Barbara Dockar-Drysdale One-Day Conference

 

 

IPCAPA in collaboration with the Squiggle Foundation present:

Barbara Dockar Drysdale – a conference appraising the work of a pioneer in working therapeutically with children and adolescents.

Barbara Dockar-Drysdale was a towering figure in the emerging therapeutic communities movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. She was instrumental in helping to establish two now famous institutions, the Mulberry Bush School and the Cotswold Community, where she was able to develop her thinking and work with severely deprived and often very disturbed children and young people in residential settings.

A close collaborator of D.W. Winnicott’s for many years, Dockar-Drysdale was able to draw on his thinking and adapt and develop his theory. to make it applicable to the settings in which she practiced.

A gifted clinician and creative thinker in her own right, Dockar-Drysdale introduced several concepts, such as “frozen children”, “archipelago children” and “the provision of primary experience”. Whilst her work is not widely taught in the canon of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, her thinking has lived on and continues to be relevant to therapeutic work with children and adolescents with complex presentations.

This one-day conference will bring to life this important work by exploring Barbara Dockar’s approach. It will bring together contributions from her close collaborators and students, as well as consider her concepts, her links with Winnicott and her relevance to contemporary Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

10:00- 10:15 Welcome and Introduction

10:15 John Whitwell: BDD, her approach and the experience of working with her – a personal account

11:15 tea break

11:30 Adrian Sutton: BDD’s thinking, her concepts and their relevance to clinicians working in the Independent Tradition

12:30 lunch

13:30 Stuart Hannah: Child Psychotherapy with a grounding in BDD’s work. A contemporary clinical perspective

14:30 tea break

14:45 plenary discussion (45mins?)

 

*If you are a psychotherapist or counsellor residing in an active conflict zone, you are eligible to attend this event free of charge (regardless of whether you are a bpf member or not). Please email events@bpf-psychotherapy to enquire about a ticket.