We are delighted to announce that Division 32 of the American Psychological Association, also known as the Society for Humanistic Psychology, is giving the Counselling Unit the Charlotte and Karl Bühler award for 2010. This award is given to an institution, and an individual associated with an institution, that has made an outstanding and lasting contribution to humanistic psychology. The Society for Humanistic Psychology established this award in order to recognize the important role played by key organizations in the development of humanistic approaches to psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. You will note from the list of previous recipients that this is the first time this award has been given to an institution outside of North America.
Charlotte Bühler (1893-1974) and Karl Bühler (1979-1963) were the forerunners of modern humanistic psychology, linking Gestalt Psychology with Maslow, Rogers and others. Before they left Austria in the late 1930's to escape fascism, Charlotte pioneered humanistic education and Karl made important contributions to the psychology of language.
Below is a list of past recipients of APA's Charlotte and Karl Buhler Award:
- 1991 Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Thomas Greening, Editor
- 1992 Saybrook Graduate School, Stanley Krippner
- 1993 West Georgia College (now State University of West Georgia) Psychology Dept., Myron Arons
- 1994 Sonoma State University Psychology Department, Art Warmoth
- 1995 Duquesne University Psychology Department (no one individual was named; David Smith, former Chair, accepted on behalf of the faculty as a whole)
- 1996 Not Awarded
- 1997 The Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Amedeo Giorgi
- 1998 The University of Florida Psychology Department, Arthur W. Combs
- 1999 Not Awarded
- 2000 The Focusing Institute and Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D.
- 2002 Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Robert Frager, Founder and Professor
- 2003-2008 Not Awarded
- 2009 York University Psychology Department, David Rennie
As founder of the Counselling Unit, Dave Mearns will accept the award and present a lecture in August 2010 at the APA meeting in San Diego.
Conference
Psychotherapy and Politics: Realising the Potential - 8th and 9th May 2009, Glasgow
The Counselling Unit are delighted to announce that, from the 8th to the 9th May 2009, we will be holding a conference at the Pearce Institute in Glasgow to explore the interface between psychological therapies and progressive political perspectives. Developing the themes of the 'Psychotherapy and Liberation' Conference held at the Institute of Group Analysis in May 2008, the conference will be exploring issues like:
- How can ideas and practices from the therapeutic realm contribute to enhanced social wellbeing?
- How can therapists work more effectively with clients from marginalised social groups?
- What can therapists do to bring about progressive social change?
New Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling Director
We are delighted to announce that, from December 2008, Lucia Berdondini will join the staff of the Counselling Unit as Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling.
Lucia, Italian, moved to England for the first time in 1993. Since then she has been working both in Italy and in the UK, as academic, psychologist, counsellor and psychotherapist. She was trained as Gestalt counsellor and, later, Gestalt psychotherapist in Italy, at the IGF (Istituto Gestalt Firenze), where she also studied Person Centred theories and practices. In 1999 she got her PhD at the University of Surrey Roehampton, School of Psychology and Counselling, with a thesis focused on anti-bullying intervention strategies in primary schools and children's emotional responses. During the time of PhD preparation she received some training in Person Centred Approach.
She has been working for the past 10 years in the UK (London area and Sussex) and in Italy (Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Liguria) with teachers and pupils of primary and secondary schools on intervention and research projects concerning anti-bullying strategies, social inclusion and integration of children with special needs. In 2004 with her colleague Dr Cathy Ota she has opened the Working With Others Research and Education Unit at the University of Brighton.
Lucia is a registered member of BACP since 2003 and works both in Italy and in the UK as private experiential psychotherapist with children, adolescents and adults, individually and in groups. More recently she was also trained in Psychology of Emergency. With some Italian colleagues she opened an association of emergency gestalt psychotherapy (IGE- Istituto Gestalt per le Emergenze), she collaborates with the Italian Red Cross as trainer on Psychology of Emergency and with PeaceWaves Onlus working on many projects carried out mainly in Afghanistan (she has been participating in several missions in Kabul) regarding orphanages, refugees and higher education (in collaboration with the University of Kabul). Her areas of interest, as practitioner and as researcher, are: crisis and emergency psychotherapy and psychology (with an experiential approach); counselling with children and adolescents involved in situations of abuse and/or living in extreme situations such as countries in war, orphanages, refugees camps, etc; school counselling.
Finally, Lucia has been practicing and teaching yoga for over 20 years, she loves travelling and taking long walks in the countryside with her dog Mara (indeed they are both very excited to move to Scotland!).