Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy

He explains how the relational depth informed therapeutic approach:

• Places emphasis on meeting clients in a two-way, interpersonal dialogue
• Can help avoid unhelpful therapeutic relationships where clients can feel relationally abandoned
• Encapsulates authenticity in the therapeutic relationship, together with embodied, non-verbal empathy, deep affirmation and presence
• Helps us comprehend the anxiety on our client’s part to engage at a deeper than surface level
• Requires us to let go of some of the aims, anticipations and formulaic methods that our modality may have trained us for

The workshop provides delegates with an opportunity to explore their experiences of relational depth, and how it feels to meet others at this level of intensity and intimacy: in both their therapeutic practice and every-day life. Through small group exercises, pairs-work, discussion and theory inputs, the workshop will help participants develop a deeper understanding of such encounters, and also how they can deepen their levels of relating in therapeutic work.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the nature of relational depth
• Articulate our own experiences of in-depth relating
• Comprehend the latest research findings on the nature, impact and prevalence of relational depth in therapy
• Recognise means of deepening levels of relating with clients
• Recognise our own chronic strategies of disconnection and other barriers to relational depth

About the speaker

Mick Cooper is a Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Roehampton and a chartered counselling psychologist. Mick is a leading authority in the existential therapy field, and has delivered trainings nationally and internationally on this approach (including Japan, Australia, Denmark and Greece). He has written widely on existential, person-centred and relational approaches to therapy.  His books include Existential Therapies (Sage, 2003), Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Sage, 2005, with Dave Mearns), the Existential Counselling Primer (PCCS, 2012) and Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy (Sage, 2011, with John McLeod). Mick has also led a range of research studies exploring the process and outcomes of humanistic counselling with young people.  Mick’s latest book is Existential psychotherapy and counselling: Contributions to a pluralistic practice (Sage, 2015). Mick lives in Brighton with his wife and four children.

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