Therapist to Therapists: the unique role of working with psychotherapy trainees

A two-hour workshop with Lawrence Kilshaw

Thursday 24th July 2025

Being psychotherapist to people who are themselves training to be psychotherapists is a specialised, rewarding and often overlooked area of practice. Several organisations require trainees to work only with senior practitioners on a register of Training Therapists. But often therapists fall into working with trainees without themselves having had any formal preparation for the specifics of this important role.

This workshop aims to equip psychotherapists to work with trainees in a role which has its own unique challenges and satisfactions. Here Lawrence Kilshaw sets out the role and position of the Training Therapist, introduces necessary skills, dispels myths and instills confidence.

Key Learnings Objectives

By the end of the workshop, participants will understand:

– clinical and relational complexities of working with trainees

– contracting and frame adaptations for working with trainees

– handling relations and boundaries with training institutions

– ethical dilemmas in training therapy

– pathways for registration as a Training Therapist

Trainer

Lawrence Kilshaw is a recognised Supervisor and Training Therapist for psychotherapy students in multiple training organisations. He’s active in appointing Training Therapists to the register at the Bowlby Centre.

Lawrence maintains a busy private practice as an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist working with individuals and couples in central London. He has many years of experience training psychotherapists and is known for his informative, open and rigorously supportive teaching style.

Date: 24th July 2025

Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm UK time

Cost: £40 non Bowlby Centre members, £30 Bowlby Centre members

CPD: 2 hours (CPD certificate provided)

Limited to 8 participants

To avoid disappointment, please book your place as soon as possible.

Attachment within a couple relationship

A online workshop designed and facilitated by Annie Power
11 hours over 3 Friday’s
SOLD OUT

Outline:

This course is offered both for couple therapists and for practitioners who work with individual clients but would like a fuller understanding of how attachment strategies play out in a relationship. The modules will map attachment dynamics in different areas of a couple’s life. In the final session we will briefly explore working directly with a couple as well as working with the ‘couple in mind’. This might be particularly useful for individual therapists who are considering a move into couple work.

The approach I take is based on my own training at The Bowlby Centre, my systemic training with Relate and in recent years, my training and experience as an EFT (emotionally focused couple therapy) therapist. I will suggest points for reflection between meetings as well as asking you to read a chapter in preparation for each module. A copy of Contented Couples: Magic, logic or luck? will be needed for this reading.

Session 1

How attachment impacts our selection of a mate

Secure attachment is a blessing across the life cycle and its impact on our choice of a partner is particularly telling. People with this attachment history are equipped to choose well. They have a view of self as loveable and of the other as capable of loving. Their comfort with themselves allows them to think about their own feelings and to be curious about their own experience and that of a potential partner. With less need to project parts of their self they are better placed to read and accurately assess another person. We will consider how insecure attachment could sabotage mate selection in any of the courtship pathways – romance, arranged marriage or self-arranged relationships.

How attachment impacts building and sustaining a relationship

Secure attachment enables both care-seeking and caregiving to be more effective. We will consider the importance of understanding our needs and being able to voice these in ways which our partner can digest. We will map how different forms of insecure attachment interfere with the reciprocal, mutual support which most people long for in a partnership. People often say that the difficulty in their relationship is all down to ‘communication’ and we’ll explore what may underly this idea and how clients might be helped to unpack and go deeper in understanding their experience.

Session 2

How attachment impacts fights: Triggering, escalating and repairing them

Rows are a part of most relationships, the problem is not so much the fight itself as the lack of repair. A couple who avoids all friction could be at risk of keeping their relationship in the shallow end. Many couples become drawn into an ongoing tug of war between their complementary attachment strategies: the more one tries to calm the situation by saying little and keeping at a distance, the more the other insists on talking and feels things would be OK if only they could get their partner to understand. When this pattern becomes embedded, the tension will be constantly humming and a relatively small jolt can catapult the couple into open conflict.

How attachment impacts sex in a long term bond

How can long term partnerships continue to enjoy sexual pleasure over the decades? Why does it often happen that all seems fine in a couple except for sex? Is sex a lightning rod to what is really going on, or an adjunct which is less important for some couples? We will consider how competing attachment strategies can interfere with their sex life, as with any aspect of a couple’s daily life. When clients become more regulated and less reactive in their attachment behaviour then sex may be easier to negotiate – as would other areas such as money.

