Plenary Speaker: ERNESTO SPINELLI

Thursday 11th August, 9.15 - 10.15 am

Existential Psychotherapy and the Value of Relatedness
Existential psychotherapy places pivotal significance upon the inter-relational aspects of human experience. By so doing, the therapeutic relationship itself becomes the principal means through which the client's presenting symptoms and disorders are disclosed as direct expressions and outcomes of the client's overall "way of being" rather than as isolated and disruptive impediments. At the same time, existential therapy places critical significance upon the actual 'being with' that emerges between therapist and client and argues that it is via the contrast and comparison of this lived experience that clients can find the means to reconsider and reconstruct their worldviews or life narratives. Equally, though it is often dismissed or trivialised as instances of 'counter-transference', a similar process or set of possibilities emerges for the therapist. This paper examines the therapeutic relationship as viewed from the standpoint of inter-relatedness. It raises challenges to the emphasis typically placed on directed and directive change, preconceived outcomes and professional detachment as set by the majority of contemporary psychotherapists. Instead, the paper proposes a view of psychotherapy that shares numerous critical features with Human Science enquiry.

Biography
Professor Ernesto Spinelli, PhD is a Fellow of both the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) as well as a UKCP registered existential psychotherapist. In 1999, he was awarded a Personal Chair as Professor of Psychotherapy, Counselling and Counselling Psychology. Having recently stepped down as Academic Dean of the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling at Regent's College, London UK, he remains in the School in his role as Senior Fellow. His authorship of numerous specialist articles and several highly respected and widely-read books dealing with the theory and practise of existential psychotherapy has earned for Ernesto a BPS Counselling Psychology Division Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of the Profession as well as an international reputation as a leading figure in the advancement of contemporary existential psychotherapy and phenomenological psychology.