Newsletter Spring 2026

Spring often arrives quietly.

Not all at once, and not always in ways we can immediately see, but as a gradual shift, a little lighter, a little more space, a sense that something is beginning to move again beneath the surface.

And yet, this spring does not unfold in isolation. Many of us find ourselves thinking and working within a wider world that can feel unsettled where there is noise, urgency, and at times a sense of uncertainty about what is being asked of us, both personally and professionally.

In such a climate, the capacity to pause, to reflect, and to think alongside one another can feel both fragile and essential. It is perhaps here that the value of shared spaces becomes most apparent not as an escape from the world, but as a way of remaining in contact with it, without becoming overwhelmed.

Within APPCIOS, this season brings with it a range of opportunities to come together in this way. Alongside our ongoing reflective groups, there are new learning spaces opening up, from introductory seminars that offer grounding in core ideas, to more advanced spaces where thinking can deepen and evolve in the company of others.

This term also includes a new offering focused on dyadic work with parents and babies a space that turns our attention to the very earliest relationships, where communication begins before words, and where emotional life is shaped in the subtle exchanges between infant and caregiver. In a season that holds themes of beginnings, this feels like a return to something fundamental, the conditions that allow growth, connection, and the possibility of being understood.

These are not simply places to acquire knowledge, but spaces where ideas can be lived with, where questions can be held rather than hurried, and where understanding grows over time through conversation, reflection, and shared experience.

Our library, too, continues to grow offering new articles, papers, and resources that invite us to keep thinking beyond the immediate moment and to stay connected to the wider landscape of psychodynamic work.

As you move through this newsletter, you may find yourself drawn towards something new, or perhaps something that meets you where you already are. There is no right place to begin only an invitation to step into what feels alive or quietly asking for your attention.

Community Meeting

Hosted by Jenny Sprince & Emma Higgs
Next Meeting: Sunday 10^th May 10-11.30am

Continuing the new rhythm of termly gatherings that invite the APPCIOScommunity to come together and think.

These meetings offer a gentle collective pause a space where what is stirring can be named, and where silence, difference, and dialogue all have room. They hold the hope that when we meet with openness, something unthought may begin to find its shape.

Everyone is warmly welcome. Look out for the zoom link on the community site.

Library Additions

Check out the APPCIOS Library as we are always updating the shelves with great papers, articles and videos of interest.

Just recently, we have added: -

Article: Social media: a digital social mirror for identity development during adolescence
by Vanessa Perez-Torres
Guardian article: ‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of over diagnosing mental illness? Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits. But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing more harm than good.
By Gavin Francis
Paper: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Internet Gaming Disorderby Georgios Floros and Ionna Mylona
Paper: At the meniscus of self-understanding: Rethinking the examined life in techno genetic times
by Alessandra Lemma

Find them here: https://psychodynamicthinking.info/group/library

Enjoy!

Free Discussion Groups

A Space to Think – Paul Terry

These meetings are open to APPCIOSmembers, counsellors, therapists and others who have registered an interest in APCIOS and psychodynamic ideas. There is no agenda simply the opportunity to think together using the psychodynamic ideas to illuminate our thoughts. Provision of time and space for us to think with one another is being more and more reduced in the workplace by employers and the increasing pressure of workload. More widely in our troubled, precarious times thinking often seems to be too painful.

For example, a recent psychodynamic study of compulsive scrolling on iPhones revealed the scrolling as a mindless retreat from the pain of thinking with concern about how we are living. (*Kelly, D. (2025). Black mirroring and the paranoid-schizoid simulacrum: scrolling as a defense against the depressive position. Psychodynamic Practice, 31(4), 331–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753634.2025.2509068)

Here are some thoughts from three of our participants:

In a world where instant reply and opinion is the ‘modus commun candi’ Space to Think is a haven of contemplation, shared silence and open-ended creative musings that activate Theta waves in the brain, encourage contact with the unconscious and build bridges between interior and exterior worlds. It’s a place where psycho-dynamic therapists can get together and share ideas with other professionals about anything from the state of the world to the significance of the colour red. I find it to be a holiday for the head.
".. when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it." Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

A Space to Think offers time to transform experience into thought and also to fail to do so! Here I can experience a space to organise my thoughts that others agree and don’t agree with. We can think on a deeper psychodynamic level about the unconscious about the wider context and how we are being in the world.
We commonly complain about the lack of reflective opportunity as we negotiate the many stresses encountered in everyday life. We all struggle with the wish to know or not know about issues and concerns that confront us, while aware of how useful it might be to have more insight, to potentially come to know something more. ‘A Space to Think’ allows an open exploration of whatever is brought by those who participate. Always interesting and different each time, it offers the chance to address the complaint and grow reflective capacity.

