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Birkbeck Counselling Association
Published in: Forum

Forum Programme 2023-2024

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BIRKBECK COUNSELLING ASSOCIATION

2023 – 2024 FORUM PROGRAMME

The BCA Forums for 2023 – 2024 will take place on the 3rd Thursday of the month
Time: 7.30 – 9.00 pm
Venue: Until further notice the Forums will be held on Zoom
Directions: A link for entry to the Forum Room will be sent each month with a reminder about the Forum topic

Forum Organisers

Laila Al–Attar lailaalattar@yahoo.uk
Lucy Harris lucyeditart@gmail.com
Maisie Holland maisie.holland@gmail.com
Jenny O’Gorman jenny.ogorman88@hotmail.co.uk

Forum Programme and other BCA events are also on our website:
https://birkbeckcounsellingassociation.org/

Forum Day, Attendance, Format and Speakers’ Views

The Forum programme is scheduled according to the academic year. The Forum day will change each academic year in order to give all members as much opportunity as possible to attend.

The Forum is for full and student members of the BCA. Members may bring one guest. A reminder email will be sent out a couple of weeks before each Forum. The usual format is a presentation by a speaker or speakers, allowing plenty of time for group discussion.

Material presented at Forums is not usually available for distribution to those unable to attend, nor are Forums recorded. We encourage speakers to write up their presentations for publication in the journal Psychodynamic Practice.

We welcome approaches or suggestions of speakers for future Forum programmes. If you have a topic or speaker in mind, please contact one of the organisers for a chat.

Members are reminded that the views expressed by Forum independent speakers are solely those of the speaker. Such views do not necessarily reflect those of the Forum Organisers or the BCA Executive Committee and therefore what the speaker says is not the responsibility of the Forum Organisers nor of the BCA Executive Committee. Any comments received about what a speaker says will be forwarded to the speaker.

Stephen Frosh
Desert Island Footprints
19th October 2023

The way we develop as counsellors and therapists can have many influences, sometimes a book, lecture, poem or conversation can have a particular impact. Following in the footsteps of a well–known radio programme, we have invited Stephen to be our ‘castaway’, and to choose which of his favourite books, papers or other literary pieces he would take to a desert island.

Presenter: Stephen Frosh

Stephen Frosh is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial Studies (which he founded) at Birkbeck, University of London. He was Pro–Vice–Master of Birkbeck from 2003 to 2017. He has a background in academic and clinical psychology and was Consultant Clinical Psychologist and latterly Vice Dean at the Tavistock Clinic, London, throughout the 1990s, specialising in family and individual psychotherapy with children and young people. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society, a Founding Member of the Association of Psychosocial Studies, and an Honorary Member of the Institute of Group Analysis. He is Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Stephen Frosh is the author of many books and papers on psychosocial studies and on psychoanalysis. His most recent book is Antisemitism and Racism: Ethical Challenges for Psychoanalysis, published by Bloomsbury in the summer of 2013. Previous books include Those Who Come After: Postmemory, Acknowledgement and Forgiveness (2019), Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions (2013), Feelings (2011), A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory (2012), Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic (2010), Hate and the Jewish Science: Anti–Semitism, Nazism and Psychoanalysis (2005), For and Against Psychoanalysis (2006), After Words (2002), The Politics of Psychoanalysis (1999), Sexual Difference(1994) and Identity Crisis (1991). He is co–editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies and of the Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Jewish Studies.

Alice Kentridge and Iggy Robinson
Queer relationships: Unmapped intimacies
16th November 2023

What is beyond the nuclear or biological family, or the long–term monogamous relationship? Alice Kentridge and Iggy Robinson will bring reflections on working with clients in a range of relationships that queer our understanding of couples. They will explore the anxieties that this work might provoke for both clients and therapists – anxieties which, when left unexamined, may lead to pathologizing or flattening attitudes. Drawing on queer theory, interviews, and clinical practice, they will also look at what these relationships offer all of us in expanding our unconscious assumptions about the meaning and mattering of our connections.

