Founded in 1982, the North West Regional Psychotherapy Association is an independent association of psychotherapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts of different backgrounds, training and clinical strengths.
We are a not-for-profit association run by volunteers who organise talks, seminars and workshops on Zoom for the second Monday of the month.
Events are free to members and £7.50 to non-members. You can become a member of the NWRPA for as little as £30 a year. New members are welcome. Join at any time of year and your membership lasts for 12 months.
NEXT MEETINGS
Is AI consciousness imminent? Dr Patrick Butlin – University of Oxford
Monday March 10, 2025 7:30 GMT
*Please note slightly later than usual start time*
In this talk, Patrick will discuss whether AI consciousness is possible in principle; whether it would be possible to build conscious AI systems now or in the near future; and whether the AI industry will be incentivised to develop conscious systems. What makes humans autonomous agents with desires and interests? What would it take to create artificial agents with these features? What might be the implications of this for talking therapy as we know it?
Patrick Butlin is a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, and a researcher at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford. His research is on mental capacities and attributes in AI, especially consciousness and agency.
An Exploration of Mirrors in Compassion Focused Work – Dr Howard Winfield
Monday April 14, 2025 7:00 GMT
Mirrors have long been considered to have particular significance and even spiritual implications in the realm of psychology and psychotherapy. Consider for example the concept of the “mirror self” in which a person seeks to act in a way consistent with their perception of how other people see them, or Lacan’s “mirror self” as a stage in the formation of the “I-self.” Indeed, the very beginnings of an autobiographical sense of self can be detected in infants aged between 18 and 24 months by use of the mirror (Amsterdam, 1972). Athough not formally trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist, author Louise Hay’s self-help book “Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life” became an international bestseller when it was published in 2016, leading to a surge of interest from professionals about the potential role of mirrors in client work. Many therapists came to believe that using mirrors with clients could be valuable, yet with scant if any, evidence of efficacy other than an investigation into heart rate variability when mirrors were utilised in compassionate self talk (Petrocchi et al., 2016). Intuitively perhaps, mirrors seem to enable us to meet perhaps or even confront ourselves, but is this necessarily “a good thing?”
Howard is a Counselling Psychologist at City St. George’s, University of London with ties to Devon Partnership NHS Trust. He is an early-career researcher with an interest in identity, meditation and Buddhist psychology, the philosophy of pragmatism, and narrative methods in research. His clinical interests are broadly in relational therapies, early childhood trauma, neurodiversity and identity issues. He currently works as a Specialist Mentor across UK universities for students with ADHD, ASD and mental health difficulties in receipt of DSA, and is developing a private practice. Outside all of this, he is a keen musician and writer.
References
Amsterdam, B. (1972). Mirror self‐image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology: The journal of the international society for developmental psychobiology, 5(4), 297-305.
Hay, L. (2016). Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life. Hay House, Inc.Hay, L. (2016). Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life. Hay House, Inc.
Lacan, J. (2006b). “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I,” in Écrits [1949], eds J. Lacan and J. A. Miller, pp. 75–81. (W. W. Norton).
Petrocchi, N., Ottaviani, C., & Couyoumdjian, A. (2017). Compassion at the mirror: Exposure to a mirror increases the efficacy of a self-compassion manipulation in enhancing soothing positive affect and heart rate variability. The Journal of positive psychology, 12(6), 525-536.