Where the Centre Meets the Edge: Person-centred Foundations & Emerging Innovations

9.30am Registration: John Anderson Level 4

10.00am Welcome: John Anderson Lecture Theatre room 317 Douglas Brodie, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health
Opening address to the conference.

10.20am Opening Panel: introducing the conference plan and themes, plus new developments in counselling training at the University of Strathclyde.
Facilitated by: Professor Robert Elliott, Counselling Unit Director; Lorna Carrick, Counselling Courses Programme Director; Anne Goldie, Manager Tom Allan Centre; & Professor Stephen Joseph, University of Nottingham.
There will be a brief space for questions/comments at the end of this panel.

11.10am Break: Room JA 412
Refreshments, networking and stalls: Advanced Professional Training with Aileen McCormack; Counselling Opportunities with Maggi McAllister-McGregor; PCCS Books; PCT Scotland. There will also be poster presentations showcasing research studies carried out by current and recent MSc and PhD students within the Counselling Unit.

11.30am -1.00pm Morning Parallel Sessions:

Option A: Authenticity: What It Is and How to Live It. Facilitated by Professor Stephen Joseph, University of Nottingham
Has anyone ever given you the advice to just be yourself? What does it mean to just be ourselves? Authenticity has become a topic for positive psychology research over the past decade but has a longer history as one of the core themes of humanistic psychology. In this workshop Stephen will discuss what it means to be authentic, the importance of living authentically, and will ask you to consider how you can build authenticity into your own practice.

Option B: Autism & Asperger’s and the PCA.
Presented by Anna Robinson, School of Education, University of Strathclyde
The person-centered approach has mostly ignored persons with autistic process, even though they suffer a lot of psychological distress. We present an innovative group therapy for people on the autistic spectrum, developed at the University of Strathclyde, with the support of the Counseling Unit and Autism in Scotland. In this workshop participants will learn about this approach, known as Emotion-Focused Therapy for the Autistic Spectrum (EFT-AS). EFT-AS uses video playback to help group members explore relational difficulties in order to improve self-awareness and acceptance and to activate empathy and compassion for self and others. Brief video clips will illustrate the beginning, middle and ending phases of therapy.

Option C: 10th Anniversary of the Counselling Unit’s Research Clinic: Practice-Based Counselling Research and Developing Effect Practice with Clients with Social Anxiety
Presented by Counselling Unit staff: Susan Stephen & Robert Elliott
This session will be devoted to translating our research in the Research Clinic into plain English. What research instruments are useful for supporting our practice as person-centred-experiential therapists and counsellors? How can we integrate research into our practice? What problems do our clients most often present with, and who do we have the best outcomes with? What have we learned so far about working with clients who present with social anxiety?

1.00pm-2.00pm Lunch: Room JA 412
Lunch, networking and stalls.

2.00pm-3.30pm Afternoon Parallel Sessions:
Option D: Discussion: Growing the Person-centred Approach in Scotland: Innovations, Opportunities and Challenges.
Facilitated by Susan Stephen, Alison Reid & Maggi McGregor.
How are you growing the person-centred approach in Scotland? A facilitated group discussion in which participants can share what they are doing that is innovative within their work as person-centred practitioners (e.g. context, client group, creative methods) and together explore current challenges and potential opportunities for collaboration or mutual support.

Option E: Workshop: Working with Clients Who Exhibit ‘Difficult Process’: Social anxiety and Implacable Splits
Facilitated by Lorna Carrick & Robert Elliott. Counselling Unit, University of Strathclyde
In this workshop we would like to encourage participants to bring examples from their client work that they find challenging, difficult and at the ‘edge’ in terms of theory and practice. In this ‘no holds barred’ session we hope to explore the real working dilemmas that person-centred & experiential therapists are confronted by in practice.

Option F: Discussion/Workshop: 'Do person-centred counsellors need specific training in order to work with couples?: Where are the ‘edges’ of our competence?
Facilitated by Rosemary Mullen and Pam Richmond
The person-centred approach isn’t just for individuals, and counsellors are often called upon to see couples. In this discussion/workshop two experienced couples counsellors and trainers host an in-depth discussion of the opportunities and potential pitfalls that person-centred counsellors can encounter when they begin to move from working one-on-one to working with couples, including both practical issues of training, supervision, and practice and more difficult ethical dilemmas that can arise.

3.30pm - 3.50pm Break

3.50pm - 4.30pm Closing plenary: John Anderson Lecture Theatre room 317

Cost: Before Thursday 30th March 2017: £95 or After Thursday 30th March 2017: £125
Register via our online shop at: http://onlineshop.strath.ac.uk/
Contact: jan.bissett@strath.ac.uk or 0141-444 8415 for further information on this event

Please also see the link below for details of our annual Mary Kilborn Lecture on Thursday 4th May at 6.30pm

https://www.engage.strath.ac.uk/event/357