PPNow 2024

This year we were very happy to host 150+ in person attendees and 100+ online attendees. We were so pleased to be able to offer the remote option to increase accessibility to the event especially for those outside of London or the UK. The day was hosted by the BPC Chair, Lee Smith who introduced speakers and announced winners of the PPNow Awards. For those in person, we offered breaks as social connection – we were inspired by Sheila Liming’s work ‘Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time’ in naming these breaks.

Discussions took place during the panel sessions and Q+As, with ethical vignettes to consider towards the end of the day. It was particularly important for participants to think deeply about the role of ethics in the profession and for the BPC to enable high quality ethical practice, not just a superego-ish set of rules, particularly in light of recent increased scrutiny about therapy and the lack of statutory regulation (you may have seen the articles in the Guardian and The i Paper).

We hosted a ‘Fitness to Practise’ table staffed by our FTP team at the conference. This provided conference participants with the opportunity to talk to BPC staff about our complaints process in detail. We also hosted a New Associations table with archival copies of our magazine that were free to pick up and read for all those in attendance.

As part of our conference, our colleagues celebrate one another through the PPNow awards which is a great opportunity to celebrate outstanding individuals and organisations within our psychoanalytic community. We asked our Registrants to nominate the colleagues they felt deserved celebrating in a selection of categories.

The Fitzjohn’s Unit received the Innovative Excellence award. This award celebrates a striking example of ground-breaking work. The Fitzjohn’s Unit is a specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapy team based in the Adult Complex Needs Service of the Tavistock Clinic offering psychotherapy to a population of patients that mental health services struggle to contain. The unit offers twice weekly individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy for two years, followed by the possibility of joining a psychoanalytic psychotherapy group for a further number of years or a CBT or MBT group. Hiroshi Amino attended the conference to collect the award on their behalf.

Professor Brett Kahr received the Outstanding Professional Leadership award. This award recognises individuals in a position of leadership who have developed their role to make a significant and outstanding contribution. Professor Kahr was nominated for his significant contributions to the psychoanalytic community; from the nurturing of students, mentees and colleagues to his pioneering work in media psychology and psychotherapy broadcasting where he has been able to disseminate complex psychoanalytic ideas to the public. He has worked closely with the BPC in a number of roles, but particularly for his development of the Scholars’ Network in his role as Chair of the Scholars’ Committee.

Janet Fernando received the Bernard Ratigan award for Psychoanalysis and Diversity, which applauds an individual or organisation that has significantly improved and developed inclusivity in matters of diversity. This year’s award winner was nominated for her significant work both within the NHS and at the Albany Trust providing access to psychoanalytic psychotherapy for LGBTQ+ clients who are deaf. In addition to leading a specialist psychotherapy service for deaf people at St. George’s Hospital in South London over many years, Janet has recently undertaken and completed research at the University of Exeter, to explore and understand the adaptations in therapy that are most valued and most effective for deaf clients / patients. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Exeter last year (2023).

The British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA) recieved the Diversity in Training Award which focuses on training and supervision that gives substantive and considered attention to think about diversity. The BPA recieves this award for their success in creating a supportive environment generally, but particularly for LGB applicants. At the conference in 2021, the BPC announced the “Statement of Regret” about the past treatment of LGB people as both psychoanalytic patients and candidates, in order to draw a line under the history of pathologising all non-heterosexual orientations. When it was established, the winning organisation made a point of breaking from this difficult past and made it clear that people wishing to train as psychoanalysts with them would be treated without prejudice, whatever their sexual orientation. The award was accepted by Marion Schoenfeld.

Helen Morgan received the first Lifetime Achievement award of the evening which recognises those who have made significant, sustained contributions to the psychoanalytic profession over their career. Helen Morgan earned respect and trust tackling inter-organisational dynamics inhibiting growth in a changing psychoanalytic world. Her early commitment to links between analytic work and its application to public social and political world was fostered through Psychoanalysis in the Public Sphere. As Chair of Psychoanalysis Engaging Prisons Project, she facilitated development of the BPC as an agency working to affect policy in a major public service. Her understanding of the need to confront race in the accessibility to psychotherapy and training, plus ability to challenge organisational racism made her a leader in the BPF and wider BPC field. Her organisational leadership led change at BPF & BPC and supported the transition of BPA to BPF. She is stepping down from her role as editor of New Associations at the end of this year and we are so grateful for her huge contribution to the BPC.

Professor Joan Raphael-Leff was awarded the second Lifetime Achievement Award. She has made an immense number of contributions to the disciplines of psychoanalysis and mental health across many decades. She trained at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and practised in North-West London for many years. She has published innumerable memorable books, including, potentially, the very first book on the psychology of pregnancy, Pregnancy: The Inside Story, as well as many books on the history of psychoanalysis and on the psychology of childhood. As an academic, she served as one of the founding professors at the University of Essex, and founded the Academic Faculty of the Anna Freud Centre as a regular bimonthly seminar series. In addition to her many achievements the winner worked with her husband, an esteemed psychiatrist, to expose psychiatry to psychoanalysis and vice versa.

Professor Candida Yates received our new award in Dedication to Psychoanalytic Scholarship which celebrates the core contributions to the advancement of psychoanalytical scholarship. The first winner of this award has been at the forefront of psychoanalytic scholarship for over 25 years. As a co-director of the Media and the Inner World project, and as co-series editor of Routledge’s ‘Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture‘ list, she has led the “re-boot” of interest in psychoanalysis across the humanities and social sciences. She has been recognised for her work in her appointment as a Research Fellow of the Freud Museum, London and as a Founding Scholar of the BPC. She has been instrumental in bringing the scholars’ membership activity back to life at the BPC. She has played a significant role in expanding scholarly interest in psychoanalysis through her teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of East London, The Tavistock and Portman Clinic, and, latterly, at Bournemouth University. Significantly, she has supervised and examined many PhD projects, fostering a new generation of psychoanalytic scholars.

Please join us in congratulating our award winners and celebrating another successful and enjoyable Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now conference.