Mortality stops feeling abstract when the data says dying from heart failure or dementia often means years of pain, breathlessness and loss of control. We start there—naming the clinical truth—so agency has solid ground. From that reality, we trace a through line: autonomy in assisted dying, the harm of social erasure, the courage of meaning-making after loss, and the quiet power of self-transcendence when death draws near.

We talk about shifting the assisted dying debate from paternalistic language to clear talk of choice, freedom and responsibility. We widen the lens with Professor Patrick Vernon’s use of social death to show how structures can strip personhood long before the body fails, linking it to Windrush and to workplace policies that diminish culturally rooted grief like nine nights. Against that, black joy and Afrofuturism emerge as living strategies—imagination, celebration and creation as acts of repair that clinicians must recognise and support.

On the intimate front, Professor Emmy Van Deurzen maps how despair grows when trust in life collapses, and how Jaspers’ limit situations—struggle, death, chance, guilt—can become thresholds for transformation. Dr Robert Neimeyer then offers the practice: meaning-focused grief therapy that helps clients relearn their physical world (umwelt), reorganise their relational world (mitwelt) and reauthor a reflexive narrative that can hold the loss without breaking. We share a challenging case of reframing suicide in a way that reduces torment and restores agency, noting the ethical care this requires.

As we face death, many try to outrun fear by building the self; terminal illness makes that strategy untenable. The more reliable path is self-transcendence—loosening the ego’s grip through connection to nature, community, creativity, contemplation or the divine. We explore why love, presence and a sense of mystery often help more than technique, and why psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy shows striking promise for existential distress by catalysing profound connectedness in a single, well-supported session.

The thread tying it all together is simple and demanding: people tend to die as they have lived. Practise agency, meaning-making and transcendence now, not later. If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help more practitioners find these tools—and keep the learning going with the full conference recordings in our library.

What if psychological pain isn’t abstract at all, but a real injury living in the nervous system—and what if listening to symptoms could change everything? We curated a week of powerful sessions that trace a clear arc: first the biology of trauma, then the context of identity and systems, and finally the intimate terrain of shame, fertility, death, and the will to live. The aim is simple and ambitious—give you precise tools and deeper frameworks so you can meet clients with steadier hands and wider eyes.

We start with practical, science-backed methods for regulation. EMDR and somatic psychotherapy specialist Joshua Isaac Smith offers techniques like digiting and savoring that help the parasympathetic “slow system” come back online, restoring executive function and connection. Building on that, Winnie E. Maduro maps the cumulative nature of stress, treating burnout as depletion rather than moral failure. Her approach blends strengths-based assessment with insights from neuroimaging to reveal what’s truly happening beneath the surface and where to intervene first.

From physiology, we zoom out to cognition and culture. Dr Lilia Wheatcraft reframes “weak central coherence” as a distinct, detail-focused cognitive style within autism, showing how context, clarity, and sensory-aware design unlock performance and dignity. Then Professor Patrick Vernon confronts systemic racism’s creation of social death, calling for culturally sensitive grief support and sustained anti-racist practice across healthcare and education. These sessions push us to refine our methods and our ethics in equal measure.

We close with the most human subjects of all. David Bedrick recasts symptoms as activism from the psyche, asking us to attend rather than erase. Sarah Crowley brings tenderness and structure to fertility work, turning isolation into shared language and choice. And in conversation across two sessions, Dr Nancy Hakim Dowick and Professor Emmy Van Dersen explore death as a field of meaning and the hard road from losing the will to live back to a resilient bond with life. Every piece is designed to be actionable and humane, so you can carry insight from the library straight into the room.

Ready to deepen your craft and widen your lens? Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review telling us which session you’ll watch first. Your practice—and your clients—will feel the difference.

View library here

https://onlinevents.co.uk/courses/

Welcome to Onlinevents, your home for high-quality professional development in counselling and psychotherapy.

In this video, we are delighted to feature Professor Windy Dryden as he introduces his new book, "50 Not Out! A Half Century of Working in the Field of Counselling and Psychotherapy".

Get your copy of the book here: https://amzn.to/467Gj0h

Join us for an exclusive insight into Professor Dryden's remarkable 50-year career, which began on 1st September 1975. This book is not an autobiography, but a personal and candid collection of memories and cherished ideas from a lifetime in therapy. Professor Dryden shares stories from his childhood, including overcoming a bad stammer, an experience that gave him early insight into anxiety and his own internal world.

Discover the key concepts that have defined his influential work, including:

Finding a Therapeutic Home: Professor Dryden charts his journey from Client-Centred Therapy to finding his "home" in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and, later, Single-Session Therapy (SST).

The Working Alliance: He discusses the profound impact of Ed Bordin's concept of the working alliance, which is built on Bonds, Goals, and Tasks, and adds his own crucial domain of "Views" to this framework.

Pluralism in Therapy: Learn about the value of adopting a "both-and" perspective, respecting the diversity of therapeutic approaches, and recognising that there is no single right way to help every client.

