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Transpersonal Psychology Section

Thriving from Trauma - Post-traumatic growth (PTG) and spirituality:

theory, research and practice With Special Launch of Transpersonal Psychology Review 18(2)

Date: 21 December 2016 10:00 am - 4:00 pm (with mulled wine & mince pies from 4 – 4:30 pm)

Location: London

Programme and Book of Abstracts

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PROGRAMME Wed 21 DEC

10:00 - 10:30 REGISTRATION

Coffee & Networking

10:30 - 10:45 Welcome & Introduction Dr Ho Law

10:45- 11:15 BPS Vice-President’s Opening Address

Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes

11:15- 11:30 COFFEE break

11:30 - 12:15 KEYNOTE: Spirituality and post-traumatic growth:

Beyond the missing dimensions Dr Waseem Alladin

sponsored by Division of Counselling Psychology

12:15 - 12:45 PAPER: Why compassion works with trauma - a research & survivors perspective.

Dr Maya Campbell & Anna Bendijk

12:45- 14:00 Mindfulness LUNCH

sponsored by Psychotherapy Section

14:00 - 14:45 KEYNOTE WORKSHOP: ‘Yin and Yang of Life' – Discovering autoethnography as a research genre, methodology

and method with Experiential, reflexive writing exercise Margaret Chapman-Clarke

sponsored by Division of Counselling Psychology

14:45- 15:15 PAPER: Personal notions of time travel: Reflections on love, loss and growth through

autoethnography Fiona Stirling

15:15 - 15:30 TEA break

15:30- 15:50 PAPER: Vera’s Tree of Life project and beyond - from the perspective of young traumatized

Afghan young men Natalie Basil

15:50- 16:00 Closing remark & the next step

Dr Ho Law

16:00 – 16:45 Mulled wine & mince pies

sponsored by Psychotherapy Section

17:00 Departures

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Vice-President

Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes MPhil MSc PsychD CPsychol CSci FBPsS FRSM FAcSS

He founded the first Society Presidential Task Force on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants and leads the Society’s Psychological Wellbeing Project. As the Society’s now Vice President he is also leading, and approaching the end of, a 3-year review and transformation of the Society's structure

Programme Chair

Dr Ho Law PhD CPsychol CSci AFISCP(Accred) AFBPsS; FCMI; FHEA

Chartered Scientist, Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Manager Registered Psychologist, Registered Applied Psychology Practice Supervisor (APPS) and Coaching Psychologist Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute; Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine; Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society. I live in Peterborough and work within the region of East of England and beyond, example, London and occasionally faraway places (have been to 15 countries and 50 cities).

Vice President, British Psychological Society 2016-2017 Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, clinical neuropsychologist, supervisor, researcher and academic. After four years in the Army and five years in sales and marketing, Jamie studied psychology, psychopathology and clinical psychology at UCL, Cambridge and Surrey universities, and King’s College London. His psychotherapeutic training has included CAT, CBT, clinical hypnosis and EMDR together with group analysis, systemic and psychoanalytic approaches. Jamie is committed to inclusivity and social justice and is currently interested in the dialogue between faith and psychological health (he is a confirmed Christian and a Franciscan Tertiary) and is currently involved with a number of organisations working with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

I aspire to make positive and significant differences in our human condition with psychology and various means and meaning making approaches.

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Keynote Speakers

Dr Waseem Alladin

He is currently on the International Editorial Board of the Journal of Psychosocial Research, Consulting Editor to the BPS Transpersonal Psychology Review & Counselling Psychology Review . Waseem is Co-Editor of the critically acclaimed book: ‘Bridging East-West Psychology and Counselling, Sage 2010.

Margaret A. Chapman-Clarke

Margaret is a practitioner-researcher in the field of emotional intelligence, coaching and mindfulness in the workplace. She writes, speaks and facilitates seminars on these topics and in May 2016 authored and edited the first text to be published by a British occupational psychologist on mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in organisations. She first called for a ‘turn to autoethnography’ (AE) in coaching in 2015, and applied this approach in Mindfulness in the Workplace: An evidence-based approach to improving wellbeing and raising performance (Kogan Page, 2016). Here each chapter author begins with their own personal story of how they came to mindfulness, before sharing how they went about adapting and implemeting their particular MBI in social work, higher education, financial services and the media. As a result of her work she has been part of a team advising the UK government, through The Mindfulness Initiative on how to build the business case to create, mindful workplaces. She was invited to co-guest-

edit the special issue of The Transpersonal Psychology Review upon which this event arises and in her piece she outlines the key features of and case for AE.

Dr Waseem Alladin leads the BPS Accredited Joint Psychology and Counselling Programme at Bishop Grosseteste University. He is Clinical Director, Centre for Couple, Family & Work Stress Management, UK. For the past 5 years he has been honorary lecturer on the University of Leicester doctorate in clinical psychology programme. A consultant forensic clinical neuropsychologist, consultant clinical & counselling psychologist, he is a specialist in posttraumatic growth. He has worked in the NHS in a range of specialities. He established the first UK-based international peer reviewed journal in counselling psychology and is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Counselling Psychology Quarterly: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice.

