Name: South West Counselling and Psychotherapy Conference 2026
Start: 2026-04-11T08:30:00+01:00
End: 2026-04-11T17:00:00+01:00
Location: Exeter Rougemont hotel by Sunday

South West Counselling and Psychotherapy Conference 2026

Working at the Edges: Holding Hope in Uncertain Worlds
About this Event

We are living and working in a time shaped by overlapping systemic crises—climate catastrophe, mass migration, economic instability and profound social change. These pressures do not remain outside the therapy room; they move through our clients’ lives and our own. Increasingly, practitioners are encountering acute mental-health concerns, climate anxiety, and the emotional fallout of polarised identity politics. As counsellors and psychotherapists, we are challenged to meet this rising tide of distress while also sustaining our own capacity to remain present, grounded and hopeful.

This conference invites us to explore what it means to work at the edges—where personal pain meets collective upheaval, and where therapeutic presence becomes both an anchor and a catalyst for resilience. Our speakers will reflect on supporting clients through climate anxiety, understanding our role in helping them navigate systemic social change, and working with the Gestalt notion of the “safe emergency.” Together, we will consider how hope can be held honestly and ethically in difficult times.

Alongside these keynote explorations, breakout sessions will offer practical and reflective pathways, including Compassionate Inquiry in health contexts, moving beyond the Genderbread Person in gender-related work, practising in nature, and building sustainable, ethical therapeutic practices. We hope this gathering becomes a resource in itself—a space to reconnect, reimagine and renew our collective resilience.

Keynote Speaker: Steffi Bednarek

Therapy and the Meta-crisis

Details coming soon.

Meet Steffi Bednarek

Steffi is the founder and director of the Centre for Climate Psychology, a published writer, speaker and curator of learning experiences at the intersection between climate change, mental health and living systems thinking.

With over 25 years of experience in systemic change and trauma therapy, Steffi supports individuals and organisations to address the urgent need for regenerative change in ways that go beyond the mere correction of what is visible on the surface.

Her work supports professionals across all sectors to stay resilient, adaptive, creative and responsive in the face of global upheaval and climate anxiety, whilst also increasing awareness of our systemic entanglement with the very culture we try to change.

Speaker: Dr Farhad Dalal

A Meditation on Hope in a Time of Despair

This talk is a personal account of the struggle to find and sustain hope in these despairing times. When faced by the grim reality of a world overrun by neoliberalism and right-wing populists pedalling their politics of hate and greed, combined with the prospect of the sixth extinction, is it even worth the effort to look for hope? Where is the light in this ever-darkening world – or has it already been extinguished?

This talk is my attempt to work my way towards hope. It is not certain that I will get there. It is a work in progress.

Meet Farhad Dalal

Farhad Dalal PhD is a psychotherapist and Group Analyst in private practice in Devon, UK. He has also worked with organizations. He is trying (and failing) to retire. He is in the midst of delivering a group psychotherapy training in India, of which he is the convenor. He has published four books to date: Taking the Group Seriously, Race, Colour and the Processes of Racialization, Thought Paralysis: The Virtues of Discrimination, and CBT – The Cognitive Behavioural Tsunami: Managerialism, Politics and the Corruptions of Science. He currently writing on ethics. www.dalal.org.uk

Speaker: Tree Staunton

A World on Fire

Details coming soon

Meet Tree Staunton

Tree Staunton is a UKCP Honorary Fellow, and has been a Registered Body Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Trainer for 35 years. She was MA Program Leader and Director of Studies at BCPC from 2011 and, overall Director of the charity from 2014 - 2023. Tree represented BCPC in UKCP in addition to serving as Chair of the Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College for 5 years. She is a published author of various academic papers, contributing articles and editorships including Body Psychotherapy (ed, Routledge, 2002) and Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown (co-eds Anderson, Staunton, O’Gorman and Hickman, Routledge 2024). She was awarded Emeritus status after stepping down as Director and continues to teach and supervise psychotherapists-in-training.

Speaker: Dr Di Hodgson DPsych., MSc Gestalt Psychotherapy.

Working at the edges with edginess

In Gestalt we are interested in how we moderate our contact with others. We may have learned to limit or restrict our contact to minimise uncertainty.

Learning how to live in the present and with uncertainty is an important aspect of psychotherapy, especially given the level of uncertainty in the world. In Gestalt it has a particular relevance given our focus on the here and now and on creativity and experimentation. Often this is, though by no means the only, way of supporting clients to expand their range or their edges.

There is also a concept, the “Safe Emergency”, which refers to the conditions under which there is neither too much support nor too much challenge, and where significant therapeutic effectiveness is possible I will discuss and explore how to work with these themes and concepts and what it might mean to bring more “edginess” to your practice.

Meet Dr Di Hodgson

Di is a psychotherapist, international trainer and clinical supervisor. She is an external examiner for several psychotherapy institutes. For over 12 years she was the director of studies for the MSc in Gestalt psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute. Throughout her career she has been a member and chair of UKCP and GPTI committees and was on the editorial board of the British Gestalt Journal for several years. For over 20 years she was an organisational consultant, working predominantly in the health, legal and academic sectors.