About
Relational Psychotherapy with David Slattery
I have been working as a therapist with individuals and couples since the late 1980's and supervising/training counsellors and psychotherapists for much of this time. I taught at the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling (1996-2016) and was involved in all aspects of training. In 2004 I co-founded the Centre for Relational Couples Therapy to provide training and supervision for those working with relationships.
Method
Over the years I have changed my method from one where I was taking a lot of responsibility for outcomes, to one where I see the work as coming out of a collaborative relationship.
I find the success of this movement both surprising and delightful!
In 2006 I was awarded a ‘post qualifying’ MA from Middlesex University my thesis was ‘Turning Relationship Ghosts into Ancestors: The use of intersubjective systems theory in navigating relational trauma states in couples therapy.’
This research paper helped me see that individual counselling and psychotherapy could learn a lot from the stuckness that couples often experience. By seeing parallels with the ‘therapeutic couple’ (counsellor and client), an impasse can more easily be seen as a relational creation.
I am interested in dreams and experiences that are brought to therapy, but most of all what happens between us. In relationship as alchemical vessel.
Training
My adult 'therapy education' began whilst working for the Schizophrenia Fellowship in the 1980's, I saw how damaging diagnosing and labelling can be. A great inspiration to me was reading Joe Berke's 'I haven't had to go mad in here', where he describes the work of the Arbours Crisis Centre where they believed that 'psychosis is a sane response to an insane situation'... unfortunately this is still, over 40 years later, a radical statement!
My therapy training proper began with Reichian Therapy, working directly with the body and breathing towards cathartic release. I then studied Bio-dynamic Psychology before continuing my training and qualifying, as a Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapist, at the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling. Subsequently, I trained in couples therapy with Gill Gabriel. Along the way I was influenced by Paul Rebilliot and the School of Gestalt and Experiential Studies, by Rich Hycner and Lynne Jacobs through Dialogical Gestalt and by Bob Stolorow, George Atwood and Donna Orange through Intersubjective-Systems Theory. Also by poetry, literature mythology and Jungian psychology.
Professional Association
- Emeritus Member and Graduate of Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling.
- UKCP Registered Psychotherapist and Approved Supervisor.
- ACTO Member.
- IARPP Member.
- TRS Member.
- GlosNet Member.
- CAPPP Member