Join our community
Receive the TR Together newsletters.
CPD Credits
20
Event Type
Live In-Person Event
Location
10 New Street, London EC2M 4TP
Time
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Standard
£899.00
Trainee/NHS
£765.00
Tuesday, July 16, 2024 - Friday, July 19, 2024
Advanced Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy Summer School
With Katherine Astill, Ella Bahaire, Alison Bruce, Andrew Balfour, Martha Doniach, Krisztina Glausius, Sammantha Knight, Damian McCann, Stan Ruszczynski, Elle Sidel & Catriona Wrottesley
The Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy Summer School is for couple-trained therapists already working in the field, and provides a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in cutting-edge thinking with a world-leading couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy institute. In order to join this course, you will need to apply by filling out the application form below.
This course will explore the challenges to the couple relationship at key points in the life cycle; the developmental obstacles to the capacity to form and sustain intimate relationships, the difficulties of parenthood, and the move from two to three or more, the capacity to survive challenging life events, including illness, and, later in the life cycle, the difficulties inherent in retirement and old age.
You will learn and grow as a couple therapist through theoretical seminars and twice-daily intensive clinical discussion groups, and will study alongside like-minded people from the UK and around the world. Included in the course fee is the cost of a theatre ticket to a London show, which will be attended as a group on the Wednesday evening, and discussed in a seminar the following day.
Seminars and clinical discussion groups will be led by experienced members of Tavistock Relationships.
To make an application, please fill in this form: Summer School Application Form
Programme
Day 1: Tuesday July 16th
10.00 Introductions with Andrew Balfour, CEO of Tavistock Relationships
10.30 - 11.45 Sammantha Knight & Elle Sidel
Diversity and the Couple
Abstract in development
11.45 Break
12.00 Clinical Discussion Groups
Sammantha Knight - Elle Sidel
13.15 Lunch
14.15 Catriona Wrottesley
Superego Deadlock
‘Superego deadlock’ is a form of projective gridlock, a concept elucidated in Mary Morgan's paper, "The Projective Gridlock: A Form of Projective Identification in Couple Relationships" (1995). This is a destructive phenomenon whereby individuals, despite exhibiting sophisticated cognitive capacities in their professional spheres, unleash a primitive and aggressive superego dynamic within their intimate partnerships. This dynamic manifests as a fierce struggle for dominance and the reinforcement of perceived differences, epitomised by the declaration, "I am nothing like you!" Drawing upon Otto Kernberg's couple superego typology (1993) and illustrated with vignettes, this talk explores various manifestations of the couple superego system.
15.30 Break
15.45 Clinical Discussion Groups
Stan Ruszczynski - Ella Bahaire
17.00 End
Day 2: Wednesday July 17th
10.00 Damian McCann
All Change all Change: Couples responding to the transition to parenthood
In this talk, Damian McCann will explore motivations for parenthood and the range of emotions and challenges facing couples as they prepare for this transition. He will plot the developmental challenges facing couples through pregnancy, birth and beyond. Challenging the idealisation of motherhood, he will emphasise the role of the couple relationship and, crucially, the importance of the co-parental relationship in caring for their vulnerable infant. Damian will also consider the changing nature of intimate family relationships in the context of wider society. Through this expanded lens, he will reflect on the importance of more diverse representations of family life, contrasting these with traditional notions of family constellations which focus on the heterosexual conjugal unit, rooted in marriage and co-residence.
11.15 Break
11.45 Clinical Discussion Groups
Damian McCann - TBC
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Andrew Balfour
Developmental Challenges for the Couple in Later Life
In this seminar, Andrew Balfour will explore some of the challenges of ageing and of working with clients who are facing death. As is often remarked, it is powerfully the case that in our end is our beginning – as the anxieties of our earliest lives may be powerfully rekindled by the vulnerability and prospect of dependence on others that the end of life can bring. This seminar will focus on the impact of illness, such as dementia, and other possible fates of late life, on our relationships.
