Facilitator: Anne-Marie Keary

In this workshop I would like to explore some of the issues, questions and ethical dilemmas that we face as psychotherapists when working with clients who are also disabled.

We will look at this theoretically and experientially in three ways:

• Firstly, using an existential frame to place the work, which argues for a personal related way of working that holds uniqueness and supports the essential journey into unbearable territories.  We will also explore the concept of ‘otherness’ and how it relates to all of the work we do with clients.
• Secondly, we will focus on the effect of disability on internal object relations and attachment, balancing fusion and separateness as a tightrope, which becomes more precarious with the effect of the inherent objectification of the disabled body
• Thirdly, we will specifically ponder how this works in Body Psychotherapy - it holds an inevitable journey into the wound of the body. It is about daring to go into the wounds, with as much care and protection as possible.  So can I, the wounded healer, work with a wounded body, survive my wound and take me and my clients beyond that into something else?

The workshop will be experiential, looking at theory to support engagement in the area and we will use video clips and exercises to promote discussion and engagement with the material.