A Space to Think meets online from 5.15pm to 6.15pm on the last Thursday of each month except for July, August and December. For enquiries please contact pmterry@me.com

Film Discussion Group – Jackie Horsburgh & Susan McIver

Film as a creative mirror for the unconscious a place where stories on screen stir stories within.

Psychoanalytic Reading Group – Annie Pesskin

A reflective rhythm of reading and discussion not to master a text, but to let it work on us, deepening our shared understanding of psychoanalytic ideas.

The author of the chosen book is invited to join the group, bringing an added depth and immediacy to the conversation, and reminding us that psychoanalytic thinking is always a living exchange.

Reflective Practice Group – Tony Burch

Ongoing companionship in thinking about the emotional currents of practice a space of continuity, honesty, and shared reflection.

Having been a member of the “RPG” for about 5 years now, I have seen new members join as some have withdrawn but the essence of the group has faithfully remained. It is a wonderful opportunity to meet online with like-minded people and, whilst members come from a variety of trainings, this only adds to the value. It is understood that we join when we can which reduces any pressure to attend when we find ourselves immersed in a busy period of time.

At the start of the meeting, we are given the chance to bring case material for discussion or a particular situation that has arisen to seek the input of others. Inevitably (and certainly it is my experience) belonging to such a group is hugely beneficial as new insights are brought in that deepen our thinking. Needless to say, it is something I look forward to attending and I have marked in my diary to attend whenever I can.

Working towards retirement myself it has been so helpful to talk through how I feel and how clients are showing me how they feel in a myriad of ways. I have valued how we wonder together about what is not being expressed or perhaps hidden in the subtleties of communication that can easily be missed.

I should say that the group first started during Covid when therapists found themselves needing to work online and the implications this forced us all to think about, gathering insights from each other as new situations presented themselves. I joined a year into the group’s existence and felt welcomed right away - thankfully I took the courage to do so. It is a such a valuable resource to feel part of a group that are on your wavelength and understand the complex nature of our work and the struggles we can encounter. The regularity also means you only have to wait a couple of weeks to meet again and have the opportunity to explore what’s going on in the therapy world.

It is always insightful and I am forever grateful to have this platform offered and facilitated by Tony who provides a healthy balance of freedom and values open-ness and honesty underpinned by a sense of safety held within the group.

As a private practitioner, which can be quite isolating at times, I cannot recommend enough the value of this group and would encourage those whose interest has been stirred to join us. No courage actually needed, you will be welcomed.

Written by Jackie Horsburgh

Gathering Threads – Aly Thompson & Trudy Darien

A home for Senior Associate Members to think about the unfolding of professional identity - a place of companionship and shared reflection within the training journey.

Core Webinars:

Developing Psychoanalytic Thinking in Individuals, Groups and Organisations

As we move into the Spring term, we are offering a series of learning spaces designed to support the development of psychoanalytic thinking about individuals, groups and organisational life.

Together, these courses form a developmental journey establishing foundational understanding and then deepening into more advanced spaces where thinking is lived and worked with in real time.

Whether you are beginning to explore psychodynamic ideas or wishing to extend established practice, these spaces offer structured, thoughtful environments in which ideas can be studied, questioned, and integrated through dialogue with others.

They are not simply webinars to attend. They are learning communities where theory and lived experience meet and where thinking is developed in relationship.

At Introductory Level.

Introduction to Groups and Organisations; A Psychodynamic Perspective

Online | 12 Weeks | Thursdays 6:00–7:15pm | Starting 7th May 2026

£320 for twelve weeks

This twelve-week theory course offers a psychodynamic exploration of group and organisational life, designed to support participants in developing a robust theoretical foundation, including supporting those working towards full APPCIOS membership. Drawing on the foundational contributions of Freud, Bion and later psychoanalytic thinkers, the course examines the dynamic interplay between the individual and the collective: the individual in the group and the group in the individual. We will explore how unconscious processes shape organisational life, how primitive anxieties emerge within groups, and how these give rise to defensive structures that can both protect and obstruct thinking. Through exploration of theory, the course aims to illuminate experiences that feel familiar in day-to-day professional life: tensions around authority and leadership; the predominance of splitting, scapegoating and difficulties coming together. Each session integrates classical theory with contemporary applied writing, linking foundational ideas directly to professional practice.

