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23rd National ACAT Conference
23rd June 2016 to 25th June 2016

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23rd Annual ACAT National Conference 

'CAT - Resilience in the Face of Change'

Thursday, 23rd to Saturday, 25th June 2016

University of Exeter, Streatham Campus, Exeter EX4 4QR

Please scroll down for the Conference Programme and Booking - including range of delegate fees

Following the advertised booking deadline of 8th June, booking is now subject to availability

CONFERENCE BOOKING HAS NOW CLOSED

Workshop Booking - if you haven't yet made your choice it will be possible to do this at the Conference.  Workshop lists will be displayed by the ACAT Help Desk and you will be able to add your name to any which are not yet fully booked.  Please note that late workshop bookings may not be picked up in time.  Please check the displayed lists to ensure that you are included.

An image of the venue is available to view with kind permission of the University of Exeter.  Please scroll to the end of the page and click on the link under Event Documents.  It may take a little while to open.

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The aim of the conference is to create a dialogue on resilience in the face of change, its meaning and the opportunities to enhance it.

We offer as the theme resilience in the face of change as an opportunity for CAT to further explore the issues relating to ‘difference’ and change.  We recognise that the unceasing changes within public services are having an enormous impact on us all as workers, whether we are working in public or private sectors, or within private practice; these changes also inevitably impacting in various ways on more vulnerable groups of people within our communities, and who can feel disenfranchised, marginalised and excluded within society. For all of us there can be the potential for an increasing sense of isolation, with a resultant reduction in wellbeing and ‘connectedness’.  How can we acknowledge these difficult themes in a compassionate endeavour to find ways to create and nurture resilience, as a means of effectively managing change; maintaining a healthy capacity to relate with ourselves, our colleagues, our clients and our communities? CAT, we suggest, has a central role in exploring these themes, in that it acknowledges the significance of the social contexts in which we all live and work; against the backdrop of our developmental journeys and relational experiences.

Andrea Daykin, Mandy Wildman and Malinder Bhullar, Conference 2016 Clinical Organisers

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Learning objectives and skills based learning

Participants will have valuable opportunities to enhance both professional practice and personal development.  The learning objectives of the Conference being:

•    To learn about the current thinking, theory and models of resilience used in psychotherapy settings; to learn about the factors that promote and sustain resilience and why the development of a resilient self is key in managing difference, change and adversity 

•    To learn of creative and ground-breaking initiatives on-going in working with disenfranchised groups of people across the UK; and to consider how aspects of this work can be incorporated within current practice settings, becoming a catalyst for positive change.  These disenfranchised groups are many and varied and include veterans, refugees and discriminated-against groups such as the poor, older people, people with mental and physical illness and personality disorder

•    To learn how we as workers can develop our own resilience in managing rapidly changing work environments, creating useful positive strategies to manage stress and prevent burnout.  With the emphasis placed by our employers on managing staff retention and sickness absence how can we develop our capacity to take care of our own wellbeing and that of our colleagues with ‘intelligent kindness’?

•    To learn how to promote resilience through our CAT practice, within therapy for individuals and groups and through contextual reformulations for services, teams and workers

•    To learn about the role of self-agency in developing resilience and to use this understanding in our clinical practice and self-development

•    To learn how mindfulness and mentalizing can be incorporated in our CAT practice, and how this understanding can enhance our capacity for offering integrative relational CAT to the patients and services we work with

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Provisional Programme (subject to change)

Please visit the website regularly as details will be added as they are confirmed.  

Information regarding the workshops is available for download via this webpage - please scroll to the end.  

It will be possible to choose your workshops online once you have booked to attend the Conference.

