It is now two years since the last conference by the sea, and this year there is a programme which is packed and varied - with a few new twists - as well as all the regular features which make Ravenscar such a popular and valuable forum. For anybody who fancies a dip before breakfast, the hotel has also recently opened a small indoor swimming pool.
There are four paper sessions:
Our visiting speaker is John Clarkin from Cornell Medical Centre in New York, and he is delivering the keynote address on Intervention with bipolar disorder: treatment research in the era of health care reform. He is also taking a workshop on developing psychodynamic treatment for borderline personality disorder.
Other workshops are with John Birtchnell on his "Interpersonal Octagon"; Colleen Heenan and Anna Madill on supervision and the use of discourse analysis; John and Marcia Davis with Thomas Schroder on developments with the international study of therapist difficulties, coping strategies and boundary maintenance; Jim Watson on audit and survival; and John McLeod on qualitative approaches to research.
There are also poster presentations (with the manic half hour of "just-a-minute" presentations), computer demonstrations, erudite panel discussions and open feedback from all the workshops. Anthony Ryle will be receiving his Career Achievement Award at the Conference Dinner, and Glenys Parry has agreed to give a short talk to update us all on the Department of Health strategic review of psychotherapy. Needless to say, the food and hospitality will be exemplary, and a conference photograph will be taken and available as a transitional object.
A £25 deposit secures a place - we are already well-subscribed this year - and the balance of £215 (for SPR members) is due by the end of February. Please encourage colleagues to come and join SPR: the reduction for members is the same as a year's dues, and we always welcome new blood. There is a £40 reduction for sharing a room, and for students and anybody particularly hard up, registration by itself costs £120 and delegates have stayed in the local youth hostel in the past. Enquiries or further copies of the programme from Debbie Kirby-Mayers 0161 442 6291.
Rex Haigh