Separation, Individuation and Loss

For our 2026 programme, Wessex Psychotherapy Society will be focusing on the linked themes of separation, individuation and loss.

Separation from our earliest caregivers is seen as a major developmental task, when successfully enough achieved, it allows us to pursue our lives as fully realised individuals, able to relate to others understood to be distinct from ourselves.

Melanie Klein suggests that the foundation of this is the introjection of a good object around which the baby’s ego can cohere, allowing the feeling that the world is a loving, life-affirming enough place to venture into, in no small part due to the eventual management of feelings of hate and aggression. Her depressive position recognises the wholeness and otherness of our loved ones, with our guilt for having hurt them and the possibility of reparation.

Beyond early experiences, navigating seismic emotional shifts in adult life often challenge our sense of individuation, and it is often an echo of these early difficulties in the here-and-now which bring our clients and patients to seek help.

Our speakers this year will help us to think about this topic from a variety of perspectives. We hope you feel inspired to come along and be part of our exploration of this.

Wednesday 11th February 2026, 19.30-21.00

AGM and Paper: John Bowlby’s A Two Year Old Goes to Hospital.

NB: this meeting will be held by Zoom only

Wednesday 11th March 2026, 19.30-21.00

Dr Adrian Sutton - Psychiatrist and Psychodynamic Organisational Therapist registered with the BPC, He is a Fellow and recently-retired Director of The Squiggle Foundation, the purposes of which are the study and application of the ideas of Donald Winnicott.

NB: this meeting will be held by Zoom only

Wednesday 8th April 2026, 19.30-21.00

 Emilia Halton-Hernandez - BPC Council Scholars Network, Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies. Author of The Marion Milner method: Psychoanalysis, autobiography, creativity.

NB: this meeting will be held by Zoom only

Wednesday 13th May 2026, 19.30-21.00

Speaker TBC

Wednesday 10th June 2026, 19.30-21.00

 Jo-Anne Graham, MA, BPC, Psychodynamic Psychotherapist - Jo-Anne will present her paper on the psychological impact of the menopause and its treatment.

Jo-Anne will speak in-person.

Wednesday 8th July 2026, 19.30-21.00

 Maxine Dennis, BPC - Maxine is a Psychoanalyst, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Organisational Consultant. She has undertaken various service Head and Departmental Lead roles within the NHS. Maxine was also a senior clinician in the Tavistock Trauma service and Fitzjohn’s Service (for complex presentations). She was chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council Task group on Ethnicity and Culture and Chair of Ethics for the (Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists). She is involved in teaching, training and supervising in the UK and abroad. Maxine's talk will approach the theme of separation, individuation and loss in relation to migration and displacement.

Wednesday 9th September 2026, 19.30-21.00

Jason Wright -  Jason trained at the AIP and CTP, and has an MA in intercultural and group analytic psychotherapy through Goldsmiths College.

Wednesday 11th October 2026, 19.30-21.00

Kristin White, Dipl.-Psych. - Psychoanalyst, Alfred-Adler Institute Training Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Berlin. Kristin’s talk will focus on when remote analysis is used as an attack on the therapeutic frame.

NB: this meeting will be held by Zoom only

Wednesday 11th November 2026, 19.30-21.00

Speaker TBC

NB: this meeting will be held by Zoom only