15.15 Break
15.45 Clinical Discussion Groups
Katherine Astill - Stanley Ruszczynski
17.00 End
19.30 Group Theatre Trip
Day 3: Thursday July 18th
10.00 Elle Sidel
Theatre Discussion
11.15 Break
11.45 Clinical Discussion Groups
Martha Doniach - TBC
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Martha Doniach
The impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technology (ART) on the couple relationship
This talk explores the profound emotional toll of infertility on couples, alongside the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Infertility can be a devastating experience for couples, and the accessibility of ART can often be a barrier for many. The talk also highlights the different experiences of ART between straight and same-sex couples. By examining these themes, the discussion seeks to illuminate the complex interaction between emotional distress, medical interventions, and societal disparities in fertility treatment, emphasising the imperative for therapeutic support.
15.15 Break
15.45 Clinical Discussion Groups
Katherine Astill - Ella Bahaire
17.00 End
Day 4: Friday July 19th
10.00 Katherine Astill
Obstacles to the Developmental Capacity to Form and Sustain Intimate Relationships
Abstract in development
11.15 Break
11.30 Clinical Discussion Groups
Katherine Astill - Alison Bruce
12.45 Lunch
13.15 Krisztina Glausius
Empty Nesters: Rethinking the Couple
In this lecture we consider some of the emotional storms parental couples need to weather as they negotiate yet another challenging transformation. Their children, freshly emerging from the all consuming rollercoaster ride of adolescence, now finding their feet and use them to leave the parental home. Whilst their young people are striking out on their ow, parents might fear leaving their most vital years behind them. Their idea of who they are as a couple might need to be reconsidered and as some things need to be let go of, there are considerable losses to bear along the way. Envy can emerge as a powerfully destructive force between the generations but, if managed, gratitude can also become part of the picture for all that has been managed throughout the life cycle of the parental couple
14.30 Break
14.45 Clinical Discussions Groups
Andrew Balfour - Krisztina Glausius
16.00 Certificates and Goodbyes
The below message is a system error. If you would like to join us, please fill in the application form.
Katherine Astill
Katherine Astill is a psychoanalytic couple therapist and a psychodynamic psychotherapist. She works in private practice, and teaches and supervises at Tavistock Relationships.
Alison Bruce
Alison Bruce is a couple, child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She has worked clinically in both public and private sectors in New York City and London. She has been a visiting clinician at Tavistock Relationships and has taught and supervised for NYU, IPTAR and Birkbeck Universities. She is currently a seminar leader for the Tavistock and Portman Trust, has an independent practice and runs a parent/ infant group project in White City.
Andrew Balfour
Andrew Balfour is Chief Executive of Tavistock Relationships. He originally trained as a clinical psychologist at University College London and then as an adult psychotherapist at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust, whilst in a staff post there. He subsequently trained as a couple psychotherapist at Tavistock Relationships, where for more than 10 years he was Clinical Director before becoming Chief Executive in 2016. He has many years’ experience of working psychotherapeutically with couples, developing new projects and conducting research. He has published numerous papers in the field and has taught and lectured widely both in Britain and abroad. His most recent book is Engaging Couples - New Directions in Therapeutic Work with Families (edited by Andrew Balfour, Christopher Clulow, and Kate Thompson, Routledge, 2019).
Krisztina Glausius
Krisztina Glausius is a couple and individual psychoanalytic psychotherapist and a visiting supervisor and lecturer at Tavistock Relationships where she has formerly worked as Head of Clinical Services.
Krisztina has developed several innovative approaches ranging from brief time-limited couple therapy through to services providing therapeutic support to adopting parents or conflicted separating couples. She has co-authored papers resulting from these and other projects. She has published guides to support parents who separate as well as for professionals who are looking for ways to understand and work with couples.
She has worked as a senior research psychotherapist on TR’s randomized controlled trial examining the effectiveness of its Parents in Conflict Service and was part of the clinical team delivering the Parents in Dispute Project, a Mentalization based intervention aimed at helping high conflict separated parental couples to ensure better outcomes for their children. Both of these roles involve a creative application of analytically informed therapeutic work with couples, groups and individuals.
Stanley Ruszczynski
Stanley Ruszczynski is a psychoanalyst and couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. He was a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist in the Portman Clinic from 1997 until his retirement in 2021, including holding the post of Clinical Director between 2005 and 2016.
He was a staff member at Tavistock Relationships between 1982 and 1997, including holding the posts of Clinical Co-ordinator, Training Co-ordinator and, between 1987 and 1993, Deputy Director.
He has authored many book chapters and articles, and has been a contributing editor and co-editor of five books, including Psychotherapy with Couples (Karnac, 1993), Intrusiveness and Intimacy in the Couple (Karnac, 1995, with James Fisher) and Lectures on Violence, Perversion and Delinquency (Karnac, 2007, with David Morgan).
