Lisa Goodman
Lisa Goodman is a clinical-community psychologist and Professor in the Department of Counseling and Applied Developmental Psychology at Boston College. She uses a community-based participatory research approach to explore intimate partner violence, aiming to illuminate how survivors use their social networks for healing and safety, and how to improve systemic responses. Her research highlights the strengths and needs of marginalized survivors, including communities of color, and people who are unhoused.
David Denborough
David Denborough is a Narrative therapist and the co-director of the Dulwich Centre, he works as a community practitioner, teacher and writer for the theatre. He has undertaken teaching/community assignments in Palestine, Thailand, Israel, Bosnia, Rwanda, Uganda, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and with a number of Aboriginal Australian communities. David’s songs in response to current social issues have received airplay throughout Australia and Canada. He is vitally interested in avoiding psychological colonisation, developing forms of practice relevant to the most marginalised, and in cross-cultural inventions through cross-cultural partnerships.
Usha Tummala-Narra
Usha Tummala-Narra is a Clinical psychologist and professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston College. Her research focusses on mental health and trauma within immigrant communities in work which focuses on cultural competence in psychotherapy and culturally informed practices. She examines the impact of race, gender, and interpersonal and collective trauma and how therapy can become more culturally informed.
Mick Cooper
Mick Cooper is an internationally recognised author, trainer, and consultant in the field of humanistic, existential, and pluralistic therapies. He is a Chartered Psychologist, and Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Roehampton.
Mick has facilitated workshops and lectures around the world, including New Zealand, Lithuania, and Florida.
Mick's books include Existential Therapies (Sage, 2017), Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Sage, 2018), and The Handbook of Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Counselling (Palgrave, 2013).
His latest work is Integrating Counselling and Psychotherapy: Directionality, Synergy, and Social Change (Sage, 2019).
Mick’s principal areas of research have been in shared decision-making/personalising therapy, and counselling for young people in schools.
In 2014, Mick received the Carmi Harari Mid-Career Award from Division 32 of the American Psychological Association. He is a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Academy of Social Sciences.
Dr. Kate Smith
I am a career academic at Abertay University, the small and friendly home of pluralistic practice. I have taught the approach for ten years, and supervise practice. I was the lead of the Pluralistic steering group from 2017-2021, and am active in researching the approach.
I chose to offer this workshop in response to a number of requests for input from students and practitioners alike following the publication of The Pluralistic Practice Primer in 2021. I believe strongly in bringing communities of practitioners together and evolving our understanding of the approach, working with practitioners always brings together such a wealth of experience and shared value that each session is rich with experience and enjoyment.
Having trained in pluralistic practice over a decade ago, and led the first training programme in the approach, I have 'grown-up' within Pluralistic therapy and seen how it has evolved over the years to become an influential and inclusive way of practising counselling and psychotherapy. More people have adopted the pluralistic stance and practice than have ever been trained in it, mainly because it speaks to the values and lived experience of people who work day to day with clients.
Andrew Reeves
Dr. Andrew Reeves is a Professor in the Counselling Professions and Mental Health, a BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist and a Registered Social Worker.
His practice experience spans over 35 years, when he first trained as a Samaritans volunteer at 18, before moving into social and work therapy. His research focus in working with risk in therapy, having experienced the suicide of a client during his training. Since then, he was published extensively in this area. He is previous Editor-in-Chief of Counselling and Psychotherapy Research journal, past-Chair of BACP and is Chair of the York St John Advisory Board Counselling and Mental Health Research Clinic. He supervises mostly doctoral research in counselling, psychotherapy and psychological trauma.
John McLeod
John McLeod is currently Visiting Professor of Counselling at Abertay University, Dundee, and the Institute for Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy, Dublin, and has held professorial positions in Norway, New Zealand, and Italy. He has published widely on a range of issues in counselling and psychotherapy research and practice, with an emphasis on an interdisciplinary research-informed social justice perspective. Key texts include: An introduction to counselling and psychotherapy: Theory practice and research (6th ed.,Open University, 2019), Doing research in counselling and psychotherapy (4th ed., Sage, 2022) and Counselling skills: theory, research and practice (with Julia McLeod, Open, 2022).
He is committed to the development of a flexible and responsive forms of collaborative pluralistic practice that enable clients to access their personal and cultural strengths and resources and enable them to fulfil their personal therapeutic and life goals. A central focus of his work in recent years has been around finding ways that psychotherapy might contribute to a more constructive and sustainable relationship between human beings and the planet.
Sophia Balamoutsou, PhD.
I am a counsellor MBACP (Accred), a psychologist AFBPsS, CPsychol. and the Chair of the Scientific Committee (WAPCEPC). I have lived and worked (academic and counsellor) in UK for over 10 years. Currently, I live in Crete, Greece, working in private practice and as a lecturer (Institute for Counselling and Psychological Studies, Athens, Greece)..
Brian Rodgers
Brian Rodgers is a senior lecturer and programme director for the counsellor education programmes at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brian has been involved with counsellor education over the last two decades at a number of institutions including Auckland University of Technology, University of Queensland in Australia, and University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He is co-chair of the scientific committee for PCE2021 and a board member of the World Association for Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling (WAPCEPC).