About our CPD Resources
For the last few years, all of these have been publicly available, but from now on - as previously announced - access to most of the resources is restricted to subscribers/members of the site.It is free to register for the site, and it only takes a minute - all you need to do is give your name and email, and you will receive a confirmation email. As a member of the site you will then receive occasional newsletter updates, never more than 6 per year (usually it’s about 4).
Once you have registered, every time you want to access any of the resources, all you need to do is log-in to the site, using the log-in link in the top right corner of each page. You are welcome to use and distribute these materials, including for your own teaching, as long as you reference them and observe the copyright, by keeping copyright details visible.
The Therapeutic Potential of Broken Boundaries (CONFER 2011)
If the therapist's job is the steady provision of a safe, contained therapeutic framework, then breaks and transgressions of those clear and firm boundaries indicate a failure on the therapist's part - a mistake. However, every broken boundary is accompanied [...]
The Return of the Repressed Body – Not a Smooth Affair (2010)
These are a few thoughts, written fairly quickly, on my misgivings with the currently fashionable attempts to (re-)include the body into psychotherapy. These attempts, strongly supported by neuroscience, are welcome and long overdue. However, how can we seriously imagine that [...]
Crowded Intimacy – Engaging Multiple Enactments in Complex Trauma Work (Morit Heitzler 2010)
My aim in this paper is to introduce relational Body Psychotherapy and its relevance to working with trauma. The term 'relational' is now widely used; it has recently become fashionable and most practitioners accept that “it is the relationship that [...]
A Response to the Claims of the ‘Human Givens’ Approach (2010)
This letter, published in 'Therapy Today' under the title 'Boastful Claims', was a response to an earlier article by Julia Bueno, on 'The Rise of Human Givens'. I am suggesting that as a relatively recent approach, Human Givens is not [...]
Therapy Today: Questionnaire – Michael Soth (2010)
The BACP Journal 'Therapy Today&' has a regular column where established practitioners get interviewed and are asked both personal and professional questions. This is the longer, online version of an interview/questionnaire published in December 2010. “Michael Soth is passionate about [...]
The Relationship between Ego and Sub-Personalities (2009)
This handout was produced on the occasion of a CPD weekend for the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust in 2009. It is based on the idea that an authentic witness position in relation to a sub-personality requires the ego to have [...]
Embracing the Paradigm Clash between the ‘Medical Model’ and Counselling (BACP 2008)
With the government's policy of 'Improving Access to Psychological Therapies' programme being heavily biased towards CBT, counselling is under severe pressure to fit in with 'medical model' thinking. Over the last few months there has been intense discussion in 'therapy [...]
Enactment as a Central Principle of Relational Therapy (BACP 2008)
Relational' is in danger of becoming another buzz-word, and this presentation is an attempt to formulate the substance, the essential principles of the relational paradigm shift. Theory is meant to support and enrich our practice rather than directing and legislating [...]
The processing body – integrating EMDR and Body Psychotherapy (Morit Heitzler 2008)
The processing body - integrating EMDR and Body Psychotherapy: The paper presents a model for integrating EMDR with Body Psychotherapy principles and techniques. The model will be illustrated by clinical material from work with a patient who suffers from complex [...]
Character Formation (Complex Model) (2008)
This handout is the non-dualistic, complex version of character formation, using simple terms from Transactional Analysis, but including the conflicted ego. Rather than seeing the ego exclusively as a repressive, rationalising fortress, homogenous in its defensive functioning, the ego is [...]
The Future of Counselling Training (CPCAB 2008)
Counselling as a profession has come a long way in a few decades, but it is also facing serious threats and limitations, both from within and without. Over the next few years, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) as the government's treatment of [...]
Group Body Psychotherapy (2008)
This was written as a contribution to the English version of the Handbook of Body Psychotherapy (originally published in German by Marlock and Weiss). The chapter sets out some basic principles for a bodymind approach to groups and group therapy, [...]
Embracing the paradigm clash between the ‘medical model’ and counselling (2007)
A Response to James T. Hansen's article “Should counselling be considered a healthcare profession?” This article, published in 'Therapy Today' under the title 'Polarising or embracing?', was a response to an earlier article by James T. Hansen who - from a [...]
Book Review of the German version of ‘Handbook of Body Psychotherapy’ by Gustl Marlock & Halko Weiss (2007)
This is a review of the ground-breaking, monumental and comprehensive first global textbook of Body Psychotherapy, giving a brief overview of its content and some important chapters as well as evaluating its strengths and also outlining some critiques. To gain [...]
The Relational Paradigm Shift in Psychotherapy – is it ‘Complete’? (CABP 2007)
In a joint session with Joe Schwartz, the relational psychoanalyst, we tried to chart the history of relationality in psychotherapy, to set out the basic issues and controversies around it as an introduction to the CABP Conference "The Client and [...]
The Integrative Project within the Development from Holistic-Humanistic to Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy (2007)
This article follows on from my chapter "From Humanistic Holism via the 'Integrative Project' towards Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy" (2007) and focusses on a specific phase in the development of Chiron Body Psychotherapy (i.e. the years between 1992 and 1998) which [...]
Bodily Functions (Terrence Higgins Trust, 2007)
In this presentation - based upon and similar to "No 'Relating Cure' without Embodiment" - I offered a way of catching up with the still pervasive mind-over-body dualism in counselling and psychotherapy. This becomes especially limiting when the client group [...]
The Fractal Self – Parallel Process as an Organising Principle for 21st-century Psychotherapy (UKCP 2007)
For this inaugural UKCP Supervision Conference I prepared this presentation, extending the established notion of parallel process (how the dynamic between client and therapist is reflected and replicated between therapist and supervisor) by three significant steps: how the dynamic between [...]
The Therapist’s Implicit Relational Stance & Habitual Positions (2007)
This was written quickly (it shows ...!) as a preparation for the 2007 CABP conference 'The Client and I', attempting in anticipation to clarify some important concepts within the relational debate. I suggest that there always IS an implicit relational [...]
The Internal Supervisor – the Therapist’s Internal Process from an Embodied, Integral-Relational Perspective (EABP 2006)
Bringing the full spectrum of bodymind processes to Patrick Casement's notion of the 'internal supervisor', we can formulate a more comprehensive understanding of the vicissitudes of the therapeutic position. To gain access to the full resource, please log-in if you [...]
No ‘Relating Cure’ without Embodiment (2007)
This is some of the content of my presentation at the 2006 BACP conference "It's the relationship that matters" turned into an article, bringing some of the relevant modern neuroscience and bodymind principles to counselling. To gain access to the [...]
From Humanistic Holism via the ‘Integrative Project’ towards Integral-Relational Body Psychotherapy (2007)
Written as a chapter for "Contemporary Body Psychotherapy - The Chiron Approach" (a book edited by Linda Hartley, published 2008), this paper gives an overview over the phases and quantum leaps in the development of Body Psychotherapy at Chiron, with [...]
The Three Relational Revolutions (2007)
This handout summarises what I conceive of as the three relational revolutions that have occurred over the last 100 years in psychotherapy. The first was Freud's reframing of the transference from an obstacle to the treatment into the 'royal road' [...]