Division of Counselling Psychology Annual Conference 2025

In this keynote I will explore how the practices of both psychotherapy and writing about psychotherapy are (or can be) about attending to the everyday: how the everyday is not (only) mundane but replete with possibility, not (only) a given but riven with contingencies, not (only) prosaic but imbued with the poetic; and how psychotherapy (and writing about psychotherapy) involve the everyday body, its losses, joys, mess, beauty, and contradictions. This is the everyday of Deleuze and Guattari's 'immanent materialism', an everyday concerned with the flow, the affective politics, the assemblage of the moment: the creative-relational event replete with potentialities. The keynote will inquire into what happens if we allow the everyday of both psychotherapy and inquiry – opening a laptop, greeting a client, the momentary look to one side, stepping to avoid a puddle, the closing of a door, the clearing of a throat – to become strange; and how a body in its everyday movements remembers, knows, conveys, carries, mourns; what is lost but present. What does such attention – such an eye, such an ear, such an attunement of the senses – make possible?

Jonathan is Professor of Qualitative Inquiry and co-director of the Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry at the University of Edinburgh. He trained as a counsellor, part-time, at the Isis Centre in Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, completing his MSc in 2001. For ten years, until July 2011, he worked one day a week in the NHS as a counsellor in primary care and, until moving to Edinburgh in September 2013, ran a small private counselling and supervision practice. He originally worked as an English teacher, then subsequently in youth and community work, before moving into staff development and training.  He completed his doctorate at Bristol in narrative and life story research in 2008. His book, Therapy, Stand-up, and the Gesture of Writing: Towards Creative-Relational Inquiry, published by Routledge, won the 2020 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Book Award. He is working on another book with Routledge, Writing, the Everyday, and Creative-Relational Inquiry, due to be completed around the time of this conference. With Keith Tudor, he co-edited Qualitative Research Approaches for Psychotherapy, published in 2023, and they (well, their contributors) are working on a second volume, to be published later this year, with Routledge again.

This keynote will introduce participants to a trauma-informed approach for understanding and treating medically unexplained symptoms, focusing on working with migraines and fibromyalgia. It will explore how unprocessed traumas and these persistent symptoms are linked, offering an alternative pathway to recovery with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy Protocols. Participants will engage with real case formulations and see how EMDR can be used to improve the quality of life of people with migraines and fibromyalgia. Participants will be able to access the migraine and fibromyalgia scales used in EMDR Therapy. We will look at case formulation and treatment planning with medically unexplained symptoms, how EMDR can be helpful for those with chronic headaches and fibromyalgia and how to manage relationship problems related to chronic pain.

Dr. Zeynep Zat is a Counselling Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and an EMDR Trainer and Consultant accredited by EMDR Europe and approved by EMDR UK. She operates under her private practice, the Institute for Change in the UK and is a trainer in Solution Focused Therapy Approach. Internationally recognized for her expertise, Dr. Zat has worked extensively across the UK and Türkiye. She serves as a board member for EMDR Türkiye Association and is a valued member of the Accreditation Committee of the EMDR UK Association. Her work spans clinical practice, research, and humanitarian aid projects internationally. She has provided trauma therapy to adults for more than a decade and had a critical role in Humanitarian Aid and Research Projects, especially known for her voluntary work with Syrian refugees on the Türkiye-Syria border, leading EMDR Recent Traumatic Episode Protocol (R-TEP) and Group Traumatic Episode Protocol (G-TEP) interventions that were published in Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT). In recognition of her groundbreaking research on the EMDR treatment of Fibromyalgia, she was awarded a $25,000 grant from the EMDR Research Foundation to continue this research. She has also contributed chapters to key publications on trauma treatment, including works published by Springer, focusing on the EMDR treatment of migraines and fibromyalgia and also EMDR G-TEP.

As digital technologies increasingly mediate how we interact with our own and others' bodies, what becomes of physical co-presence and the embodied experiences that we've historically assumed to be at the heart of human connection? This keynote examines the evolving interplay of digital technologies, our physical bodies, and our embodied relations with one another, from parenting through the interface to health-focused wearable devices to elder tech that attempts to counterbalance the vulnerabilities of the aging body—themes explored in Elaine's recent book Reset: Rethinking Your Digital World for a Happier Life. The talk further explores how counselling psychology has traditionally viewed shared physical space as essential for relational depth and considers how pandemic-driven shifts to virtual practice have reshaped this understanding. Through blending this keynote address with interactive elements, the talk will explicitly invite participants to reflect on how their digital lives shape their relationships with their own and others' physicality—and to consider how embracing both physical co-presence and the possibilities of technological mediation can enrich connection and care in counselling psychology and beyond.

Dr Elaine Kasket is an expert on technology's role within our work, individual psychology, and relationships. In a tech-dominated world, she helps her audiences and clients centre their humanity, nurture their connections with others, and maximise mindful, values-aligned personal and relational agency. Her latest book is Reset: Rethinking Your Digital World for a Happier Life (2024). She is a leading Counselling Psychologist, inspiring keynote speaker, ICF- and EMCC-accredited transformational coach, and seasoned storyteller.