Thursday, 23rd June 2016
13:00 onwards	Registration | Coffee, tea and refreshments
13:40 - 13:55	Welcome and Housekeeping | Andrea Daykin and Mandy Wildman – Conference Clinical Organisers
13:55 - 14:40	Research presentation | Stella Jean Compton Dickinson | 'Exploring the active ingredients that create resilience through relational changes:  a Feasibility Trial of Group Cognitive Analytic Music Therapy'
14:40 - 15:00	Coffee, tea and refreshments
15:00 - 17:00	Inequality and Diversity Forum
17:00 – 17:15	Short break
17:15 - 18:00	Presentation | Clive Turpin | 'Dead bodies pulling at my legs'

 

Friday, 24th June 2016
08:00 onwards	Registration for new delegates only | Coffee, tea and refreshments
09:00 - 09:10	Welcome and Housekeeping | Andrea Daykin and Mandy Wildman – Conference Clinical Organisers
09:10 - 10:40	Plenary |  Professor Jeremy Holmes | 'Resilience:  an attachment/psychodynamic perspective' Followed by.......
10:40 – 11:10	Question Time | Panel:  Anna Jellema, Jason Hepple, Liz McCormick, Steve Potter | you may wish to consider your questions for Jeremy and the Panel before-hand and bring them with you
11:10 - 11:30	Coffee, tea and refreshments
11:30 - 13:00	Plenary | René Bosman | 'Qualities of Resilience'
13:00 - 14:00	Lunch
14:00 - 15:30	Workshops (subject to change): 1.    Alison Jenaway and Tracy Wade:  ‘Incorporating Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) within CAT – developing positive reciprocal roles and changing traumatic ones’ 2.    Clive Turpin:  ‘“Enforced Goodbye:  I don’t want to go, but you are making me”.  Facing and managing personal loss whilst remaining present and containing for others and how CAT helped me with this’ 3.    Jason Hepple, Ruth Carson and Liz McCormick:  ‘Using CAT understanding to deal with conflict’ 4.    Liz Greenway:  ‘Concreting over the Cracks’ 5.    Sarah Cluley:  'What can David Bowie teach us about creativity as a form of resilience?'  6.    Stella Compton Dickinson:  ‘Relational resilience: How jointly-created non-verbal interactions create psychological change in the CAT model’ 7.    William Wallace:  ‘Resilience in reciprocating change between Transsexual/Transgendered Selves and Society’
15:30 - 15:50	Coffee, tea and refreshments
15:50 - 16:50	ACAT’s Annual General Meeting 2016
16:50 - 17:00	Short break
17:00 - 18:00	Plenary | Dr Nicholas Sarra | 'Resilience and Reflexivity'
18:00 - 19:00	Free time
19:00 - 20:00	Drinks Reception
20:00 to late	Conference Dinner and Entertainment

 

Saturday 25th June 2016
08:30 onwards	Registration for new delegates only | Coffee, tea and refreshments
09:00 - 09:10	Welcome and Housekeeping | Andrea Daykin, Mandy Wildman and Malinder Bhullar – Conference Clinical Organisers
09:10 - 10:40	Plenary | Elizabeth Wilde McCormick and Steve Potter | 'Mindful mapping in supervision'
10:40 – 11:00	Coffee, tea and refreshments
11:00 - 12:30	Workshops (subject to change): 1.    Debbra Mortlock:  ‘Working with parents using CAT ideas and overarching principles to help them develop reasonable expectations about how their relationships with their children should be’  2.    Jason Hepple and Liz McCormick:  ‘Looking after yourself – mindfulness and chanting for health and relaxation’ 3.    Jurai Darongkamas and Bill Bell:  ‘Increasing the flexibility of CAT as a trauma therapy:  Integrating EMDR within a CAT envelope’.  CANCELLED 4.    Kate Fox:  ‘Using action methods to increase resilience in staff teams’ 5.    Lawrence Welch:  ‘Social understanding and dialogue as key to resilience in the face of change’ 6.    Paul Johanson and Robert Marx:  ‘Relationality and Resilience:  Mindful Self Compassion – a taster session’ 7.    Spyros Karvounis:  ‘Snags:  Offering both resilience in the face of adversity and maintaining its inner resilience against any attempt of changing it’ 8.    Tamsin Williams and Sarah Craven-Staines:  ‘Benefits of CAT for people aged over 65’
12:30 - 13:00	Closing thoughts | Jason Hepple | Greed and Gratitude
13:00	Close of Conference