Presenters: Alice Kentridge and Iggy Robinson

Alice Kentridge is a psychodynamic psychotherapist working in private practice. She was part of the founding of the Queer Analytic Circle, a group connecting with and developing new thinking with queer analytic practitioners. She is involved with the Queer Social Dreaming Matrix and has written on art, the body, and sexuality.

Iggy Robinson is a psychodynamic therapist, writer and workshop facilitator. They work therapeutically with queer and trans individuals in London, and were a founding member of the Queer Analytic Circle, a group for clinicians who engage with psychoanalytic thinking through a queer lens. Iggy regularly organises Social Dreaming Matrix workshops, offering a space for queer and trans community to explore the collective and social meanings of our dreams.

Siobain DeGregorio
Therapy with Children and Adolescents
18th January 2024

Winnicott famously said ‘There is no such thing as a baby’ (1956). With this in mind, this presentation will focus on the notion that there is no such thing as a child or adolescent. Children and Young People do not exist in a vacuum and when seeing them in Psychodynamic Counselling and/or Psychotherapy parents are inevitably present, either in the mind of the Therapist, Child or Adolescent and physically due to the developmental stage Children and Young People are at.
Parents are very much part of the therapy with Children and Young People and it is often the case that therapists working with Children and Young People have the experience of attempting to navigate a relationship with parents at the same time as offering therapy to the Child or Young Person. This can be a complex picture for both therapist and Child or Young Person.
This presentation will discuss how to approach working with parents or carers using a psychodynamic lens and why it can be an integral part of work with Children and Adolescents to engage parents in parallel work. Siobain will offer some case material and some of the complications that can be present when working with Parents and Carers with the aim of promoting Parental Consultations.
There will be opportunity for small group work and discussion.

Presenter: Siobain DeGregorio

Siobain DeGregorio trained at Birkbeck on the MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents, qualifying in 2010. She is a Registered member of the BPC as a Psychodynamic Counsellor and Organisational Psychodynamic Therapist an Accredited member of the BACP. Siobain is also a licensed Circle of Security Facilitator which is a parenting programme that is based on Attachment theory.

She has worked in a variety of settings with Children and Adolescents, these include offering
Psychotherapy and Counselling in both Primary and Secondary School settings, Community Based Services for Children and Adolescents and as a Mental Health Trainer for a large charity. Siobain is currently the Clinical Lead for an Independent Fostering Agency, teaches at BBK on the Child and Adolescent MSc and Adult MSc Programmes and has a small private practice where she offers supervision, clinical work with Children and Adolescents and engages in direct work with Parents and Carers.

Galit Ferguson
Finding a way through the forest: working with students and suicidality
15th February 2024

With reference to her work with young people in HE organisations and in her private practice, Galit will explore what seems to happen in and around certain young clients’ suicidal ideation and behaviours within these different contexts. As David Bell suggests, “All suicidal acts take place in the context of human relationships, real and imagined” (Bell, 2000, p.22): this can be thought about not only in terms of object relations, family relationships, and psychosocial contexts, but also in terms of the impacts on clinical work of organisational dynamics, and what happens when there is no organisation at all. Galit will present the cases of two clients she will call ‘Hansel’ and ‘Gretel’ in an exploration of real and symbolic moments of ‘banishment’ in organisational and private work.

Presenter: Galit Ferguson

Dr Galit Ferguson is a psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist in private practice with a clinical, teaching and research background in Higher Education. She has been a counsellor at the The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at University of the Arts London. Her psychoanalytically informed PhD focused on the representation/construction of abject families in popular media.

Judith Anderson
Navigating Hope and Despair as a Therapist in a time of Climate Breakdown
21st March 2024

As therapists we can be experts about holding hope for our clients even when this seems distant; but what if both client and therapist are facing an existential crisis? Judith will explore the complexities of climate breakdown, and also look at roles for therapeutic thinking outside of the consulting room. What can we discover together?

