PCSR AG and AGM   Saturday 9th November 2019

10am – 4pm   Refreshments from 9.30am

 St Pancras Community Centre 67 Plender Street London NW1 0LB  www.spca.org.uk

Nearest tube: Mornington Crescent   15mins walk from Kings X, Euston and Camden Rd

Drinks and snacks provided, but not lunch.  You can bring your own food to eat on the premises or there are plenty of local cafes and shops nearby.

Morning Event (Annual Gathering) £10*  Click below to book https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pcsr-annual-gathering-and-agm-tickets-65102219491

Dissent, Collusion and Context 10am – 1pm.

Discussion facilitated by PCSR Steering Group. Members and non-members welcome

As a group, we in PCSR share many ethical/moral values, principally our belief that social justice is inextricable from therapy practice. But there can be tension between these values and the contexts in which our professional organisations function, both in what they expect of us, their members, and the way they relate to government policy.

In the final session of the PCSR Psychotherapy and Politics Conference in May 2019 ‘Dissent and Collusion’ we were exploring where we stand in our attitudes and relationships with mainstream therapy culture and with societal attitudes to mental health and general well-being.

It is a given that many therapy trainings are aligned to a more individualistic ethos, which lends itself to itself to being exploited by a capitalist system. So if we envision the ethical practice of psychotherapy and counselling as inherently political, how do we respond more collectively to dilemmas facing our several ideologies, and our ethics and morals?

Some are personal: for example, how does the need to make a living impact on the way we practise? Others are institutional: for example, how do we respond to the willingness of our professional bodies to collaborate with the DWP, to embrace IAPT, and the pressures to produce ‘throughput’ of apparently functioning but compliant citizens? Do we accept that trainees and newly qualified therapists be exploited by having to work for no pay?  Do we challenge the ongoing discrimination in therapy training and the profession against people of colour and people of diverse sexualities.

Do we collude? Or do we dissent by generating sufficient collective energy to make a public stand to challenge the utilitarian imperative of government policy? If so, on what grounds, and on whose behalf do we take such positions?

We only just got started last May, so we’ve decided to devote the morning session before the November AGM to continue these explorations of dissent and collusion, looking at the contexts within which we’re thinking, living and working.

LUNCH 1-2pm    AGM  2-4pm     All welcome, but only PCSR members can participate in decision-making.

* If you can’t afford £10, book directly with Bea:  beatrice@bmillar.com

Prices:

£10

For more details contact: beatrice@bmillar.com