Friends of Arkordia Seminars

Friends of Arkordia Seminars are a series of presentations in the fields of counselling,
psychotherapy, art therapy, psychiatry, psychology, social work, and related disciplines.

Our seminar sessions are open to everyone including professionals and students.

Upcoming seminars will be advertised on Eventbrite, our social media channels and our website.

If you are interested in speaking at one of our seminars, please make contact with our team.

Donations

Arkordia is a charity and entirely reliant on donations to support our work. as we do not receive any government funding.

We therefore kindly suggest a donation of at least £10 per ticket to attend our events. This enables Arkordia to support as many clients as possible.

Upcoming Seminars

The next seminar will take place on Thursday 01 May 2025 from 18:30 until 20:00 at the South Side Centre.

You can learn more about the seminar and obtain tickets from our eventbrite profile.

The title of the seminar is A Devil’s Bargain: Meeting Psychiatric Diagnosis in Person-Centred Therapy delivered by guest speaker Dr Holt J.S. Hauser.

This presentation seeks to reflect, review, and expand upon the research efforts that lead to the publication of the article of the same title in the ADPCA’s Person-Centered Journal.

Dr Hauser will explore the tension generated between a person-centred image of person with psychiatric diagnostic categories, acknowledging their inevitable meeting in mainstream cultural discourses of ‘neurodivergence’, ‘mental illness’ and the practice of psychotherapy. In doing so, Dr Hauser hopes to put forward an account of how the presentation of psychiatric diagnosis can impact therapeutic relationships in order to facilitate person-centred practitioner’s capacity to encounter this bourgeoning client group.

The presentation will highlight the case study as a relational reflection of inquiry, as well as areas for further research regarding the risks and strengths of person-centred psychotherapy within a culture that seems to be trending towards diagnostic categories as a means of understanding Self, Other, and relationship.

Previous Seminars

These are examples of some of the previous Friends of Arkorida Seminars

• Queering Counselling through Vulnerability, Authenticity, Rupture and Repair
  (Dr Deanna N. Cor)
• Domestic abuse counselling: is it a specialism?
  (Dr Jeannette Roddy)
• Dancing with loss and death: a case study of community mourning through movement and choreography
  (Edgar Rodriguez-Dorans and David Dia)
• The precarious self and psychotherapeutic practice in times of austerity
  (Dr Christina Sachpasidi)
• Exploring changing group dynamics in psychotherapy groups
  (Professor Chris McVittie)
• Counselling as experienced by adult male survivors of child sexual abuse
  (Dr Laura Viliardos)
• Radical Intimacy Psychoanalysis in the Age of the Internet
  (Dr Roger Bacon)
• Notes from the Underworld
  (Janet Bowers)
• Tread Softly because you tread on my dreams
  (Margaret Temple)
• The Black Canvas: an exploration of parallel processes in art and psychotherapy
  (Benet Haughton)
• The work of psychotherapy within the broad canvas of human spirituality
  (Peter Young)
• When a kiss is an act of resistance: Counselling gay men, men who are attracted to other men, and men with other nonconforming identities
  (Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans)