.

Jim O’Neill is a member of the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and has a practice in South London.

PSYCHOANALYSIS & TRUTH with Angela Kreeger

Sometimes truth trumps accuracy. Reality, facts, lies – what is the truth, and whose truth is it? Elie Wiesel said, “some stories are true that never happened, and some words remain true even if their meaning evolves”.

Angela Kreeger is a founder member of The Site. She has had a number of roles there, including being on the Training Committee.  She trained at the Philadelphia Association, completing that in 1997. For the past 15 years she has been supervising in various organisations, and privately. Since 1997 she has worked mainly in private practice with individuals and couples.

WORKING WITH PSYCHOSIS with Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz

This workshop offers an introduction into the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis and it is suitable for anyone with a theoretical and clinical interest in psychosis, including trainees and practising therapists. Underlying this workshop is a specialist therapy project (Psychosis Therapy Project) which Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz launched at Islington Mind a few years ago, with a view to furthering the development of effective psychotherapeutic interventions in the area of psychosis. Psychosis is a very common and widespread phenomenon and more and more individuals experiencing psychosis rightfully turn to talk therapy for help. Yet, therapists do not always feel equipped to work with psychosis; they often assume that this kind of work is especially challenging, if not impossible. By combining theoretical clarifications and clinical illustrations, this workshop will discuss the challenges, the pitfalls and the undeniable successes of the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis. Its wish is to promote the accessibility of psychoanalysis in the treatment of psychosis and to contribute to the de-stigmatisation of psychosis as hopeless and untreatable.

Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz is a psychoanalyst and a translator in the field of psychoanalytic theory. She is a member of the SITE for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and one of the editors of Sitegeist: A Journal of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy. She is the founder of the Psychosis Therapy Project, a specialist therapy service for people experiencing psychosis at Islington Mind and she has a special interest in promoting the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis in theory as well as in practice.

PSYCHOANALYSIS & CLASS with Barry Watt

Is thinking about class an important issue for clinical work? Many would say no. Class has never been properly considered a clinical or theoretical category in psychoanalysis, being regarded as belonging to the domain of the cultural or sociological. At a time of prolonged austerity economics and a growing crisis in our mental health services, is it time to rethink the relationship between the psychoanalytical and the sociological and, if so, how might we make use of a renewed dialogue between the two disciplines, in what we do in the consulting room? Through clinical vignettes and an exploration of the thoughts and experiences of participants, this workshop will introduce a critique of psychoanalysis as a class based practice, with the aim of clearing a space for thinking about a more socially inclusive and self-critically aware psychoanalytic practice.

Barry Watt is a member of The Site, a senior psychotherapist for the Psychosis Therapy Project at Islington Mind and a community activist. He has previously worked in south London for many years with marginalised young people trying to escape cycles of homelessness and street violence. Currently, he is undertaking doctoral research into the so-called Controversial Discussions at the British Psychoanalytical Society.

WORKING WITH DRUG & ALCOHOL ADDICTION with Eric Harper

What does psychoanalysis do when faced with somebody who presents with addiction? This workshop will consider what psychoanalysis brings to the field of addiction, bearing in mind that the founding scene of psychoanalysis is a repression of Freud’s addiction. Freud underwent disfigurement and died as a result of a nicotine addiction. Does this warrant consideration in what a psychoanalytic approach to addiction might look like? The current political idiom is ‘building recovery capital’. Is this what psychoanalysis wants to sign up to? Can psychoanalysis be a cure to addiction and/or should the analyst consider a partnership approach with addiction services? In considering these questions we will also consider what those struggling to become free of a life consumed by addiction use as coping strategies, teaching and support.

Dr Eric Harper is a psychotherapist, social worker and human rights activist, currently working in London with homeless persons presenting with both mental health and addiction challenges. Prior to this he managed a Mental Health Crisis Centre and Drug and Alcohol structured day rehab program. He has worked in Africa and the USA with war trauma and torture survivors and also assisted with the founding of the African Sex Worker Health and Human Rights Alliance.

WORKING WITH COUPLES with Haya Oakley

‘’Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated, Often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them’’

Sidney Smith; Lady Holland’s Memoirs (1855. Vol I, Ch. 11)

This workshop will explore the reasons couples come to therapy and how to avoid coming between couples whilst working with that which is between them, the couple’s dynamic. It will be based on my own clinical experience of working with a diversity of couples spanning four decades as well as examples from TV series In Treatment (HBO. Dir Rodrigo Garcia from the Israeli original Betipul) and Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman).

Haya Oakley has been practising psychoanalysis in London since 1968. After a brief spell at the David Cooper ‘anti-university’ group she joined the Philadelphia Association where she worked with R.D. Laing and colleagues, training psychotherapists and working in ‘therapeutic households’. In 1997 she set up, with others, The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She has been a member of the Guild of Psychotherapists since 1982 and is a founder member of The College of Psychoanalysts UK and Honorary Fellow of UKCP. Haya’s interests include the politics of psychotherapeutic organisations, the issues surrounding State regulation of the ‘impossible profession’, the comparative study of psychoanalytic theories and the question of psychosis.