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Invited Speakers

Maya Campbell

Anna Bendijk

Fiona Stirling

Natalie Basil

My background as that of a research scientist with a PhD in Physical Chemistry and I worked as a post doc at the physics department of Oxford University before becoming ill with stress, exhaustion and depression. After many years of depression and not working, I had a heart attack and out of hospital cardiac arrest in 2009. I was resuscitated, and after being in a coma for nearly two months regained consciousness. I had brain hypoxia from the arrest, which resulted in memory loss and delirium and I suffered from PTSD. In the following years I undertook physical and mental therapy and took up mindfulness practices and did a masters in Psychology. My mindfulness and compassion practice has enabled me to both turn to and process the past trauma in my life and support me as I live with heart failure. I currently work teaching and developing mindfulness courses.

Natalie has graduated with a BPS accredited Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 2015 from Royal Holloway, University of London. Since graduating, she has worked as an assistant psychologist in systemic psychotherapeutic counselling with child refugees and as an assistant psychologist in a Drug and Alcohol clinic. She is also a member of British Association of Christians in Psychology. In her most recent project involvement she has written about a narrative therapy approach whereby children would reflect on their life to draw Hope and Dreams for their future. Natalie is of Christian faith and has therefore great interest in understanding more and being involved in research on spirituality and on the link between science and faith.

Anna used to work as a psychologist and trainer, developing and facilitating training in occupational health. She has a background in drama and directing which makes her suitable as a facilitator for hard to reach groups with her lighthearted and germane style. Anna also trained briefly as a family therapist at the University of Amsterdam before she changed country and became a Counseling Psychologist working predominantly in Physical Health. Her mindfulness training keeps her grounded and the integration of mindfulness and compassion for PTSD is currently a focus in her work. She is passionate and compassionate about teaching, parenting, dancing, filming and being outside in the mountains, and in or near the sea. She likes to deepen her understanding about the potentials humans have to grow in times of adversity.

Fiona J Stirling is a writer, researcher and counsellor, currently based in Dundee, Scotland as a Lecturer of Counselling at Abertay University. She holds qualifications in anthropology, education, mental health, and youth and childhood, and is a member of both the BPS and BACP. Her research interests include pretty much any aspect of mental health, but current focuses are qualitative narrative methods , personality disorders, co-production, post traumatic growth, and creative cultural resources for wellbeing.

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BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

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Introduction & Opening Address

EDITOR OF THE BPS TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW INTRODUCES THE SPECIAL CPD EVENT

FROM A UNIQUE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE.

Ho Law

This event is a forum not only to launch the special Issue on Post-traumatic Growth and Spirituality*, but also for us to reflect on the challenges that we experience in the human condition (the complex trauma including bereavements and near death experience) and discuss how it may lead to a better understanding of transpersonal or spirituality. We shall further explore how we can rise up above these challenges with psychological interventions and transpersonal means as our love letter to humanity & spirituality.

THRIVING FROM TRAUMA: POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH AND SPIRITUALITY Jamie Hacker Hughes

I have worked as a trauma psychologist throughout my career. First in the NHS, then with the Ministry of Defence, working with paratroopers who had deployed to the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Macedonia and Sierra Leone, and many of whom had earlier witnessed war crimes in Kosovo and Bosnia, then three years leading a military mental health research team studying the psychological effects of warfare, and finally four years as Head of Defence Psychology. On leaving the MoD, I established an MSc programme in military, veteran and families studies and was founder director of a Veterans and Families Research institute as well as conceptualising and inaugurating an international veterans research hub but I am now working independently in a specialist psychotrauma practice, supervising trauma workers across London, and working with a number of organisations providing services to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. What is it that helps all these people who have either witnessed, undergone or, in some cases, even inflicted, abuse to move on from their trauma. Across my career, I have worked with rape and incest survivors, survivors of physical, psychological and emotional assault and abuse, victims of disaster, accident, torture or violent crime, and, often physically wounded, veterans of armed conflict. Yet they, and the therapists whom they work with, do somehow emerge intact to one extent to another sometimes after repeated, interpersonal and prolonged exposure. The spiritual dimension is vital in this, I shall argue, and now is the time to embrace a biopsychosociospiritual conceptualisation and formulation of psychological distress.