Presenter: Judith Anderson

Judith Anderson is a Jungian Analytical Psychotherapist with a background in psychiatry. Interested in the intersection of psychotherapy with societal issues for many years, she has been particularly focussed on the climate crisis for over 15 of these. She is currently Chair of Climate Psychology Alliance, an organisation with an international reach which researches and publishes, develops methods of therapeutic support, provides CPD for psychological professionals, has a particular concern for Youth and offers talks and consultation for organisations and businesses.

Hicham Jabrane
Creating Large Group Dialogue
16th May 2024

Hicham Jabrane will share and reflect on his journey from his first Group Relations Conference at Birkbeck, University of London, to joining the CLGD in January 2022 at Roffey Park Institute. Creating Large Group Dialogue (CLGD) is a ‘slow open’ series of median group residential workshops offering ongoing learning and support for working in situations that involve larger groups by focusing on how hidden processes in the socio–political context influence our capacity to think and make decisions. This is deemed necessary to bridge racial, cultural and religious divides whilst tackling current local and global challenges.
The aim is to highlight the importance of Large Group and GRC learning in developing psychodynamic thinkers and practitioners able to withstand pressures and challenges inside the consulting room and beyond. We will touch on the work of Patrick de Mare which Teresa Von Sommaruga continues to build on via CLGD and other initiatives.
This forum is an invitation for BCA members to establish a Special Interest Group/s on GRCs (Bion), Group Analysis (Foulkes) and Large Group which in Patrick De Mare’s words “it goes in the opposite direction from psychoanalysis and small group therapy since as distinct from socializing the human individual, it attempts to humanize society”.

Presenter: Hicham Jabrane

Hicham Jabrane is a psychodynamic counsellor, psychotherapist and group convener interested in Group Analysis and Organisational Consultancy. He is an associate lecturer, Birkbeck MSc Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy, visiting lecturer/consultant at Tavistock GRC (Dec 2022), former Chair of the Birkbeck Counselling Association (MI of BPC), Committee member/Co–treasurer of Belgrade Symposium 2023, ‘When Divided Worlds Meet: Confluences of Identity, Culture, Continuity and Change’ for Group Analytic Society International.

His broad multi–lingual clinical experience covers a range of settings: therapeutic communities, NHS inter– cultural Counselling, Refugees/Asylum seekers, Secondary & SEMH schools, the film industry as well as convening weekly support groups for International Medical Graduates for NHS Practitioner Health and Health Education England. He is a believer in, as Jan Baker put it, the power of people working together to help build community, whilst recognising this is an ongoing and not an easy process.

Rita Odumosu
Book Review:  Othello, The Moor of Venice (written 1603) by
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
20th June 2024

Shakespeare’s famous tale of interracial marriage covers key themes of envy, sexual jealousy, power, ambition and of course love and devotion. Othello is in five Acts with unforgettable characters: Othello, Desdemona, Iago and high–end drama scenes taking place across Italy and Cyprus, leading to murder, suicide and tragedy. Despite the torrid issues, there is a welcomed clown offering comic, light relief entertainment. The play encompasses Elizabethan drama, a tale renowned by national and international audiences, readers and emerges a priceless, world possession.
Rita has been fascinated for years by Shakespeare’s talent and global reach. Considering and reflecting on her psychoanalytic training highlights enriched understanding and analysis of the play’s characters and issues. Also vital is consideration of the playwright’s life – an ambitious, adventurous, restless, physically absent father but leaving great legacy, partnership and collaboration. It feels appropriate to revisit Shakespeare’s Othello in this presentation.

Presenter: Rita Odumosu

Rita Odumosu is an accredited Psychodynamic Counsellor with previous teaching and educational advisory work streams. She underwent therapeutic training at the Minster Centre, completed the Birkbeck MSc Psychodynamic Counselling programme, graduated in 2001 and fully embeds psychoanalytic theory and principles within her developed clinical practice and consultancy work. Rita works within schools, university and community settings and is currently BCA Chair and Director. 
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