Sarah Loeb specialises in supervising counsellors who work with clients affected by substance use and has written and facilitated various courses training practitioners on working with issues related to substance use and dependence.

In her supervision and training work she often encounters similar anxieties, concerns and frustrations presented by counsellors and psychotherapists who are working with issues connected to dependency

Technology in all its forms has become a fundamental part of how we live our lives. Yet its value has still to be fully explored within the substance misuse sector. Why is there such reluctance and what benefits can it bring?

This presentation will attempt to bust some of the myths around who uses technology and explore how being online can support and sustain long-term recovery.

When the left brain and right brain are engaged at the same time and the client focuses on specific issues the changes are quick and efficient, nothing that new here. But when this process is combined with different aspects of marine adventure therapy, through states of being, doing and thinking the results are dramatic.

Richard is looking forward to describing the work he does working with people in recovery, what he has learned in how to set up the environment, group processing and the magic of being outdoors. Richard is hoping that we will help him to further his understanding of what he is noticing in his work with clients.

Selling is a learned skill and we can all chose to be adept at this essential business activity.

In this piece Richard will talk about the sales process, share his own journey and offer practical tips. He will also reveal the key secret of sales success. have a guess what it is!

Berne referred to the ‘family scripting’ that can be seen as a pattern through several generations, and the important influence of the grandparents. Thus difficulties with our immediate parents may have begun several generations in the past, and often seem to be related to unresolved traumas. Fanita English (1979) described these traumas as a ‘hot potato’ passed on to subsequent generations. Knowledge of these traumatic experiences is held within the introjected Parent, and the theme of this TA Tuesday is the usefulness of working at the source of the difficulty, i.e with the ancestor who first had the traumatic experience.

Unfortunately the knowledge we hold of our family history is not always available to our conscious mind. There are signs in the therapeutic process that indicate the presence of an impasse that spans the generations, and hopefully there will be time to discuss these signs. I also hope to discuss aspects of Family Constellations that inform my approach to these difficulties, along with TA techniques that Transactional Analysts can use to address intergenerational trauma.

Pregnancy is a risk factor for domestic violence. Many men are profoundly threatened by their partners’ pregnancy and change of role from their partner to another person’s mother. One third of domestic violence starts or gets worse when a woman is pregnant and one in five midwives sees at least one woman a week who she suspects is a victim of domestic violence.

One in 4 women will be affected by domestic violence and the complexities of this life threateneing situation, not least our own responses to domestic violence, mean that non-specialist counselling support for this client group can be compromised. Clare has given this talk to midwives both online and face to face where discussion has focused around the midwives’ lack of support and time, but the subject is also of interest to counsellors who, throughout out careers, will inevitably meet with clients who are experiencing domestic violence.

Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a specific text, a body of work, or an oral discourse. In philosophy, critique refers to a methodical practice of doubt, and criticism is viewed as essential to enquiry, making meaning of life, and to being human.

Yet, in the field of psychology, including transactional analysis, criticism and being critical is, more often than not, viewed negatively. In this keynote speech, Keith argues that critique, criticality and being critical is (also) an Adult activity, and uses the concept of the critical Adult to develop these ideas.

In this livestream workshop I bring together the Radical from our past with contemporary (Relational) Transactional Analysis. My motivation in integrating these two approaches is that both speak to my personal philosophy. From radical psychiatry, I honor our roots in reforming thinking and practice. Relational TA is a different reminder of our roots and integrates contemporary thinking from the broad relational field, which has further informed our theories and practices.

I am proposing to take a look at an idea from early TA which I think gets overlooked but is worth re-visiting. It’s Woollams and Brown’s (1978) Vulnerability Quotient.

This is a neat little notion that was originally presented to help make sense of the context out of which the small child creates a script. I really like it just for that purpose, however, I have noticed how useful it is to make sense of what goes on in the educational experience.

