Friday 9^th May 2025 9.30am-4.30pm

Phil McEvoy (PhD) is a BPC Registered Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapist. He combines a part-time private practice as an adult psychodynamic psychotherapist with work for Age UK Salford. 

Phil, will facilitate a day’s training at GCS to think about:

• how as counsellors we can best communicate and work with individuals with a dementia diagnosis  

• or help to support someone to communicate with an individual with a dementia diagnosis.  

• We will consider what an individual with dementia would identify as a good conversation? 

Phil is known for two contributions to dementia care:

A communication skills training course called Empowered Conversations and Empowered Carers, an online counselling programme for family carers of people with dementia.  Empowered Conversations is based on a Communication Empowerment Framework developed with Age UK Salford’s academic partners. The framework highlights seven key challenges to communication and interaction that influence the carer’s relationship with the person with dementia. Empowered Carers was inspired by the New York University Caregiver Intervention. Longitudinal studies have shown that this integrative counselling intervention improves the quality of life of people with dementia and the mental health of family carers and delays the need for a place in a nursing home. 

Phil’s work emphasises the importance of understanding the individual experiences and needs of people with dementia, as well as the role of caregivers in providing compassionate and effective support. His counselling work draws on psychodynamic principles by locating the impact of primitive defensive mechanisms that people with dementia and their carers fall back on when they are under stress. We will consider transference, countertransference, and mentalisation. 

Time

Friday 9^th May 2025 9.30am-4.30pm.

Venue

Gloucestershire Counselling Service

Alma House, 52 / 53 High Street
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 1AP

Book Tickets

To book your space, please register below.

£67.00 Per Person for External Attendees

£55.00 Per Person for Internal Attendees