LECTURERS
Michael Brearley is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society, having been President from 2008 to 2010. Before training he was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and as a professional cricketer, captaining England for almost four years. Since qualifying his main work has been as a psychoanalyst in private practice in London, as well as teaching and lecturing on a range of topics. He has also worked as a Nursing Assistant at a clinic for disturbed adolescents, a school counsellor and in a local Psychotherapy Unit. He was chairman of the Applied Section for ten years. His books (especially The Art of Captaincy 1985, On Form 2017, and Spirit of Cricket: Reflections on Play and Life, 2021) attempt to bring a psychoanalytic attitude to sport and to other fields.
Dr Avi Shmueli is a Psychoanalyst and Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, having initially trained as a clinical psychologist and completed a research doctorate at UCL. He has worked in the NHS, the Anna Freud Centre and was a staff member at Tavistock Relationships for many years. He now works in private practice and is the Head of the Divorce and Separation Service of the Tavistock Relationships. He is also an assessor on the MSc in Psychoanalytic Theory at University College London. He has wide ranging interest including the application of clinical psychoanalytic principles to work in the civil, family and criminal courts.
Susan Lawrence is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and is in private practice in London. She teaches and supervises in the UK and internationally. She is a member of the Melanie Klein Trust. She has been the Chair of Outreach for the BPAS and is a contributor to a forthcoming book On being oneself. Clinical explorations in identity from John Steiner’s Workshop.
Denis Flynn is a Training and Supervising Analyst and a Child Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society (IPA), a Child Psychotherapist (Tavistock Clinic), and a Chair of Education at the British Psychoanalytic Society. He has worked extensively in the public health services (NHS) and in private practice. He is involved in Psychoanalytic Education at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, and is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University College London, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Essex. His international activities include clinical supervision to trainees and analysts world-wide (Germany, Ireland, Australia) and study groups in France, the USA, Brazil, France, and Morocco. His published work focuses on child and adolescent psychoanalysis, and the work of Wilfred Bion. Author of Severe Emotional Disturbances in Children and Adolescents: Psychotherapy in Applied Contexts (2004), co-editor of The Internal and External Worlds of Children and Adolescents: Collaborative Therapeutic Care (2003).
Angela Joyce is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a Child Analyst trained at the Anna Freud Centre, London where she helped pioneer psychoanalytic parent infant psychotherapy. She also shared the leadership of the child psychotherapy service there. She is currently Chair of the Winnicott Trust and a Trustee of the Squiggle Foundation, and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College London. She is one of the leading thinkers on the work of Donald W. Winnicott, and in her work focuses on the psychodynamics of human development. Editor of Donald W. Winnicott and the History of the Present (2017), co-author of The Practice of Parent Infant Psychotherapy (2005 & 2016), co-editor of Reading Winnicott with Lesley Caldwell (2011).
Dr Jane Peringer is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She works full time as a psychoanalyst and is very interested in assessment and development of capacity in both patients and analysts, as well as in comparing different clinical approaches to psychoanalytic work.
Dr Kate Pugh is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy working in NHS alongside practicing as a Psychoanalyst. She teaches psychoanalytic concepts to mental health workers in London and abroad, and has taught on Wilfred Bion, psychosomatic presentations, and more recently on psychoanalysis and politics. Contributor to A Deeper Cut: Further Explorations of the Unconscious in Social and Political Life (2021) edited by David Morgan.
Margaret Rustin is a Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychotherapist, and was Head of the Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic from 1985 to 2007, where she was also a Dean of Postgraduate Studies. She is a Honorary Associate of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She has written on many aspects of the practice and teaching of child analysis and on the contribution of psychoanalysis to the appreciation of literature. Co-author with Michael Rustin of Reading Klein (2016), Mirror to Nature: Drama, Psychoanalysis and Society (2002), co-editor and contributor of Short-term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for Adolescents with Depression (2016), Young Child Observation (2013), Assessment and Child Psychotherapy (2000).