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Keynote Speakers 

(Presenters and day/time of presentations subject to change)

Professor Jeremy Holmes 

Plenary:  'Resilience: an attachment / psychodynamic perspective'

(Provisionally, Friday 09:10 - 10:40)

Jeremy will start with a case-example of resilience, looking at the life and work of the poet W H Davies.  He will then review recent advances in attachment research, especially the notion of ‘earned security’ in the developmental history of children brought up in adverse circumstances, and how this can be encouraged psychotherapeutically.  He will conclude with a critique of prevailing notions of ‘resilience’ as fostering avoidance, especially in NHS settings, and suggest,  by contrast,  that the evidence suggests that fostering a sensitive Secure Base, amongst colleagues or management, is the key to resilient communities.

For 35 years Jeremy was Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist in the NHS first at UCL and then in North Devon.  He was Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 1998-2002.  He set up and teaches on the Masters / Doctoral Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training and Research Programme at Exeter University; where he is visiting Professor; and lectures nationally and internationally. 

Jeremy has written 200 + peer reviewed papers and chapters in the field of  Attachment Theory and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.  His many books, translated into 9 languages, include the best-selling John Bowlby and Attachment Theory (1993/2013 2nd Edition, Routledge), The Oxford Textbook of Psychotherapy (2005, co-editors Glen Gabbard and Judy Beck), Storr’s The Art of Psychotherapy (Taylor & Francis 2012). Exploring In Security: Towards an Attachment-informed Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (Routledge 2010) won the 2010 Canadian Psychological Association Goethe Award.  2013 saw the 6-volume compendium of the 100 most important papers in Attachment (Benchmarks in Psychology: Attachment Theory, SAGE, co-edited with A. Slade). His 2014 books are: The Therapeutic Imagination: Using Literature to Deepen Psychodynamic Understanding and Enhance Empathy,  Attachments: Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis (both Routledge) and Psychiatry, Past, Present and Prospect (co-editors S. Bloch and S. Green, Oxford).  He was recipient of the 2009 New York Attachment Consortium Bowlby-Ainsworth Founders Award, and the 2013 BJP Rozsika Parker Prize.  

Dr Nicholas Sarra

Plenary:  'Resilience and Reflexivity'

(Provisionally, Friday 17:00 - 18:00)

This presentation explores the importance of creating processes of reflexivity as a means of resilience for those working with disturbing situations and with those who experience psychological disturbance.  Reflexivity is here defined as developing the opportunity and capacity to think about the way we are thinking.  Reflexivity can be linked with ethics as a relational activity and a means of deepening understanding in difficult and complex situations which threaten to overwhelm those involved.

Nick is a consultant psychotherapist working within the NHS with a particular interest in group and organisational dynamics.  He works on several doctoral programmes at two universities (Exeter School of Psychology and Hertfordshire Business School) as well as privately as an organisational consultant and supervisor.  He is a qualified Group Analyst (member of the Institute of Group Analysis) and mediator.  He has consulted to and mediated for numerous organisational groups, particularly within healthcare  in the UK, Europe and USA.  He has also been involved in a number of post conflict situations such as South Sudan and in supporting survivors in the aftermath of the Beslan hostage taking crisis in Ossetia.

He lives in Devon but has also lived and worked in the Sudan, People's Republic of China and Saudi Arabia.  He enjoys playing chess,reading and cooking.

René Bosman 

Plenary:  'Qualities of Resilience'

(Provisionally, Friday 11:30 - 13:00)

René will outline how achieving balance between 4 different valued qualities that have universal resonance can often make up our sense of resilience, resourcefulness and wisdom in both personal and professional life.  He will give examples from clinical practice of how people overcome adversity and trauma, and relates the qualities to archetypal images derived from Jungian psychology.  René will discuss how a recent small scale research has indicated the relevance and usefulness of these notions.  He will relate its implications to the relational concepts of CAT and how practitioners can integrate and apply these ideas into their life and practice. 

