Psychiatry has always been a difficult profession. Other doctors regard psychiatrists as odd or flaky, not proper scientists. The general public regard psychiatrists with suspicion and fear, and psychotherapists can sometimes see them as drug pushers and barbarian over-simplifiers in the delicate world of the psyche. In this talk I will focus first on those activities that seem most distinctively psychiatric - the use of legal powers to detain individuals in psychiatric hospitals and physical and medical treatments for mental illness. Next I will discuss the structure of the delivery of psychiatric services. Last, I will cover the current NHS provision of psychological treatments and discuss the role of psychiatrists in this aspect of NHS care.

Dr Chess Denman is Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy in charge of the complex cases unit at Fulbourn hospital one of ten national sites for the treatment of personality disorders. She trained originally as a cognitive analytic therapist and also as a Jungian Analyst. Dr Denman has written extensively on psychotherapy training, personality disorder and issues of sexual identity and her book Sexuality: a Biopsychosocial Approach was published by Palgrave in 2004.

This lecture will explore the developments in our understanding of psychological ill health, bringing together perspectives from neuroscience, genetics and psychoanalysis. As well as illustrating the way we can helpfully integrate these different conceptual frameworks, the tensions this may give rise to - especially for psychotherapists - will also be addressed.

Prof. Alessandra Lemma is a psychoanalyst and a clinical and counselling psychologist. She is a Member of the British Psychoanalytic Society, a Senior Member of the British Association of Psychotherapists and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She is the Trust-wide Head of Psychology at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Professor of Psychological Therapies at the School of Health and Human Sciences, Essex University. She has published widely on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

I shall contrast client assessment and engagement in the two worlds of psychiatry (biomedical, normothetic, supportive/managerial) and of psycho-therapy (developmental, idiographic, empowering/challenging). I will argue that among the psychotherapies, CBT and IPT have most effectively accommodated to the biomedical model, accounting in part for their success in publicly funded therapies. I shall look at the various major mental illnesses and consider the role of psychotherapy, if any, in each of them. I end with a practical 'dos and don'ts' for non-medical therapists in private practice when confronted with possible psychiatric disorder.

Dr Jeremy Holmes MD FRCPsych BCP, combined his 'day job' as a Consultant Psychiatrist with working as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and family therapist in London and N Devon until his retirement from the NHS 6 years ago. He is now visiting Professor of Psychological Therapies at the University of Exeter, where he co-runs a Masters and Qualification programme in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. He has published widely in Attachment Theory and Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and was the 2009 recipient of the Bowlby-Ainsworth Award in recognition of his teaching and writing in the field of Attachment. His latest book is Exploring In Security: Towards an Attachment-informed Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: Routledge 2009.

This presentation will compare and contrast various models of health and illness (biomedical, psychobiological, psychological, psychosocial). It will discuss the historical origins of manualised psychiatric diagnosis, its current use in research and clinical settings, and its rationale and limitations.

Prof. Derek Bolton is Professor of Philosophy & Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings' College London and Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He has worked on causal explanation in psychology and psychiatry (Bolton D. & Hill J. Mind, Meaning, and Mental Disorder: The Nature of Causal Explanation in Psychology and Psychiatry. 2e. Oxford University Press, 2004) and has been PI on several RCTs in behaviour therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy. His latest book is What is mental disorder? An essay in philosophy, science and values (2008) is published by Oxford University Press).

Severe mental illness is complex, has multiple causes and therefore requires multiple treatment approaches. This lecture will introduce new ways of thinking about psychoses, utilising different psychoanalytic models of the mind. I will make reference to the understandings offered by Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Kohut, Mollon, Grotstein, Schore, Rosenfeld, Steiner, Sinason and Richards, Bion. I will touch upon various very important neuropsychoanalytical ideas and incorporate the importance of the interaction between phylogenetic and ontogenetic factors. Clinical vignettes will be included.

Dr Dianne Campbell Lefevre, MB ChB FRCP FRCPsych, worked for 40 years with patients with mental illness including intensive work with people with psychoses. She worked initially as a physician and later as a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy. She ran an MSc course in the Psychodynamics of the Psychoses for 6 years. She is interested in the multiple factors contributing to the genesis, course and effective management of mental illness and in particular in the psychoses and their relationship to PTSD, OCD and DID.