Francis Grier is the Editor-In-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and a Training Analyst and Supervisor of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He leads a seminar for the psychotherapists in the Fitzjohn’s Unit in the Tavistock Clinic, which specialises in working psychoanalytically with patients who would not normally have access to psychoanalytic treatment. He has written and edited papers, chapters and two books on couple psychotherapy, including Oedipus and the Couple (2005, Karnac), and papers for the IJP on two Verdi operas (Rigoletto and La Traviata), on a gendered approach to Beethoven, on musicality in the consulting room, and on the music of the drives and perversions. Before training psychoanalytically, he was a professional musician. He gave the first ever solo recital at a Royal Albert Hall Proms concert in 1985, and in 2012 was awarded a British Composer Award.
Dr Gigliola Fornari Spoto is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytic Society, Trustee of Melanie Klein Trust. She trained in Medicine and Psychiatry in Italy and then at the British Institute of Psychoanalysis. Her work focuses on different aspects of psychoanalytical training, as well as on more particular issues such as anxiety, and the Oedipus complex. Contributor of “The Psychoanalytical Training in Flux” in The Future of Psychoanalysis (2017), and editor of the Recovery of the Lost Good Object (2006) by Eric Brenman.
Michael Mercer is Vice President of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a Fellow and Flexible Training Analyst. He is a past Chair of the Ethics Committee and of the Clinical Services Committee of the BPAS. He is a past Chair of the Professional Standards Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council. He is a former Clinical Director of the Adult Department of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust. He was the senior manager of mental health services in Kensington and Chelsea in London. As well as his clinical work and supervision, he has a long-standing interest in organisations and the problems for professional in working together. He published Bearable or Unbearable: Unconscious communication in management (2008).
DISCUSSION GROUPS LEADERS
Gordana Batinica is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a Child Psychotherapist trained at the Tavistock Clinic. From 1989 to 2003 she worked as a psychiatrist and a child psychotherapist in NHS. She now works in private practice in London and teaches and supervises both in the UK (London, Oxford) and internationally (Serbia, Belarus). She is a former honorary lecturer in the Adult Department, Tavistock Clinic. She is the current Honorary Secretary of the Education Committee of the BPAS. She was born in Belgrade where she specialized in neuropsychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine. Before moving to London she worked at the Clinic for Child and Adolescent Neurology and Psychiatry, University Clinical Centre of Serbia. She is a Member of Centre for Psychoanalysis: Clinic & Theory, Belgrade.
Brankica Aćimović is a Psychoanalyst of the Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society. She is a member of International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). Prior to her private psychoanalytical practice, she worked for many years as a psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry at University Clinical Centre of Serbia. She is a Member of Centre for Psychoanalysis: Clinic & Theory, Belgrade, and is one of the editors of Dovoljno dobro roditeljstvo (Good Enough Parenting, Narodna knjiga, 2006).
Biljana Pirgić is a Psychoanalyst of the Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society and child and adolescent psychotherapist. She works in private practice since 2009. Prior to this she worked at Mental Health Institute, Belgrade and Clinical Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović, Belgrade. She is a member of International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), of Society for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy of Serbia (UDAPS), and of European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF). She is a Member of Centre for Psychoanalysis: Clinic & Theory, Belgrade, and is one of the editors of Dovoljno dobro roditeljstvo (Good Enough Parenting, Narodna knjiga, 2006).
Dr Tanja Nešić is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist trained at the Tavistock Clinic. Prior to training as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist she trained as a Clinical Psychologist. She was the Head of Service and Clinical Director within NHS CAMHS over many years, being responsible for the delivery of child psychotherapy services in five CFCSs covering a large geographical area. She is currently working as a Clinical Director, heading an independent CAMHS and a multidisciplinary court assessment team, as well as in private practice. She is consulting and supervising both in the UK and abroad. She was born in SFRJ before moving to the UK in 1988.
Dr Marija Stojković is a psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychotherapist. After specializing in psychiatry in Belgrade, she continued her education in London at the Tavistock Clinic and Anna Freud Centre. In 2004 she qualified as child and adolescent psychotherapist, and in 2016 as parent-infant psychotherapist. She worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at NHS, where she also supervised candidates in child and adolescent psychotherapy. For the past twenty years, she lectured at various institutes at the UK, such as the Tavistock Clinic, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the Essex University, and Anna Freud Centre. She was baby observation seminar leader at Anna Freud Centre, as well as at the AGIP (Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy). At Anna Freud Centre she was also an observation module lead in two MA programmes until 2017. She is currently a lecturer and supervizor at UDAPS in Belgrade and a visiting lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic and Anna Freud Centre.