René is an independent Consultant Psychologist and Psychotherapist (UKCP), offering psychotherapy, training and coaching since 2014. Previously, René worked in NHS mental health and learning disabilities services for 25 years with a particular interest in trauma-related difficulties, such as borderline and dissociative problems, as well as eating disorder.  His therapeutic orientation integrates both CAT and insights from Neuro-linguistic Psychotherapy

Elizabeth Wilde McCormick and Steve Potter

Plenary:  'Mindful mapping in supervision'

(Provisionally, Saturday 09:10 - 10:40)

The use of mapping as a process in combination with mindfulness moment by moment in supervision as an aid to developing relational competencies.

In this plenary we will compare and combine two approaches to relational aspects of supervision: Mindfulness and Micro mapping.

The focus will be on key moments in supervision and enactments that parallel relational roles in therapy. 

Mindfulness approach 

The investigative aspect of mindfulness helps supervisor and supervisee bring curiosity and concentration into a pause, feeling into and finding words for core pain and reciprocal roles. This helps both supervisor and patient to get off the symptom hook and begin to melt the frozen ice of learned patterns in order to encourage the recovery of safe being.  The shared practice of mindfulness helps nourish a capacity for kindness and compassion.
 
Micro-mapping

Micro mapping key moments in supervision helps develop relational skills of noticing, naming and negotiating enactments in supervision.   The relational competencies of building a working alliance and maintaining a therapeutic space can be developed by the process of mapping in the relative safety of supervision.   The emphasis will be on the importance of working openly and collaboratively through explaining how the mapping is being negotiated and learning together will show the supervisee or client how to use and make maps.

Live supervision using mindful mapping will demonstrate both the distinctive value of the approaches and the potential for their use in combination.
 
Liz McCormick is a founder member of ACAT and currently a Trustee.  She has been interested in the interface between mindfulness and psychotherapy for over twenty years.  She is the author of a number of self help books including 'Change For The Better, the CAT self help book'.

Steve Potter is co-director of the Jersey CAT practitioner training and teaches reflective practice to teams using CAT.  He is based in London and is interested in the power of words to hold and express feelings with the aid of maps, letters and the voice in dialogue. 

Stella Jean Compton Dickinson

Research Presentation:  'Exploring the active ingredients that create resilience through relational changes:  a Feasibility Trial of Group Cognitive Analytic Music Therapy'

(Provisionally, Thursday 13:55 - 14:40)

There are no large-scale quantitative studies of the clinical effectiveness of music therapy for people who have committed serious offences and are receiving treatment in secure hospital settings.  A systematic review by Duggan et al. (2006), and the NICE Guidance (2010) state that these patients have a right to expect evidence-based multi-disciplinary treatment. 

G-CAMT was developed in secure hospitals for treatment resistant, long stay patients who were further stigmatized having committed violent offences.  Patients in the research trial described the treatment intervention as 'helpful' and 'supportive ' towards an enhanced ability to choose and to express themselves with feeling.  The therapeutic process led to expressions of connectedness, remorse, and ability in men who had behaved violently, to express themselves with ‘gentleness’ and empathy.  The treatment effect for those receiving G-CAMT was sustained at the eight-week follow-up.  Furthermore, two years after the end of the treatment 78% of treatment participants had moved to conditions of lower security over a mean period of 19 months compared with 66% of control subjects over a mean period of 25.5 months.  Thus, G-CAMT provides a rigorous clinically tested model that has a sustainable psychological effect in promoting the resilience required for patients to be safe in relating to others in conditions of lesser security.

In the G-CAMT trial, the independent variable that demonstrated statistically significant improvement in favour of those who received the treatment intervention was ‘jointly-created’ musical improvisation, this demonstrated that the integration of CAT and music therapy created inner resilience that was sustained at follow-up. 

Stella was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy in October 2015 in a ceremony at the Cambridge Corn Exchange for her ten year NHS based research in music therapy:  A Feasibility Trial of Group Cognitive Analytic Music Therapy in Secure Hospital Settings.  Her research studies were made possible through collaboration between the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience King’s College London with Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, funded by an Invest to Innovate Grant in Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Stella worked for twenty years in NHS community, and acute hospital services, specializing over the past fifteen years in developing context specific forensic music therapy for low, medium and high secure hospital services.  She held the posts of Head of Arts Therapies and Clinical Research Lead in Arts Therapies in Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Forensic Services from 2001-2013 where her research culminated in the implementation of the first feasibility randomized controlled patient preference trial in forensic music therapy for men receiving treatment in a high secure treatment setting.  