Being Client-Led: Understand the importance of putting the client in the driver's seat by respecting their goals and preferences for how they wish to be helped.

Strengths-Based Practice: Explore a therapeutic mindset that shifts from focusing on deficits to identifying and harnessing a client's inner resources, resilience, and strengths to overcome challenges.

Professor Dryden's professional life has been defined by a love of variety, a core value of autonomy, and a commitment to creativity and humour in therapy. He shares powerful lessons learned from mentors like Albert Ellis, Aaron T. Beck, and Arnold Lazarus, and reflects on the importance of embracing discomfort for professional growth.

This video offers a unique window into the mind of one of the field's most prolific and influential figures. Whether you are a trainee, an experienced practitioner, or a student of psychology, this is an unmissable opportunity to learn from a true expert.

If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more insightful content from leading figures in the world of therapy.

#WindyDryden #Psychotherapy #Counselling #REBT #SingleSessionTherapy #MentalHealth #50NotOut #CPD #Onlinevents

What if the most powerful therapeutic tool isn't found in dialogue, but in the rich landscape of internal images? Dr Dina Glauberman's transformative approach to image work goes beyond traditional visualization techniques, opening doorways to profound healing and self-discovery.

The distinction between "visualization" and "image work" isn't merely semantic—it fundamentally shifts how we engage with our inner world. While visualization suggests perfect mental pictures, image work embraces whatever form our internal impressions take: feelings, sounds, bodily sensations, or visual elements. This inclusive approach creates space for everyone, regardless of how they process internal experience.

At the heart of this methodology lies surrender—the willingness to relinquish control and allow wisdom to emerge from what Glauberman calls "the many rooms of consciousness." Like "dreaming together," practitioner and client access rich symbolic realms that offer perspectives logical thinking alone cannot reach. By becoming the image rather than just observing it, we gain insights that transform our understanding of ourselves and our relationships.

The course explores powerful experiential practices including the relationship exercise, where participants dialogue with an image using unfinished sentences before introducing a "wise being" who can love and understand both parties. The future-proofing exercise takes participants on a journey to contrasting futures—one where they've betrayed their authentic self and another where they've honored it—creating powerful clarity about current choices and patterns.

For helping professionals, these techniques offer valuable additions to our therapeutic toolkit, bypassing intellectual defenses to reach emotional cores. Whether working with relationship patterns, life direction uncertainties, or decision-making challenges, image work provides access to experiences beyond what clients can easily articulate in words.

Discover this 11-hour transformational journey in the Online Events Learning Library and explore how your clients' inner images might hold keys to doors you've yet to unlock. What hidden wisdom awaits in the unexplored rooms of consciousness?

Unlock the Power of Your Inner Images course link https://onlinevents.co.uk/courses/introduction-to-imagework-course-glouberman/

Trauma doesn't just live in our stories—it's stored in our bodies as unresolved survival energy. Kate Williams' Foundation Certificate in Somatic Trauma Theory and Skills offers transformative insights into this physical dimension of trauma healing that we're genuinely excited to share with you.

The course begins by establishing a crucial distinction between everyday stress and trauma. While stress typically resolves after the threat passes, trauma involves survival responses—fight, flight, or freeze—that remain incomplete, trapping energy within the body. This unmetabolized energy keeps the nervous system perpetually on edge, creating a profound disconnect from bodily sensations and safety.

At the heart of Williams' approach is the Window of Tolerance—that sweet spot where clients can engage effectively with therapy. Outside this window, whether in hyperarousal (anxiety, racing thoughts) or hypoarousal (numbness, shutdown), meaningful processing simply can't happen. The course offers an impressive toolkit of somatic exercises to help clients regulate: orienting to the room, havening touch techniques, body tapping, grounding through the feet, and targeted breathing patterns that directly engage the vagus nerve to signal safety to the brain.

We were particularly struck by Williams' work on boundaries and embodiment. Trauma fundamentally disrupts our sense of self and ability to maintain healthy limits. The "finding the no" exercise, where clients physically push away while verbalizing boundaries, creates what she calls an "act of triumph"—allowing the body to reclaim agency that wasn't possible during trauma. Similarly, the boundary circle exercise helps clients reconnect with core identity separate from others' needs or expectations.

The therapeutic relationship takes on specific dimensions in trauma work. Unlike conventional therapy that might prioritize insight, trauma processing focuses first on regulation and safety. The therapist creates a container for the body to complete interrupted survival responses—which might look like shaking, pushing movements, or spontaneous releases. Through techniques like titration and deliberate sensory breaks, clients can process difficult material without overwhelming their systems.

Ready to transform your trauma work with these embodied approaches? Explore the full course in our Learning Library through our £9.99 monthly subscription, or purchase it individually. For those seeking formal qualification, this Foundation Certificate is your first step towards Kate Williams' Level 5 Award in Trauma-Informed Therapy. Because when we truly understand that trauma lives in the body, we unlock unprecedented potential for healing.

Foundation Certificate Course Link https://onlinevents.co.uk/courses/foundation-certificate-in-somatic-trauma-theory-and-skills-with-kate-williams/