At this intellectually stimulating and therapeutically oriented seminar, Dr Jan McGregor Hepburn draws on her new book Guilt and Shame: A Clinician’s Guide – to help us delve deep into the complications that guilt presents in our clinical settings and uses case-vignettes to specifically discuss:
- How do we work with clients who seem weighed down and oppressed by feelings of guilt – some of which may appear irrational and yet be pervasive and intractable
- The paradox presented by clients who act out, so they can have something to feel guilty about
- The two main processes which are labelled guilt – how persecutory guilt cannot be mediated by forgiveness or reparation and may be viewed as sterile
- The implications from a clinical standpoint that we need to bear in mind when noting that persecutory guilt is not on a continuum with reparative guilt
- The meanings and origins of guilt and the differences between remorse and guilt
- What do we mean when we say that guilt is about intentions and not actions
- How persecutory guilt is counterproductive and has the potential to derail the developmental process
Overall, the aim of the webinar is to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying nature of guilt with a view to guiding our therapeutic endeavours.
About the speaker
Dr Jan McGregor Hepburn has a background in Social Work Management and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and is a trainer for the North of England Association for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She was the Registrar of the British Psychoanalytic Council for 15 years and currently chairs the Professional Standards Committee. She is the author of several papers, most notably those published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy and European Psychotherapy Journal. She has presented papers at conferences and devised and facilitated both seminars and workshops on a variety of subjects to both management dynamics and clinical topics.
She is part of the ScopEd project which is the collaboration between BACP, UKCP and BPC to map the core competencies for clinical work. She is on the Reading Panel of the British Journal of Psychotherapy and has a doctorate from the University of Northumbria. Her latest book: Guilt and Shame, A Clinician’s Guide is out now with nscience publishing house.
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