Clinical Education Development and Research (CEDAR)

Two Systemic CPD Events

On Knowing and Not Knowing; Power in counselling/therapy

This workshop will focus on the tensions between 1st and 2nd Order Therapy: the positions of the therapist being a powerful expert who knows the truth, compared with the later versions of systemic theory which posited a more “Not Knowing” approach and where therapy was more collaborative. Many of us will be more familiar or comfortable with the latter, but what happens when in therapy we feel that we “know “? How do we respond when we are sure that we understand what is going on better than family/couple members do? Should we resist this or embrace it and find the language to convey our certainty? With many clinical examples from practice this event will explore these questions and more in relation to the power of the therapist, how we avoid it, and how we might reclaim it.

Working with Men

The premise of this talk is that masculinity is a learned not a natural or hard-wired aspect of people’s behaviours and attitudes, and as such can be changed. For therapists/counsellors the important point is that responding to this in therapy is predicated upon the approach of challenging the socialisation to which we are all subjected, as much as challenging the men themselves. Ideas of how to involve and include men, where women and children fit in, and the social factors which influence all of us in this area. 

Systemic tools to depathologize your practice, support LGBTQI+ people and be a meaningful ally.

This teaching day will explore how historically psychotherapy has developed and perpetuated pathologizing practices when working alongside LGBTQI+ people, and how we can undo the legacy of these practices in our work. Starting with the binary gender system and moving to queer theory we will explore how the sociocultural landscape continues to show up in therapy today.  Exploring how to respond to and interweave these contexts into our work so that we might produce better therapeutic relationships and client outcomes when working with queer clients and families. We’ll explore systemic theories and tools we can use in our practice to better meet the needs of our LGBTQI+ clients.

The day will cover:

• Understanding binary gender as a pathologizing legacy of colonialism
• The history of LGBTQI+ people in psychotherapy
• Depathologising practices in clinical work
• Our reflexive relationship to gender and sexuality
• Use of self practices and the therapeutic relationship
• Intersectionality as a therapeutic device
• Allyship inside and outside the therapy room