Continuing Professional Development

Victim-survivors are often looked down on, and frequently mislabelled as passive, weak and complicit. As a result, your clients may suffer from being abused and also give themselves a hard time, often believing they themselves are to blame.

It is time to discard these negative misconceptions.

Martine’s book shows that, despite the pain of abuse, people do resist, and resistance takes many forms. It debunks undeserved blame and challenges the idea that a victim’s responses are unhealthy. Responsibility is firmly placed on the abusers, their tactics are exposed, and readers relearn how to be kinder and more compassionate to themselves and others.

Join Martine to learn more about her book. Together, let’s challenge and discard the notion that any victim-survivor is a doormat. In truth, they are resisters.

with Anne Marie Keary and Kimcha Rajkumar

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULLY RECRUITED AND APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED. PLEASE CONTACT [email protected] WITH ANY QUERIES.

Our bodies are shaped by our experience, and it is how we come to know ourselves, and the world. The practise of Body Psychotherapy offers a route to support us in opening by addressing our embodiment directly. The therapeutic relationship is an embodied relational communication and the more we learn to make more use of our felt experience, the deeper our therapeutic contact can be.

This certificate course is suitable for counsellors who want to gain understanding of how to incorporate working with the body in their therapy practise. It is also suitable to Minster graduates who want to consolidate and expand their learning after completing the 2nd year Body and Psychotherapy module. It is open to practicing psychotherapists, counsellors and finalist students from the Minster Centre, and other institutions.

Places are limited and applications will open soon. Find out more here.

Join Dr Elya Steinberg’s workshop to explore how brain-computer interfaces (EEG neurofeedback) can support changes in the fear-driven brain and enhance executive functions in the context of psychotherapy for individuals with developmental trauma disorder. Many of the case studies involve individuals of Israeli, second-, third- and fourth-generation Holocaust survivors. Elya’s specific area of expertise is trauma, particularly transgenerational and generational trauma.

Participants will learn about the basics of how developmental trauma impacts brain structures, neurofeedback, its impact on trauma-affected neuronal pathways, and the integration of neurofeedback with various psychotherapeutic approaches.

The workshop will include case presentations demonstrating how EEG neurofeedback has helped people with developmental trauma disorder, as well as opportunities for demonstration and personal experience. Tailored for clinicians, this workshop aims to provide practical insights into the application of neuroscientific findings within clinical settings, focusing on improving executive functioning, emotional regulation, and bodily-based aspects affected by trauma.

This fascinating workshop is limited to 15 places – book your place now.

Grief is unavoidable, yet many of us live as though it won’t happen, avoiding talking about it, making an intolerable situation even more painful.

If, as psychotherapists, we find grief hard to discuss, how can we help our grieving clients open up about one of the most tumultuous and life changing events they may ever experience?

Facilitated by psychotherapist, writer and podcaster Sasha Bates, this workshop covers:

• Physical and creative exercises to compassionately explore your losses and approach your own feelings around this sensitive subject.
• How grief – our own and that of our clients – can be borne, within and outside therapy, and discuss resourcing, in the widest possible sense.
• Grounding our experience within the context of several grief theories; examining their usefulness, or otherwise, in helping us navigate the ways we attempt to bear the unbearable, and give voice to the unverbalizable.

Book your place on Languages of Loss now.

We’re currently developing our programme of CPD events for 2024. Check back here for the latest announcements, or follow us on social media.

An introduction to using the arts as projective method and using the art image as ‘the third’ in the supervision space – with Roshmi Lovatt.

Participants will have the opportunity to use different creative techniques, including small world objects, drawing/art, movement, drama and puppets.

The afternoon will consist of a group Supervision of Supervision drawing upon and integrating the morning’s learning.

Please note that this workshop is open to qualified professionals only.

We are proud to announce that Minster tutor Cecilia Jarvis’ book How to Succeed in Your Counselling and Psychotherapy Training has been published by Open University Press.

Come and join her at this free event for a friendly and informal Q&A, a chance to buy a copy of her book, and to enjoy some cake. This event is particularly relevant for those at the beginning stages of their study.

How to Succeed in Your Counselling and Psychotherapy Training is an accessible and friendly guide for new trainee counsellors and psychotherapists. It outlines the difficulties that a new trainee may encounter and provides guidance on the main aspects of the training journey, both in the classroom and in a clinical placement.

This will be an excellent opportunity for trainees to seek advice and network with your peers, so please book early to avoid disappointment. We look forward to seeing you there!

Trauma Sensitive Yoga for trauma survivors, and their therapists – with Sasha Bates.

With trauma embedded in the body, research shows that talking therapies can only go so far. The Boston Trauma Centre’s research in bodily based, non-verbal ways of working resulted in “Trauma Sensitive Yoga” (TSY) – an enquiring, therapeutic form of yoga helping those with PTSD and complex trauma reacquaint themselves with their bodies.

What is it, why do I need it, and how do I get it? – with Sasha Bates.

Finding ways to influence the nervous system, particularly its sensitivity to threat, increases connection with ourselves and others. In a massively dysregulated world, with therapists more than ever confronted by their own stress and the traumas of their clients, an ability to self-regulate has a huge impact on therapist and client wellbeing.

Gender and sexual identity are lenses through which all of us are constantly negotiating our place and meaning in the world, against a background of powerful binaries and stereotypes, most notably male/female and gay/straight. Yet, in recent years there has been a sea change amongst teenagers and young adults, who are increasingly resisting traditional, binary gender identities and not defining themselves as heterosexual.

Using a mixture of creative, open exercises and small and whole group discussion, we will:

-Focus on our own unique gender and sexual identities – connecting to and safely sharing our own feelings, thoughts and experiences from our professional and/or personal lives.
-Explore the reality of lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer (LGBTQ+) and gender-fluid children and young peoples’ lives and the discrimination they face in the UK and beyond.