The Annual General Meeting of the Division of Counselling Psychology will be held on Friday 16 July 2021 at 5.00pm via Zoom.

You must be signed-in to access the following materials

• Download the Agenda and Reports (member only) 

​​​​​​​If you have any queries regarding the AGM, nominations or resolutions, please email Member Network Services

The Annual General Meeting of the Division of Counselling Psychology – Northern Ireland will be held on Thursday 15 April 2021 at 1.00pm via Zoom. 

Please note the change in AGM time.

You must be signed-in to access the following materials

• Download the Agenda and Reports (member only)

If you have any queries regarding the AGM, nominations or resolutions, please email Member Network Services

The Division of Counselling Psychology North West are calling for statement of interests.

The deadline for submitting an statement of interest form is now closed.

Elections will be formally ratified at the next Committee meeting for Division of Counselling Psychology North West on Thursday 11 February 2021

If you have any queries regarding submitting an statement of interest please email Member Network Services

The Annual General Meeting of the Division of Counselling Psychology - Scotland will be held on Wednesday 28 April 2021 at 4.00pm, via Zoom.  

You must be signed-in to access the following materials

• Download the Agenda and Reports (member only) 

If you have any queries regarding the AGM, nominations or resolutions, please email Member Network Services

The Annual General Meeting of the Division of Counselling Psychology - Wales will be held on Friday 4 June 2021 at 10.00am via Zoom. 

You must be signed-in to access the following materials

• Download the AGM agenda and reports (member only) 

If you have any queries regarding the AGM, nominations or resolutions please email Member Network Services. 

• DCoP Newsletter - February 2021

• DCoP Newsletter - January 2021 

• DCoP Newsletter - October 2020

• DCoP Newsletter - May 2020

• DCoP Newsletter - April 2020

• DCoP Newsletter - March 2020

• DCoP Newsletter - February 2020

• DCoP Newsletter - January 2020

A new Chair's Perspective on volunteering: Work, Life and Counselling Psychology 

I won't lie, I always feel a little out of sorts when I go for long periods of time without volunteering in some capacity. I've volunteered in various ways for more than half my life, and I can't imagine not doing so. I started volunteering at school as a mentor and then as I accrued my training hours during my doctorate. And so many other ways in between and since.

I am not unaware of the challenges of volunteering - in many ways it is a privilege. I feel that its important that I use my privilege (such as it is, as an LGBTQ+ Asian woman) to support those that don't have the same opportunities as me, to get to those opportunities if they want them.

Less than a month after I submitted my thesis edits, I called the BPS and said I needed a new project to get involved with. Yes, I needed one - without some purpose I felt rudderless, so not all of my reasons are altruistic. But, most are. I want to further our profession, and I first did this by being part of the conference committee. I continued to work with DCoP, and now that I am the communications lead, I feel like my contribution is intrinsically about furthering Counselling Psychology.

I was not a born communicator, and of course I get things wrong all the time! Volunteering doesn't require a special skill, it asks that you are curious, passionate and diligent. You learn many skills, and make many connections - from BPS presidents to first year trainees, and bit by bit, you grow as a person, whilst developing others and furthering the profession.

The division is its members. When colleagues say 'what is the division up to?' I want to remind them that they are the division. The executive committee merely represents their views and priorities. The 'Division' is what its members are and want. It's a hungry beast with many moving parts, and whilst it pulls you in to some noble cause and takes up time, it also produces exceptional scientist practitioners with a thirst for developing CoP, leaders in their respective fields.

This is a call to arms. Never has Mental Health and Psychological wellbeing been more vitally important than in the midst and aftermath of a global existential threat to survival. Get involved in the conversations and the tasks that move our profession forward. Some examples of ways to get involved, big and small are included in this newsletter. Get in touch with questions and comments - we look forward to having you on board.

Dr Neha Cattra is a Senior Chartered Counselling Psychologist based in West Sussex, working in Adult Mental Health. A passionate volunteer, coffee addict and cat lover, she can usually be found making a racket in the kitchen.

Like many of us, I have spent many an hour contemplating what our professional roles will look like in the future in the aftermath of COVID-19. For people in points of life transition this is likely to be poignant: for students embarking on a new life away from home at university, for trainee psychologists who have visualised being in the full throes of (face-to-face) professional practice and for some people who had previously developed a new healthier relationship with psychological distress, the global pandemic has forced us to re-write our plans, at least for now.

Recently, I wrote an article for The Psychologist – A jolt of transformation which explores people’s evolving relationship with their anxiety and its potential impact on CBT protocols in a post-COVID-19 reality. But, I would anticipate that COVID-19’s kinship with anxiety and the resonance of public health advice during the pandemic is particularly pressing for clients experiencing obsessive compulsive disorder with cleaning rituals.

I have long felt an affinity for clients with this presentation, as the wider public sometimes belittles their distress with reference to themselves being a “a bit OCD” because they like to keep their fridge magnets in order. The reality for me, is that the experience of OCD is far more sinister. It can represent a metaphorical ransomer that issues threats and holds loved ones hostage. For clients with obsessive thoughts about loved ones being contaminated, it is a case of ‘complete the compulsion or else’. To compound this distress, the mere presence of such intrusive thoughts results in clients assuming a moral responsibility to save their loved one’s from catastrophe – to pay the ransomer in time – to complete the next compulsion or confront the consequences.

I have also found myself thinking about the past and historical clients with this presentation. Clients who were ravaged by their compulsive cleaning and obsessional fears about contaminating their loved ones with deadly infectious diseases, but through their engagement and hard work, managed to break their patterns of hypervigilance, intrusive obsessional thoughts, compulsive cleaning and magical thinking. In our current COVID-19 filled reality, I can imagine that there are far more ransomers ominously lurking for people who have experienced OCD symptoms, past and present. Furthermore, the pandemic is likely to present challenges to those CBT interventions that have historically promoted exposure to unsanitised behaviour and conditions (for example Exposure Response Prevention). I would suggest that this renders counselling psychologists’ ability to work pluralistically, collaboratively and phenomenologically more essential than ever before.

Daren Lee is in the write-up stage of a Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at London Metropolitan University. The themes outlined above are the subject of a case study entitled Unveiling the Ransomer, which explores a psychodynamic reformulation of OCD.