Maria Williamson

Foundations Of Psychodynamic Theory; Primitive States and The Growth of The Mind

12-Week Clinical Seminar

Mondays 6:00–7:15pm | Starting 4th May 2026 | £320

This twelve-week theory course supports participants in developing a clear and grounded understanding of key psychodynamic concepts, including supporting those working towards full APPCIOS membership. Across twelve weeks we explore the initial development of the internal world, examining how primitive anxieties give rise to early psychic defences and shape the organisation of the mind. Central concepts including projection, projective identification and introjection are considered in their theoretical depth, alongside the development of containment and the complex struggles involved in moving towards separation. These foundational processes continue to underpin much of our work with children, adults and families, particularly where anxiety, dependency and relational tension are most acute. Each session integrates classical theory with contemporary clinical papers, linking foundational ideas directly to applied practice.

Maria Williamson

Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

At Intermediate and Advanced Level.

Enhanced Work Discussion Group

Running weekly in term time on Mondays at 2.30-4pm - £320 per term

Facilitated by Emma Higgs & Mark Waddington
A steady, containing space to bring one’s working life into thought.
Through shared reflection, participants learn from the emotional texture of their work discovering how meaning and insight grow in company with others. New members are welcomed into the group at the start of each term.

Exploring Psychodynamic Supervision

10 weekly webinars, Fridays from 17 April 2026
Two 75-minute sessions: 13:30–14:45 and 15:15–16:30
Co-facilitated by Jeremy Gunson and Veronica O’Hare
For members with at least three years post-qualification experience

Following the highly successful first series, we are excited to offer a further opportunity for members to develop their supervisory skills through this accredited CPD event. This series of 10 weekly webinars will offer multiple opportunities to explore and discuss various aspects of psychodynamic supervision within a developing group context, sharing thoughts, reflections and learning from experience while deepening appreciation and understanding.

The following three webinars are facilitated by Andrew Briggs

Observing Organisations

Thursdays from 16th April
Online 8.00–9.15pm | 10 weeks | £325

Organisations are not only structures and strategies they are emotional systems. They carry hope, rivalry, anxiety, loyalty, and unconscious agreement or disagreement.

In this series, participants learn to notice patterns, projections, and defences as they move through organisational life. Over time, this strengthens the capacity to think under pressure, to understand authority and belonging more deeply, and to remain reflective when systems become turbulent.

This space is particularly valuable for those working in leadership, consultancy, therapeutic, or educational roles anywhere that group life shapes outcomes.

Bion: The Individual in the Group and the Group in the Individual

Wednesdays from 15th April
Online 8.00–9.15pm | 10 weeks | £325

This series has a long-running presence in APPCIOS learning spaces. It is a discussion seminar series drawing on Bion's texts that help us understand his life and writings.

Themes include:

Basic assumption dynamics
The formation and collapse of thinking
Containment and its limits
The emotional experience of being part of a group

Bion is a notoriously difficult thinker to access. His style may seem awkward if not obtuse. The aim of the reading series is to demonstrate that his difficult writing was in the service of explaining the difficult phenomena he encountered in the consulting room and social groups. Taking this approach, participants will find they can access far more of his ideas than at the outset of the series.

Theory Webinar Series

Tuesdays from 14th April
Online 8.00–9.15pm (UK) | 10 weeks | £325

A steady and thoughtful return to key psychoanalytic papers and foundational ideas.

This space supports careful reading, shared reflection, and integration into practice. It can be taken as stand-alone CPD or counted towards the PPT training pathway.

The emphasis is not on covering material quickly, but on allowing ideas to take root, to be digested, debated, and woven into lived professional experience.

Our new training in Leadership, Consultancy and Therapeutic Supervision.

This is a portfolio training intended for experienced psychodynamic and psychoanalytic clinicians. Taken together, they constitute an advanced training in APPCIOS-accredited Organisational Consultancy. But each webinar can also be taken independently, as CPD for APPCIOS members.

The first three webinars are open to existing full members, Senior Associate Members, ACP qualified Child Psychotherapists and BPC qualified psychoanalytic psychotherapists

Organisational Observation

A ten-week once-weekly webinar course with Andrew Briggs. See above.

Psychodynamics of Race and Ethnicity

A four-week once-weekly webinar course led by Trudy Darien and Devika Dhar.

Saturdays from 20th June 2026, 9.30–11.00am

Cost: £120 per person

This course takes as its starting point the fact that we all belong to ethnic groups, and that regardless of our racial origins we have all been shaped by our experiences of racial and ethnic identity. Using statistical information to generate discussion, Trudy and Devika invite the group to approach this subject from an experiential and exploratory position, facilitating thought and discussion about the feeling and experience of ethnicity, race, racism and othering in our personal and working lives, and relating this psychodynamic theory.

Therapeutic Supervision and Role Consultancy

A one-year once-weekly webinar course with Emma Higgs and Jenny Sprince.