Session 3

How we work with attachment in a couple

In this module we will switch to a more focused approach to working, either with the ‘couple in mind’ as we sit with an individual in the room, or actually working with a couple. The approach I offer is broadly based on EFT and I build this onto an attachment-based psychoanalytic base. We will consider how to help a couple who arrive with the common presentation of rowing about all kinds of unimportant things, despondent because they seem to have become enemies and longing to recapture a sense of being a team. We will also review the understanding from earlier meetings.

ABOUT ANNIE

Anne Power has qualifications from The Bowlby Centre, Westminster Pastoral Foundation, Tavistock Relationships and Relate. Her clinical work has been in voluntary settings, in the NHS and in private practice in London where she now works online with couples and providing one-off supervision consultations. She has taught on a number of therapy trainings in London. Contented Couples: Magic, logic or luck? was published in 2022 and reflects on interviews with eighteen long-term couples.

Anne’s first book, Forced Endings in Psychotherapy, investigated the process of closing a practice for retirement or other reasons. Her published papers explore attachment meaning in the consulting room and in the supervision relationship.

Dates:

• Friday 26^th September 2025 – 9:00 to 12.20
• Friday 3^rd October 2025 – 9:00 to 12.20
• Friday 10^th October 2025 – 9:00 to 13.20

CPD: 11 hours
Limited to 15 participants

NOW FULLY BOOKED

Safeguarding Awareness Training for Counsellors and Therapists

A two-hour workshop designed and facilitated by Lynn Findlay
Monday 17th November 2025 

What is it about? The workshop will increase your knowledge and confidence about making safeguarding decisions about children and adults in the therapeutic context. We focus on joined up thinking across families and networks.

Is it for me? It is for therapists working with both adults and young people. Many adult clients have contact with children in some capacity, and all children are cared for by adults.  You can be in private practice or employed by an organisation.

What will I learn? The session covers:

• The legislative and statutory framework which promotes and safeguards a child’s welfare, including understanding terminology and comparisons with safeguarding adults (joined up thinking).
• An overview of the types of harm and abuse in child and adult safeguarding
• The role of the therapist within this framework, exploring issues of confidentiality and contracting in the counselling context.
• Making sense of your concerns and threshold dilemmas
• Guidance on recording and reporting concerns
• Signposting – what next.

How is it delivered? This is delivered via Zoom, with information sharing, whole group discussion, and opportunities for questions and personal reflection.

About Lynn:

Lynn is a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist, working with both adults and young people. She is a registered social worker with over 25yrs experience working in safeguarding, with many years’ experience designing and delivering training sessions in social care and therapy.

Date: Monday 17th November 2025

Time: 6.15pm – 8.30pm

Cost: £40 non-Bowlby Centre members |£30 Bowlby Centre members

CPD: 2 hours and 15 mins

(CPD certificate provided)

Working with Suicidality and Safety planning – A Cross Modality Approach

A two-hour workshop designed and facilitated by Lynn Findlay
Monday 24th November 2025 

What is it about? This workshop is part of the specialised safeguarding training courses and is now offered as a stand-alone seminar. We discuss working with suicidality and distress in the therapeutic context, exploring risk assessment and management, and drawing upon techniques from a range of therapeutic modalities to offer a toolkit for understanding and intervention. We locate this within the safeguarding framework and therapeutic contracting.

Is it for me? It is for therapists and allied professionals working with both adults and young people. We continue to focus on joined up thinking across services and networks. You can be in private practice or employed by an organisation.

What will I learn? The SASP session covers:

• The Government Suicide prevention strategy.
• How to work with risk assessment and risk management.
• Techniques from different of therapeutic approaches.
• Understanding risk and protective factors.
• Confidentiality and contracting in this context.
• Space for thoughts and reflections.

How is it delivered? This is currently via Zoom, with information sharing, whole group discussion, and opportunities for questions and personal reflection.

About Lynn:

Lynn is a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist, working with both adults and young people. She is a registered social worker with over 25yrs experience working in safeguarding with many years’ experience designing and delivering training in social care and therapy. She is now an independent safeguarding consultant and trainer.

Date: Monday 24th November 2025

Time: 6.15pm – 8.15pm

Cost: £40 non-Bowlby Centre members |£30 Bowlby Centre members

CPD: 2 hours (CPD certificate provided)