Psychodynamic Psychiatry Day 2024 Resources 

Welcome to the Faculty of Medical Psychotherapy Psychodynamic Psychiatry Day 2024 | Trouble in mind, yours or mine - the location of disturbance in the patient clinician relationship

We look forward to welcoming you to London.

For the morning session on The Ailment: Who has the ailment? A 21st century look at a classic paper, with Dr Gwen Adshead, attendees are invited to read the paper (PDF) in advance.

The event will take place at:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists,
21 Prescot Street,
London E1 8BB

View our visiting us page for further details.

The Citymapper website/App can help you plan your route within London, giving you the best walking, cycling, bus and tube routes. Use postcode E1 8BB as your desitination.

Union members working for London Underground have announced strike action for from 6.00pm on Friday 1 November. If the strike action goes ahead, your London Underground journey may be impacted. You can keep up to date at TFL


Dr Gwen Adshead trained as a forensic psychiatrist at St George's hospital ; and then as a forensic psychotherapist. I am trained as a group analyst, in mindfulness based cognitive therapy and in mentalisation based therapy. I have a long standing interest in the psychological treatment of complex conditions in psychiatry; and in ethical dilemmas in mental health services.

Dr Georgina Corbet Burcher is a speciality trainee in medical psychotherapy and general adult psychiatry. She has worked in the Cassel Hospital in both the inpatient and outreach services, and has developed an understanding and deep regard for the workings of a therapeutic community through this. She highly values the Cassel structures that encourage patients and clinicians to examine and explore their relationships. She also draws on her experiences in other healthcare environments to think about what happens between patients and professionals when they meet to try and make sense of - and hopefully improve - a patient’s difficulties. She has an interest in co-production to put patients’ narratives at the heart of research and service improvement.

Dr Rachel Gibbons has worked in the NHS over the past 20 years in various psychiatric settings as a consultant psychiatrist and consultant medical psychotherapist. She is a psychoanalyst and group analyst and Chair of the Working Group on the Effect of Suicide and Homicide on Psychiatrists and Vice-Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty, at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Dr Jo O'Reilly is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy and the Chair of the Medical Psychotherapy Faculty at the RCPsych. Together with Rachel Gibbons she has developed the Psychodynamic Psychiatry seminar series for the past 8 years and is co-editor and chapter author for the RCPsych textbook Seminars in the Psychotherapies, second edition.

Dr Maria Papanastassiou Consultant psychiatrist and group analyst who has conducted large groups at the college over the last few years.

Simmi Protab is the Clinical Nurse Manager at the Cassel Inpatient service in West London NHS Trust. She completed her masters in Psychotherapeutic Approached in Mental with Buckingham New University.

Professor Russell Razzaque has been a Consultant Psychiatrist for nearly 20 years and also a part-time academic for the last 10. He is an Associate Medical Director and Director of R&D at his NHS Trust as well as the Clinical Director for Community Mental Health Transformation.

Russell is also an Open Dialogue trainer and a Mindfulness teacher and his areas of research interest are around person-centred care and therapeutic relationships and how they can be cultivated and embedded into mainstream care. His academic work is based at LSBU and UCL where he is the clinical lead for the multicentre randomised controlled trial, ODDESSI, studying the implementation of Open Dialogue in the NHS.
Russell has published a range of papers in peer-reviewed journals and also written several books in his areas of research interest and he also provides strategic and policy advice to the UK Home Office.

Paul Stokes is a psychosocial nurse with the Cassel Outreach Service. I've worked at the Cassel for nine years. Prior to that, I worked as a nurse in a high secure forensic setting.

Giles Story is a psychiatrist working in the NHS in London, with an active research interest in psychotherapy for personality disorder. He has recently qualified as a psychotherapist with the Institute of Group Analysis. He is a member of the  Executive Committee for the RCPsych Medical Psychotherapy Faculty. 

Chris Young is a husband, a friend, a stepfather, mental health activist and advocate. I was a social worker for 17 years prior to being given the label of Borderline Personality Disorder. I joined the NNCMH at the beginning of 2023 as part of a project to challenge the prejudice and discrimination experienced by people with ‘Personality Disorder’.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Benji Waterhouse will be giving a reading from his book: You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here: A Psychiatrist's Life.

Presenter slides are made available with kind permission of speakers.

Thank you for attending the conference. We'd really appreciated it if you could spend a few moments completing this feedback form and letting us know what went well and if there were any aspects that could be improved.

All comments received remain confidential and are viewed in an effort to improve future events.

You will automatically receive a certificate if attendance 1 week after the event has taken place.

This conference is eligible for up to 6 CPD hours  subject to peer group approval.