I came to a relational approach to therapy through my experience as a therapist, my discussions with Helena Hargaden and other colleagues, and in supervision, reading and studying. But my thinking about a relational perspective has been broadened, deepened and shaped by contemporary energy physics and organisational theory, research into neuroscience, and indeed my spiritual teaching.

The therapeutic relationship is known as the most reliable predictor of positive outcome in psychotherapy. In this livestream, Mark will be discussing a range of research findings relating to best-practice in establishing and strengthening the working alliance and reliable methods of reducing premature termination/ drop-out from therapy.

As practitioners and clients we carry with us a many ideas about what it means to be ‘unwell’ / ‘stuck’ / ‘broken’, ‘sad’, etc. as well as ideas about what it means to be ‘well’ / ‘un-stuck’ / ‘fixed’ / ‘happy’.

There is a risk that some of these ideas bring with them a set of limiting assumptions about what kind of change is possible, how hard it might be, how long it might take, and what the end point will look like etc.

Matthew will discuss some of the ideas about change that he has learned about from his clients. And he’ll describe how playful and creative challenges to such ideas can help clients come closer to their preferred way of being.

Elaine Davies, a CBT practitioner, and Mike Trier, a Person Centred counsellor, are discussing how they work with clients. They will each outline key theory that informs their practice, and use this as a basis for discussing similarities and differences in their casework.

During this evening, Alexandre would like to offer the possibility of discussing another way of seeing/observing young people’s behaviour – particularly young people who are LAC (Looked After Child) and those who present risk of offending/criminal activity.

NLP is a body of knowledge that has been around since the early 1970s, and fairly recently several NHS trusts have begun employing specialist NLPers to help people with weight loss issues.

What is it that NLP offers to get great results in this area?
Can I learn these techniques for myself?
How do these techniques compare with other talking therapy weight loss programmes?

Lin is interested in creativity and physis and how to harness creative energy in our work as therapist. She will share with you some of her thoughts and ideas on creativity in psychotherapy and supervision and how to release creative energy in people.

In this event Marilyn will offer her demonstration of Grooming. Using a teddy bear she will present the abusers behaviour she saw over many years when her boys were abused by their head teacher. The sad part is she did not understand what she was watching and consequently could not protect her boys.

Being able to identify Grooming is a vital skill to identify and prevent the abuse of children, Marilyn will talk about how she has developed her skills and what she has learned educating professionals and parent groups.

Whatever business we are in our brand is the message that we give out the world. We need to make sure we are consistent and in that our message helps people to choose us. This is a practical event where we can explore our brand issues and reflect on how successful we are and what we can do differently.

Dr Denise Meyer developed the award-winning Students Against Depression website, and has managed its growth as a trusted resource for students and those helping them (as well as many non students) over its 10 year history.

In this interview Denise will talk about how the project has responded to evidence about how to make self-help more helpful, and about recent developments to make it easier for therapists and other support workers to use the site for structured guided self-help.

In this session we take a look at trauma and phobias and examine how NLP approaches this specific area of change. Can NLP possibly help people recover from trauma and overcome phobias in a fifteen minute session? Join us to find out.

Designed to help uncover some of the mysticism around NLP, in this event we will be taking some practical examples and discussing how to approach trauma and phobias using various NLP techniques.

Interesting me at the moment is the concept of Protocol being evoked in the therapeutic relationship ( Cornell ); the expression of physiological discomforts, escalations or minimizations of affect, as a means of self-regulation ( Erskine ); Gratitude, a theory put forward by Melanie Klein; Functional Fluency from Suzanne Temple.

Joiners Interpersonal Theory, Suicidality in the Therapeutic relationship, Empathising with the Suicidal Person, CAMS model of working with suicidal patients.

….total reliance on dispassionate analytical rationalism is a certain path to the wrong answer…..the real pursuit of learning is to discover the wholeness/unity of life (Senge et al, 2004).

The future is unknown and unknowable, and we can no longer depend on historic ways of making sense to find our way forward. We must ‘imagine’ a creative way to move through the chaos, and we believe that a person-centered group, focusing on the theme of global issues may shift consciousness and yield new truths.