Stella is a Fellow and Member of The Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham, and an affiliate of the Kings Health Economics department at the Institute of Psychiatry.  She is an HCPC registered Music Therapist, UKCP registered, accredited Cognitive Analytic Therapist and Supervisor with a private practice in North London and at Guys Hospital.  She has written and published extensively on research and developments in forensic Music Therapy in the CAT model, presenting at conferences internationally in Europe, Australia, North and South America. Stella still enjoys life as a professional musician, embracing culture, nature and fitness.

Clive Turpin

Presentation:  “Dead bodies pulling at my legs”

(Provisionally, Thursday 17:15 - 18:00)

A case study of working with physical deterioration through Multiple Sclerosis:  A focus on resilience.

• The presentation will explore the relational impact of living with Multiple Sclerosis and how this took a physical focus through the therapy.
• Explore metaphors that were used which enriched understanding and meaning and how creativity was used to protect, defend and strengthen, including the relationship with her wheelchair and a love of Harry Potter and introducing Dementors and Patronus (attackers and protectors /traps, snags and exits).

Clive Turpin is a Cognitive Analytic Psychotherapist working in a psychotherapy service in North Manchester offering individual and group CAT and additionally runs a small private practice.  Clive has worked in Mental Health within the NHS for over 20 years in varying fields including: acute/intensive care; adolescent therapeutic community; research projects; and a self-harm team.  He has extensive experience of using Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy in a very brief format with people that self-harm or attempted to kill themselves and also incorporated CAT into this area, which was the focus of his Psychotherapy dissertation.  Clive co-ordinates Personal Reformulations for Catalyse, which are personal and professional development sessions with Clinical Doctorate Psychology trainees and CAT Skills participants.  He is also an executive member of Catalyse.  

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Book Stall

We are pleased to be welcoming back John Tuffney from Bookmark:  https://www.psychologicaltherapybooks.co.uk/.  As in previous years, John will be providing a book stall for us on Thursday afternoon and on Friday.

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Booking Information - BOOKING HAS NOW CLOSED

Please note that 'Early Bird' booking closed on Wednesday, 3rd February 2016.  The prices detailed below are the full item fees

We are offering two booking options, 'Whole Event' and 'Individual Items': 

The Whole Event Package* includes attendance from the opening of the conference on Thursday to the close of the conference on Saturday; dinner on Thursday evening; lunch on Friday; drinks reception and conference dinner on Friday evening; en-suite B&B student accommodation at the venue on Thursday and Friday nights; tea and coffee during the conference:

•     Whole event - ACAT Member £410 / Non-member £435 

The option of Individual Items* is for those who are unable to attend the whole event and wish to book items separately:

•    Thursday Afternoon - ACAT Member £90 / Non-member £100 

•    Thursday evening meal – ACAT Member £20 / Non-member £30 

•    Friday (includes lunch)  - ACAT Member £165 / Non-member £180 

•    Friday Drinks Reception and Conference Dinner - ACAT Member £50 / Non-member £60 

•    Saturday Morning - ACAT Member £90 / Non-member £100 

•    En-suite student B&B at the venue** per night - ACAT Member £50 / Non-member £60

*The rates given above refer to bookings made online using a personal credit or debit card.  