Thursdays from 23^rd April 2026, 4.00–5.15pm
Cost: £320 per person per term

Role consultancy/therapeutic supervision is a specialist methodology that adds another dimension to traditional consultation/supervision: it considers the internal world of the supervisee, and explores the emotional impact on them of their work with their clients and their staﬀ, as well as exploring the dynamics of their teams and of the organisation in which their work takes place.

Participation in these three webinars will enhance your capacity to provide leadership within an organisation through an understanding of internal, external, and societal dynamics. After completion, participants may submit portfolios for qualification as BPC-registered psychodynamic organisational therapists.

Further Advanced Modules will be available from September. These will be open to Full Members only.

Reading Group in Organisational Theory

A one-year once-weekly webinar, timings and cost to be confirmed.

Work Discussion: The Practice of Consultancy and the Facilitation of Reflective Groups

A one-year once-weekly webinar, timings and cost to be confirmed.

Completion of all five modules will lead to qualification with APPCIOSas an accredited APPCIOS Organisational Consultant.

For more information or to register for any of the above learning opportunities please email here

Our APPCIOS Training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

APPCIOS Top-Up Training – New Cohort

We are gathering interest for the next Top-Up Training leading to BPC registration as a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist.
This pathway offers experienced practitioners a deepening of practice and a widening of psychoanalytic presence across diverse clinical and organisational settings.

If this training or any of the other learning opportunities are something you might wish to consider, please do get in touch here.

Upcoming Events:

The work of Barbara Dockar-Drysdale: key concepts and their continuing importance in residential and non-residential therapy & childcare.

Thursday 18^th June 2pm-4.30pm - online - £25

Presented by Adrian Sutton

Barbara Dockar-Drysdale’s work providing special provision for complicated youngsters developed her experience of everyday childcare and establishing opportunities for social and educational development from an early age. Her involvement in providing and planning care for children evacuated from cities during the Second World War gave her insights into the needs of children who had to be living away from home: out of this grew an appreciation of the therapeutic possibilities of residential childcare.

BBD trained as a psychotherapist and was strongly influenced by Winnicott, establishing a long-term working relationship with him. He, in turn, acknowledged her influence on aspects of his thinking and the ways in which her language refined and better expressed some of his ideas. Her approach is a developmental and therapeutic model which engages with the reality of day-to-day living and seeks to identify and capitalise upon the resources of the children themselves, their parents and/or alternative carers and professionals in social, educational and mental health and illness services. Her formulations demonstrate an appreciation of the therapeutic power of highly adapted and attuned care at a physical and interactional level as another route to enhance mental health alongside psychotherapy and social care and present a socio-psycho-somatic model for the therapeutic care of children. In focussing on the needs of complicated children, she was also aware of the demands caring for them placed on parents, carers and those responsible for their support: her writing addresses this in detail.

Although BDD is mostly usually associated with residential therapeutic provision, I found her formulations extremely important in work as a Consultant in Child Psychiatry & Psychotherapy in an out-patient setting. My paper presents some of her key concepts illustrated with detailed clinical examples from direct work with children and from work consulting to, and working alongside, parents and other practitioners in health, social care and education. The presentation will be followed by an opportunity to explore these ideas and examine how they can be operationalised in current practice.

To register please email here

APPCIOS Annual Conference 2026

‘Keeping your head above water’

The contribution of psychodynamic practice: surviving in troubled times.

Date: TBC

We are looking for contributors!

If you think might want to help, either in the organising committee or through offering a paper, discussion event or creative material connected to or inspired by the above theme please get in touch here

Call for help!

In APPCIOS we are dependent upon and grateful for a pool of volunteers to act as mentors to support our membership. We have had a large increase in membership this year and are seeking more mentors to offer vital support. If this is of interest to you or you would like to find out more, please contact our mentor lead Veronica O’Hare here.

Closing Reflection & Invitation

And as we come to the end, perhaps this is less a conclusion and more a place to rest for a moment.

In the midst of all that moves quickly around us, there is something quietly sustaining about spaces where we can slow down, think together, and not have to know too quickly.

There is a kind of space
that does not ask us to be certain,
or finished,
or already knowing.

A space that simply says
you can stay here a while.

Where thoughts can come and go,
where something half-formed is welcome,
and where being alongside one another
is enough.

Across APPCIOS, it is these kinds of spaces that continue to be offered in groups, in learning, and in the conversations that unfold between us.

We warmly invite contributions for future newsletters. These might be reflections from your practice, thoughts stirred by a group or webinar, or something more creative that has been sitting with you. There is no expectation that it is complete often it is the beginnings, or even the not-yet-formed, that carry the most meaning.

If something has stayed with you, or is quietly taking shape, you would be very welcome to share it.

Please feel free to add your comment below - or write to us at admin@appcios.info