Working with Hard to Reach Patients

with Maggie Turp

Course information

In this workshop, we will shine a spotlight on the dynamics in play when a patient/client is experienced as ‘hard to reach’.

We will be thinking about patients who are under-reactive, apparently insulated, as in some cases of depression and also those who are over-reactive, apt to feel easily intruded upon and given to angry outbursts against the ‘intruder’. Defensive responses such as these will be considered in the context of a ‘psychic skin’ conceptual framework that takes account of the lifelong task of boundary management and modulation and the difficulties some people experience in this area of functioning.

With the help of clinical examples and infant observations, we will consider what kinds of past experiences may have given rise to difficulties of this nature, drawing on both psychodynamic theory and neuroscience understandings of self-regulatory mechanisms. We will share and discuss countertransference responses to these situations, which can range from feeling desperate to break through on the one hand to becoming overly wary of ‘rocking the boat’ on the other.

There will be opportunities for live supervision of work with ‘hard to reach’ patients and participants are invited to bring along examples from their clinical practice for reflection and discussion.

Speaker

Maggie Turp is an HCPC registered psychologist, psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice, a ‘hybrid’ author of fiction and non-fiction and an independent trainer, offering clinically themed workshops across the UK. She is an active member of Ecopsychology UK and the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA).

Maggie’s publications include a numerous journal papers and two books, Psychosomatic Health: the body and the word (2001 Palgrave) and Hidden Self-Harm: narratives from psychotherapy (2003 Jessica Kingsley). A third book, ‘Narrative Repair in Psychotherapy: stories of self and the psychic skin boundary’, is scheduled for publication in 2021.

What previous participants have said about this course

This is a new course.

Course programme

Saturday, 28 November 2020

Course venue

Lumen, Tavistock Place, central London

back to courses in London | back to Courses in Manchester | back to Courses in Glasgow