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Keynote abstracts

POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH AND SPIRITUALITY: BEYOND THE MISSING DIMENSIONS

Waseem Alladin This presentation could be summed up in the headline “All change please, this PTSD terminates here!” Why is it that only about 10 per cent of people exposed to trauma develop PTSD? What differentiates the 90 per cent who are survivors? Some 50 per cent of those who develop PTSD get better without any therapy! How is this possible? How is it then that some people come through trauma apparently unscathed and stronger, whereas others are devastated, remain distraught and damaged? Could it be that some trauma specialists unwittingly encourage a ‘victim mentality’ that traps people in a self-fulfilling prophecy that opens up their vulnerabilities to a trajectory that inevitably leads to PTSD and, in some cases to a more permanent breakdown? Some people journey through PTSD and then engage with it and emerge with Post Traumatic Growth (PTG). Others do not even let PTSD take hold and seem to be fast tracked to PTG. There is firm evidence that spirituality can help in transcending PTSD but mainstream psychology has treated spirituality with disdain and, at best, as a placebo for the gullible. The research literature tells a different story. Learn how using a ‘spirituality bypass’ can short-circuit the development of PTSD. A tri-partite model which includes a personality dimension, a PTSD dimension and a PTG dimension is demonstrated with cases examples, based on evidence based practice and over 3 decades of practice based evidence by the author.

‘THE YIN AND YANG OF LIFE DISCOVERING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A RESEARCH GENRE, METHODOLOGY AND METHOD’

Margaret Chapman-Clarke In this session Margaret will introduce and participants will experience the reflexive writing process that generated the poetry ‘as data’ in her ‘mindfulness in coaching’ research (MICR). She will share with us what poetry has to offer the autoethnographer and what autoethnography has to offer applied psychology, particularly when we hold ‘what is a poem?’ with a light touch. A key theme in this keynote workshop is how, through reflexive writing we and our clients can find a sense of meaning and purpose and how poetry as ‘data’ in research, can ‘reach the parts other methodologies cannot.’ She will share her own poetry and those of her co-researchers from the MICR in the spirit of inspiring psychologists to expand our understanding and practice of qualitative research in exploring subjective experience, to capture the ‘Yin and Yang of Life.’

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PAPERS

WHY COMPASSION WORKS WITH TRAUMA - A RESEARCH & SURVIVORS PERSPECTIVE Maya Campbell & Anna Bendijk

The shortest definition of trauma is: ‘broken connections’. The connection with the outside and the inside world has become unsafe. The connection with others can be jeopardized by our emotions as we interpret intentions differently. The connection with oneself after trauma can be wrapped up with beliefs of guilt, and shame. The connection with the body can also have become unsafe as the constant sensations of gut wrenching, hyper-vigilance, heartbreaking and the absence of peace can feel threatening. According to the latest neuroscience, trauma has an effect upon our self-regulation and capacity to stay focused and in tune with others. We will argue in our presentation that mindfulness compassion can be helpful in mending some of these broken connections and aid transpersonal growth.

PERSONAL NOTIONS OF TIME TRAVEL: REFLECTIONS ON LOVE, LOSS, AND GROWTH THROUGH

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY Fiona Stirling

Using the concept of time travel as a contextual and narrative tool, join Fiona as she explores themes of love, loss and growth after trauma. Reflections relate primarily to the experience of conducting the qualitative research method of autoethnography. Opening with consideration of existing work (Yoga and Loss: An Autoethnographical Exploration of Grief, Mind, and Body), discussion moves on to academic thought on mental time travel, personal transformation, and the cathartic construction of a new memory combining past, present, and future.

VERA’S TREE OF LIFE PROJECT AND BEYOND - FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF YOUNG TRAUMATIZED ARABIC

MEN Natalie Basil

This presentation will report on how the tree of life group approach can be applied from the perspective of young traumatised Afghan young men. The project was based on the experience gained from completing the Tree of Life research dissertation which was initially carried out by Vera Azarova, a student in her final year of studies as part of the Clinical Psychology Doctorate Degree at the University of East London (UEL) in 2014. The research project was jointly supervised by Dr Ho Law who was the Director of Studies at the UEL School of Psychology and Gillian Hughes as an external supervisor at the Tavistock Centre. See Law & Basil (2016)* **Law, H. & Basil, N. (2016). Reflections on Vera and Tree of Life: Multi-reflexivity, meta-narrative dialogue for Transpersonal Research. Transpersonal Psychology Review, Autumn 18(2), 32-57. http://shop.bps.org.uk/publications/publication-by-series/transpersonal-psychology-review.html

THRIVING FROM TRAUMA - PTG AND SPIRITUALITY: THE NEXT STEP

Ho Law

How can we rise up above the challenges of deep and complex trauma? What are, if any, new means and meanings to facilitate PTG? What is the road map or the process? What is the role of psychology, transpersonal and spirituality within this process? We discuss the next step and announce a follow-up conference.

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Reference *Law, H. (2016 Ed), [Guest Editors: W. Alladin & M. A. Chapman-Clarke]. Special Issue: Post-traumatic Growth and Spirituality. Transpersonal Psychology Review, Autumn 18(2), 32-57. http://shop.bps.org.uk/publications/publication-by-series/transpersonal-psychology-review.html

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In Memory of Ian Levy

1991–2014 Photo: Ian Levy © Jeremy and Katina Levy

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In Memory of Vera Azarova

1985 – 2014

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Tree of Life in Memory of Vera Azarova, University of East London (Stratford Campus)

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British Psychological Society London Office