** If B&B accommodation at the venue is required, it is advisable to book before 28th April 2016.  Availability cannot be guaranteed after this date. Please phone the ACAT office 01305 263511 

Conference booking deadline:  Wednesday, 8th June 2016.  Should you wish to book after this date, please contact the ACAT office in the first instance 

Ways to book:

•    book and pay online instantly using a personal credit or debit card only via this page 
•    use the booking form to pay by cheque and post to ACAT, PO Box 6793, Dorchester DT1 9DL (attracts an additional administration fee of £15)
•    provide full invoicing details on the booking form and email to alison.marfell@acat.me.uk or post to ACAT, PO Box 6793, Dorchester DT1 9DL (attracts an additional administration fee of £15)

Enquiries regarding the Conference

To Maria Cross, Conference Administrator, maria.cross@acat.me.uk | 01305 263511

Dietary requirements

Please notify ACAT of any specific dietary requests at the time of booking, either using the booking form or by email to alison.marfell@acat.me.uk. Requests must be received by 6th June 2016.  After this date the venue will endeavour to meet your requirements but this cannot be guaranteed.

Special Requirements

If you require a ground floor bedroom please let us know in good time.

The conference buildings are all located on campus and are a short walk from each other.  However, it is possible to drive between them.  If you do not have your own transport, please let us know in advance and we shall make arrangements for you.

The walk from Exeter St David's Station is fairly short but is uphill.  A taxi from the station to the campus will cost approximately £5.

Parking

If you are driving to the venue, please indicate this when booking as parking permits will need to be issued.

For directions to the venue (Streatham Campus) please follow this link to the University's website:  http://www.exeter.ac.uk/visit/directions/streatham/

Terms and Conditions

Programme changes:  ACAT reserves the right to make changes to the advertised programme

Refund Policy:  A refund, less a £25 administration fee, will be made if cancellations are received, in writing, by Thursday, 28th April. We regret that any cancellation after this time cannot be refunded and refunds for failure to attend the event cannot be made

Data Protection:  For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, the data controller in respect of your personal data is the Association for Cognitive Analytic Therapy.  Your data will be used to administer the event to which you have subscribed

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Call for Papers - this has now closed

We welcome posters and proposals for workshops based on the theme of the conference

This theme of resilience in the face of change is an opportunity for CAT to explore the themes of ‘difference’ and change.  We are interested in exploring and sharing ways in which a compassionate understanding of self and other, combined with ‘intelligent kindness’, can lead to increased resilience in managing change.  As individuals, groups and as a society we are faced with managing and coping with the shifting sands of the modern world.  We recognise that, in addition to the changes within public services that are having enormous impact on us all, vulnerable, marginalised and disenfranchised groups of people can be increasingly excluded within society; with a resultant reduction in well-being and ‘connectedness’.  At the 2016 Conference we are interested in exploring how we develop and maintain resilience in ourselves and how, in CAT, we support the growth of resilience in the people we work with.

Are you a practitioner, therapist or clinician working with marginalised groups of people (refugees, homeless people, victims of trauma etc) in public services or private practice?
Are you a manager endeavouring to institute change whilst working to maintain the well-being of staff and service users?
Are you a clinician or therapist working to offer compassionate care in difficult times and environments?
Are you a service user who can inform CAT thinking on issues relating to adversity, discrimination and working towards a secure base and positive change?
Please send your workshop and poster proposals to maria.cross@acat.me.uk in the first instance. Deadline for receipt: Monday, 18th January 2016

Concessions offered to presenters

ACAT Member: £50 off the conference fee - this is offered to the lead presenter only.  If the workshop is to have more than one presenter, the total amount offered of £50 may be split between the presenters with the agreement of the lead presenter
Invited Non-ACAT: free attendance on the day of the presentation; travel negotiable; one night’s accommodation may also be offered (maximum of two presenters)
If offered a concession it will not be possible to book online - please email maria.cross@acat.me.uk in the first instance or telephone 01305 263511

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‘Early Bird’ closing dates: 

•    Online bookings and payment by cheque: Wednesday, 3rd February 2016
•    Requests for invoicing: Wednesday, 6th January 2016 – payment by 3rd February

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Bursary Applications 

This has now closed

ACAT has available a small amount of funding for bursaries to assist those in financial need to attend the Conference.  If successful, bursaries are awarded towards the conference fee only.  Travel and other expenses are not included and must be met by the applicant.  If you wish to be considered, please complete the application form (available below for donwload) and return this either by post to the ACAT office or email to maria.cross@acat.me.uk.  

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