2019
Monday 28th January
A LOVE THAT NEVER DIES (2017) - A Film by Jimmy Edmonds & Jane Harris
Cert: 12A | Running Time: 75 Minutes
A LOVE THAT NEVER DIES is unique in its story telling, full of insights and a raw honesty made possible only by the fact that both filmmakers and subjects share a common bond. But neither give way to sentimentality or the morose. Instead the film draws us in, past our own fears, to witness remarkable stories of survival - a mother’s attempted suicide, the love story of two parents who only met because of their loss, the struggle of a family who struggle to free themselves of blame for their son’s death.
JIMMY EDMONDS (DIRECTOR, CINEMATOGRAPHER & EDITOR)
Jimmy Edmonds is a British film editor who has cut a number of award winning documentaries including CHOSEN (Brian Woods: Truevison C4) which won the BAFTA for Best Single Documentary in 2009, DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN - The Story of Tom Simpson (BBC) which won the RTS Best Sports Documentary 2005 and INSIDE CLARIDGES (Jane Treays: The Garden C4) which won the Broadcasting Press Guild Best Documentary Series 2013. Since starting his career as an assistant in 1988, Jimmy has now edited over 100 titles for broadcasters in the UK and worldwide. In 2006 he directed his own film BREAKING THE SILENCE for BBC OneLife, an account of the effect on his family of years of silence around the sexual abuse they suffered at their boarding school and church. He is now co director of BEYOND GOODBYE MEDIA producing films for the charity sector.
JANE HARRIS (DIRECTOR & PRODUCER)
Jane Harris studied film at Middlesex Polytechnic in the early ‘80s. From 1985 she was heavily involved with promoting films made by women at CIRCLES distribution in London’s East End, leaving the industry to train as a psychotherapist in 1988. After 25 years in private practice she has returned to filmmaking, starting her own production company with her husband Jimmy in 2013. Working for the charity sector, they have produced GERRY’S LEGACY (for Alzheimer’s Society 2013) and SAY THEIR NAME (2014 for THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS).
Monday 25th March
Elaine Nicholson MBE - What works when counselling lives that have become adversely affected by the experience of Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
How do Asperger’s Syndrome (autism) and ADHD present in the therapeutic setting? What are the signs to look out for? What should you do if you have a suspicion that your client has Asperger’s (autism) or ADHD? Should you share your suspicion with the client? These are a just a few questions that regularly crop up in the mind of the therapist, and how these are dealt with may either enhance or obliterate the therapeutic process. It is crucial that the therapist understands the autistic/ADHD neurological profile so to bolster the fragile client; failure to do so leads to a breaking of the client.
ELAINE NICHOLSON, MBE is the founder of Action for Asperger’s, which is unique in the world for being the only autism-specialist counselling organisation to date.
In 2007 Elaine Nicholson’s youngest child received a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 8 and was the second of her family of four children to receive this diagnosis. This second diagnosis stirred within her a gamut of difficult emotions as she grappled with the reality that autism was in her family’s genes. Many tears were shed.
However, the tears did not last for long and positive emotions and a gung ho spirit to create a change for the better soon replaced difficult, negative emotions. Elaine, a qualified counsellor, alongside realising the existence of autism in her family, realised that the counselling community were not ‘getting it’ regards the autistic neurology and autistic individuals were being treated by counsellors using counselling modalities that were designed for neurologically typical thinkers. This was round peg square hole treatment, and it incensed her. Not only was an autism-cognisant modality of counselling desperately required for autistic thinkers, but a similar modality of counselling was needed for their loved ones who lived their lives in worlds where autism dominated.
In 2008 she had started counselling autistic lives free of charge from her home in Oundle, Northamptonshire, and in August 2012, she moved into a small office taking her 20 clients with her. She formalised the charity at this point also, by registering Action for Asperger’s with the charities commission. By the end of the first year, the charity had 500 clients. In January 2019, 3,200 clients were recorded on the charity books.
October 1st last year marked the ten-year anniversary of the charity. The mental health of autistics and their families’ year upon year is rated as ‘excellent’ and/or ‘improving’ by the client satisfaction surveys the charity undertakes. Her Majesty The Queen recognised Elaine’s efforts in her birthday honours in 2016 by awarding her with an MBE, the first Queen’s honour specifically awarded for Asperger’s syndrome. Also, in the same year, the then Prime Minister David Cameron, made her a ‘Point Of Light’. She has received numerous accolades for her work.
Elaine is also a part-time student of body psychotherapy through UKCP accredited Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre and is in her second year.
Monday 15th July
Hephzibah Kaplan - Art therapy: Working with Art-making and Creativity as part of Psychotherapy Practice
Art therapy is a gentle yet powerful way of accessing unconscious material, communicating what may be difficult to say in words and enables conversations for further exploration. Many psychotherapists are creative themselves but the various trainings tend to focus mainly on verbal therapeutic approaches within a dyadic relationship. Art therapy differs from psychotherapy in that it works within the frame of a triadic relationship between client, therapist and artwork. In this presentation, art psychotherapist Hephzibah Kaplan will give a useful background to art therapy, share images and stories from her art therapy archive and introduce you to a way of incorporating art-making in your practice. Hephzibah will show you some simple exercises that can be used safely in your sessions to enrich your work for the benefit of your clients.
Please bring some plain unlined A4 paper and some coloured pencils or felt pens as well as an old magazine or book to lean on.
HEPHZIBAH KAPLAN is a UK-trained art psychotherapist and psychotherapy supervisor. Her original training was in psychodynamic art psychotherapy and she later trained in transpersonal psychotherapy supervision. She works integratively, using art-making, movement, dance, voice dialogue, sandtray and humour. From 2004-2010 she was art therapist at the Arbours Crisis Centre, one of the last remaining therapeutic communities, set up by Dr. Joseph Berke who worked closely with R.D. Laing at Kingsley Hall.
In 2010 she founded London Art Therapy Centre as a group practice for art therapists. As well as being Director of the centre, she also sees child and adult clients, art therapy trainees and supervisees and has run the Art for the Heart workshops for the general public every Monday evening since 2002. Hephzibah has taught art therapy and run workshops in Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, South Africa and the UK.
Monday, 21st October
Felicity De Zulueta - Born to love, driven to destroy
By accessing the traumatic attachment people with a disorganised attachment have to their carers, we learn how childhood abuse and neglect plays a crucial part in our destructive behaviour and how we can address this in therapy by using the Traumatic Attachment Induction Protocol which simulates an adult version of the Strange Situation Test.
DR FELICITY DE ZULUETA is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, who specializes in trauma and attachment patterns. Dr. de Zulueta developed and headed the Traumatic Stress Service at the Maudsley Hospital in London, where she is the Emeritus Consultant Physician. She has been an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Traumatic Studies at the Institute of Psychiatry and Kings College London. Additionally, Dr. de Zulueta is a founding member of WAVE, the International Attachment Network and the Mindful Policy Group. Her book From Pain to Violence is notable for providing a detailed overview of the traumatic roots of violent behavior.