Conference 2005

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Keynote speakers

Margaret Wilkinson

Coming into mind. Creating the connections that enable good clinical practice.

Using insights from contemporary neuroscience has become increasingly important in developing treatment techniques. This paper introduces counsellors, psychotherapists and those in related work with children and young people to current theory and research from the related fields of neuroscience, attachment theory and trauma studies, and demonstrates how they may improve the quality of clinical work. Margaret will look at the effects of mother-baby interactions on early brain development and attachment patterns and the developments that occur in adolescence, and will seek to reflect on the way in which these may inform counselling practice. The session will explore underlying neurobiological structures, right brain function, implicit and explicit encoding of experience and the neurobiology of trauma. It will consider questions of technique in working with children and young people based on current theory and research.

Margaret Wilkinson is a professional member of the Society of Analytical Psychology and of the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy, and is in private practice in north Derbyshire. She is an assistant editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. She won the Michael Fordham Prize in 2003 for her paper ‘Un-doing trauma. Contemporary neuroscience: a Jungian clinical perspective’. Her forthcoming book Coming into mind. Contemporary neuroscience: a clinical perspective will be published by Brunner-Routledge later this year. Margaret has a special interest in the application of insights from contemporary neuroscience to analytic work with those who have experienced early relational trauma.

Peter Wilson

How do we listen and what makes the difference?

Peter will focus on the process of understanding, on making sense of the communications of children and young people, and on elements of the therapeutic experience that combine to produce change. Peter is a clinical advisor at the Place2Be in London. He was formerly a director of YoungMinds and of the Brandon Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy for young people.

Child Psychotherapist, trained at Anna Freud Clinic, London. Senior Clinical Tutor, Institute of Psychiatry, London. Consultant Psychotherapist, Peper Harow, Surrey. Principal Child Psychotherapist, Camberwell, London.

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