Elle Sidel
Elle Sidel is a couple psychoanalytic and individual psychodynamic psychotherapist. She is a Tavistock Relationships faculty staff member and programme lead for the Psychodynamic Training as well as seminar leader, supervisor and tutor. An experienced Visiting Clinician at TR’s Clinical Services, she maintains a private practice in London. She is the current head of the Tavistock Relationships Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors (TRAPC).
Damian McCann
Damian McCann D.Sys.Psych. is a psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist working as visiting lecturer at Tavistock Relationships, London, adjunct faculty member of the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI) Washington, DC, an associate of Queen Anne Street Practice, London, and an editorial board member of Couple & Family Psychoanalysis, He is also a consultant systemic psychotherapist with many years of experience working with children, adolescents, and their families. He has a particular interest in working with gender and sexual diversity in psychoanalytic practice and has published and taught widely on this topic. His doctoral research was concerned with understanding the meaning and impact of violence in the couple relationships of gay men and is involved in developing approaches to working with couples more generally in which there is violence and abuse. His edited book ‘Same-Sex Couples and Other Identities: Psychoanalytic Perspectives’ was published by Routledge in 2021.
Ella Bahaire
Ella Bahaire is a psychoanalytic couple therapist and psychodynamic psychotherapist. She works in private practice and for Tavistock Relationships as a co-therapist and as a seminar leader on the psychodynamic training programme.
Sammantha Knight
Sammantha Knight is a psychodynamic psychotherapist who offers couple and individual therapy in her private practice located in London. She is also a tutor for students enrolled in the IAPT Level 7 High-Intensity Pilot and the Psychodynamic Training Course at Tavistock Relationships. Sammantha provides training and supervision to counsellors on the Couple Therapy for Depression course, as well as offering training to Local Authorities on Reducing Parental Conflict. She is particularly interested in promoting the importance of well-being in relationships and life and is committed to supporting trainees and clinicians with their professional development.
Catriona Wrottesley
Catriona Wrottesley is a senior couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist (Tavistock Relationships), Jungian analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP), and psychodynamic psychotherapist (WPF Therapy). She joined Tavistock Relationships (TR) faculty as a clinical lecturer in 2012. She was Head of the MA in Couple and Individual Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and MSc in Psychosexual and Relationship Therapy from 2016-2019, and then Head of Psychoanalytic Training until July 2020. She is currently a training supervisor on TR’s couple psychoanalytic training, an accredited training analyst for the Association of Child Psychotherapists and training therapist for the Society of Analytical Psychology’s Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Training. She writes and reviews for a wide range of journals. Her particular interests are the nature of psychic reality and subjectivity, developmental psychopathology, transgenerational transmission and couple relationships. Her practice is in Enfield, North London, and online.
Martha Doniach
Martha Doniach is an individual and couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Until recently, she was Principal Individual and Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist at East London NHS Foundation Trust, where she developed a large, highly regarded honoraries scheme for psychotherapists in training. Martha supervises, teaches and consults widely to several organisations, including Tavistock Relationships, British Psychotherapy Foundation and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Among her publications, she has recently contributed to the forthcoming book, Couples as Parents edited by Kate Thompson and Damian McCann (in press). With a background in social work and child protection, she has a career-long interest in adapting psychoanalytic interventions to clinical populations facing deprivation. Since leaving the NHS she has a full-time private practice of clinical work, supervision and consultation, both in person and online in London.
Couple Therapists
-
Identify and analyse key challenges to couple relationships at various stages in the life cycle, including developmental obstacles, difficulties in parenthood, and the transition from a couple to a family unit.
-
Evaluate the impact of challenging life events, such as illness, on the capacity to form and sustain intimate relationships.
-
Demonstrate an understanding of the complexities and adjustments required during the later stages of the life cycle for couples.
-
Enhance skills as a couple therapist through theoretical seminars and intensive clinical discussion groups, supporting the ability to integrate theoretical knowledge into practical applications when working with couples.
Standard Registration: £899
Trainee, NHS staff and Third Sector: £765
If you are travelling as a group to join us please email events@trtogether.com to discuss the group pricing option.
You will receive your certificate on the last day of the course and in your TR Together account.