This presentation will describe the clinical features, diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders. A wide range of therapies are available in psychiatry, and the evidence base and rationale for using psychological, pharmacological and physical treatments will be discussed. The ways in which medical and psychological practitioners can work together in partnership to help the depressed person will be addressed.

Dr Stirling Moorey is Professional Head of Psychotherapy for South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust. He is a psychiatrist and cognitive behaviour therapist who has many years experience of treating depressive disorders and of teaching CBT to junior doctors and other professionals. His main research interest if the application of CBT to psycho-oncology.

The session will begin with an overview of the NICE Guidelines on Depression. The presenter will consider what a psychotherapist might wish to add to the descriptions contained in the guidelines in order to capture and gain insight into the depressed person's state of mind. The evening will continue with thoughts on the origins of depression, drawing on Freud's paper 'Mourning and Melancholia' (1917) and material from an infant observation study. It will conclude with a discussion of the merits and limitations of different approaches to treatment.

Dr. Maggie Turp is a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist (UKCP) and supervisor in private practice and a Chartered Psychologist (C.Psychol.) She is a member of the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists and a visiting lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic. She also runs CPD training workshops for regionally-based associations of counsellors and psychotherapists, addressing the clinical themes of depression, self-harm, psychosomatic illness, and the aftermath of trauma. Maggie is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals 'Psychodynamic Practice' and 'Infant Observation' Her publications include journal papers and two books, 'Psychosomatic Health: the body and the word' (2001, Palgrave) and 'Hidden Self-Harm: narratives from psychotherapy' (2003, Jessica Kingsley).

Personality disorders are important clinical conditions that have a substantial impact on the individual sufferer, their family and society at large. Following years of neglect, efforts are being made to improve services for people with PD. While better evidence is required to determine the most effective ways of helping this population, there is a broad consensus about general principles for working with people with these problems. The nature of personality disorder and appropriate interventions will be discussed.

Dr Mike Crawford is a Reader in Mental Health Services Research at Imperial College London and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Central and North West London Foundation Trust where he provides medical input to the Waterview Centre - a group-based treatment programme for people with personality disorder. His research interests lie in health services research, specifically the development and evaluation of complex interventions for people who experience mental distress.

This presentation will explore the nature and/or nurture of those patients given the title 'personality disorder,' with particular emphasis on those deemed to be emotionally unstable (borderline type). Despite the unease with which the psychotherapy community responds to research findings, I will highlight the impressive evidence-base that is giving added weight to some of our most important psychoanalytic ideas. By looking at the work of Bateman and Fonagy on mentalisation-based therapy, and Kernberg's transference-focused psychotherapy, I will highlight the different ways in which the psychiatric research community understand the personality disorders and compare that to the way in which we as psychotherapy practitioners mean when we might say of a patient "oh! He's borderline". Finally I will present a model for ways of working with personality disordered individuals.

Jack Nathan is a consultant psychotherapist at the Maudsley Psychotherapy Service and Self-Harm Out Patients' Service (SHOPS) and also Senior Lecturer in social work at the Institute of Psychiatry. Formerly a social work manager at the Maudsley Hospital, he then trained as an adult psychotherapist at the London Centre for Psychotherapy. He went onto specialise in work with borderline personality disordered patients, in particular those who self-harm. He is particularly interested in how to work with a patient group once openly referred to as 'the patients psychiatrists dislike', what countertransference difficulties they arouse and the meaning attached to their self-destructive behaviours. He is author of Self-harm: a strategy for survival and nodal point of change (2006).

People who have crossed the boundary into madness or psychosis, frequently report on the experience of being possessed by another person or being. As a therapist working with people with this sort of problem, links can often be found between this experience and traumatic happenings or abusive relationships in the life story but this need not preclude the possibility of real connection beyond the person in such states. Recent advances in neuro and cognitive sciences enable us to understand how these states can lead to such vulnerability, whether to the personal past or beyond the person, and thus to see 'psychosis' in an entirely different light, with profound implications for treatment and stigma.

Isabel Clarke is a consultant clinical psychologist, working in acute mental health in the NHS. She publishes and talks on the psychology of spirituality, and has always had a deep interest in ecology. She has been active in Greenspirit for many years. Her recent book, Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God (O-Books) brings together these themes in an accessible form. See her website: www.isabelclarke.org for more information on her publications and activities.

PDF brochure of full programme.