“I used to think that life was only about progress, getting to a destination, the final outcome. But this isn’t quite right. Life is more of a process, and as much as goals are important, the in-the-moment experiences along the way are really where authentic living takes place. Running has taught me this. In fact, running has been my greatest teacher of life.”

We know how important it is to be present for our clients. But so much can get in the way – our feelings about how our clients are doing, our worries about how we are doing, our stress from trying to be helpful. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to be more present with your clients that would also let you be more relaxed as a therapist?

If success is based on preparation meeting opportunity, what do you need to prepare this year? What new things do you need to add to your portfolio, how will you plan for them?

We will discuss how useful upselling can be, how important it is to develop new products and services and the benefit of increasing our business planning horizon to two years.

Caring for our clients, ensures we look after them to the highest possible standard, this includes thinking about issues of security and confidentiality.

Whilst this has always been a requirement for our face2face work, online there are new issues and challenges to think about. Indeed, whilst there are some basic issues to think about, it’s not always “a one size fits all” solution.

There are 3 questions that I would like us to think about during this #TATuesdays event.

1. Do I understand the experience and life of an obese person in our culture? The overall picture, media, attitudes, prejudices, medical models and their implications?
2. What are the differences in Long and Short term issues of weight and the clinical implications of these differences?
3. What is the aim of psychotherapy with this client group?

In this session, we will explore the concept of kinesthetic empathy in therapeutic and also everyday relationships. We will also try to embody it – even whilst we are on-line together!

The dance movement psychotherapist Bonnie Meekums defines kinesthetic empathy as: ‘the process through which our own muscles respond to movement with which we are visually and empathically engaged, as if we were performing the same actions as we see’.

Hal very generously spent some time discussing with us person-centred education, the research underpinning the approach, his two late co-authors and some personal experiences not in the book.

Many organisations are struggling with economic, technology and cultural challenges – how can we influence organisations and develop leaders to create vision, cohesiveness and accountability rather than command and control, fragmentation, conflict and stress?

Debbie will discuss TA concepts that can support change in organisations and enable leaders to develop and grow teams that have the resilience to perform and thrive.

What are the challenges when we are presented with a child or young person as ‘having problems’?

Can we sometimes get drawn in to fixing or diagnosing children & young people in a way which may be unhelpful? How does that feel for our client, to parents/carers and to us as practitioners?

We are currently consulting with young people across the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian to ascertain what the issues of the day are for them and how they consider PKH could respond. PKH will then develop and trial a project to support children and young people based on these findings.

Steph will bring a case study to talk about experiences in working clinically with young children and adolescents. Using a case study, Steph will describe what has worked in her practice, what hasn’t worked and share a success story.

Raising our awareness of how social class/ status can impact our own lives, the lives of our young clients and the therapeutic relationship.

Exploring a trusted resource for supporting young people affected by low mood, depression or suicidal thinking.

An exploration of the additional roles and skills needed to run an effective school counselling service.

Working in a school environment makes complex demands on the counsellor. The relationships outside the counselling room are vital to the smooth running (and continued funding) of a school counselling service. Sue and Emma discuss the additional roles and skills required to run an effective service within a school context.

Helen will talk to us about the Counsellng MindEd project that BACP has developed with the Department of Health(DH) in the UK.

Counselling MindEd is part of a wider funded MindEd project funded by the DH which is a free resource to help anyone working with children and young people to notice what might develop into mental health difficulties. This kind of early intervention is intended to help adults help children and young people to avoid years of needless suffering due to lack of information.

Sandra and John have been developing onlinevents since the first OCTIA conference in 2008, creating events for counsellors, psychotherapists teachers and other professionals that are accessible online. We are both passionate about the accessibility of learning geographically, financially and without hierarchy.

David has worked in private practice in Edinburgh since 2008; his clinical work evenly divided between the provision of TA counselling and psychotherapy to Scottish armed forces veterans experiencing combat-related PTSD and a similar service for “civilian” individuals and couples from premises located in Leith.