The Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde, the Association for Person-Centred Creative Arts, and Person-Centred Therapy Scotland are delighted to have joined together to host the 6th PCE Europe Symposium. The symposium will take place in Glasgow and online, from Friday 21st until Sunday 23rd November 2025.
We warmly invite you to join us for an online discussion and symposium preview, exploring our theme:
Growing in Difficult and Challenging Places
Person-centred and experiential (PCE) approaches are vibrant and creative: surviving, thriving, fighting and flourishing even in the most difficult places. There is growth and development in our practice, our communities, in training, research, and in theoretical perspectives of the PCE approaches. Change and growth is an inevitable and trustworthy organismic response, which can take unexpected, surprising, creative, and challenging directions.
We will be exploring topics such as;
- Where are the growing edges in PCE approaches?
- How is the actualising tendency expressed in difficult circumstances?
- How are we responding to problems and challenges in our practice, and in our communities?
- How is our approach developing in the context of digital world?
- How are our PCE practices evolving?
- How are therapists and clients growing and developing?
- What are the challenges, creative responses and developments in PCE training?
- In what directions might the future growth of PCE approaches develop?
In this panel discussion, Fleur Farish-Edwards will introduce our keynote speakers: Brian Rodgers, Sonny Hallett, Suzanne Keys, and Marina Iossifides. Ani de la Prida, Barbara Malinen, Leonore Langner and Rachel McIlree will also join the discussion as representatives from each host organisation.
Course Content
Organisation
A person centred pluralistic ethos
Our approach based on understanding that creativity is crucial. It promotes empathy, non-directivity, and self expression, self-understanding and of course creativity. It can be used with adults, children, couples, and groups.
Person-centred creative arts therapy models were first developed around 50 years ago, and are an effective, powerful and a deeply transformative therapeutic approach. Our pluralistic perspective also places the client at the heart of therapy, and our approach draws on a range of concepts to collaboratively work with clients to support the therapeutic creative process.
Organisation
PCE World had its genesis in the mid 1990s after person-centred theoreticians and practitioners felt there was not an adequate representation of the PCA at the First World Conference on Psychotherapy (WCP) in July 1996.
Nearly 25 years since it was officially formed, our desire remains to be an identifiable, international organization serving as a world-wide forum.
Presenter
Ani de la Prida is a psychotherapist, creative arts counsellor, supervisor and author who brings a person-centred, pluralistic approach to her work and a passion for working with creative arts in therapy. Ani has over 20 years’ experience working with groups, adults, children, and young people in a wide range of settings and as a person-centred counselling trainer.
Ani was a senior lecturer at the University of East London for several years, where she also did her master’s research on the use of digital media in therapy. Ani now teaches and delivers workshops at various colleges and universities and at APCCA Training where she delivers courses in the therapeutic use of creative arts with a dedicated international team of trainers.
Ani is the founder and director of the Association for Person Centred Creative Arts (APCCA) and editor of the APCCA journal The Art of Insight and since recently relocating to Spain, maintains a small private practice of clients and supervisees.
Recent publications include chapters on Person-Centred Creative Arts Therapies in The Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation (2024), and in The Handbook of Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Counselling (2024) and a chapter on demedicalised counselling and psychotherapy with children and young people in People not Pathology: freeing therapy from the medical model (2023).
Ani is co-author of The Pluralistic Therapy Primer (2023) and is currently writing Person-Centred Experiential Art Therapy: A contemporary pluralistic person-centred approach for counselling, psychotherapy and art therapy (due 2026).
“I am a person-centred counsellor, supervisor, trainer and occasional mediator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I moved to Scotland in 1997 to train at the Counselling Unit, University of Strathclyde (then based at Jordanhill).
Prior to training as a counsellor, I had been a painter/sculptor, a waitress, a fundraiser and PA in a small charity, and several other things but none of them were my vocation. I was lucky to discover counselling as my passion. Since qualifying in 1998 I have worked in the voluntary sector (in many different agencies – including women’s services, and drug and alcohol services); in primary care, and in student counselling as well as building and maintaining a private practice.
Somewhere along the way I have also been a trainer on the professional counselling Diploma at University of Edinburgh and become a supervisor (trained at Temenos 2007 -09). I was a member of the Co-ordinating Group of PCT Scotland in the early 2000’s and rejoined the group at the beginning of this year. My responsibilities involve working with others on creating a CPD programme and liaising on behalf of PCT Scotland with PCE Europe.
In the past few years, I have developed a particular interest in power and how we use it and misuse it; how this relates to the training of new counsellors; and to how we are with ourselves and others especially, but not exclusively, clients. I am involved in a group of independent counsellors exploring how to develop a different approach to PCA training in Scotland – one which attempts to hold these complex issues of power and difference at its heart.
I am above all a practitioner, and my passionate interest in all of this is to be with and connect with people – practitioners, colleagues, clients, supervisees. I am excited about the opportunities created by the PCE Europe Symposium for Scottish and UK practitioners to connect with each other and with those from other parts of the world.”
Brian Rodgers is a senior lecturer and programme director for the counsellor education programmes at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brian has been involved with counsellor education over the last two decades at a number of institutions including Auckland University of Technology, University of Queensland in Australia, and University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He is a past Chair of PCE World (the World Association for Person Centred & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counselling), and was chair of the scientific committee for PCE 2021 in Auckland.
Brian’s research interests include person-centred and experiential counselling, pluralistic practice, client directed and outcome informed practice, integration of research into practice, client’s experience of therapy/research, technology and counselling/psychotherapy, bi-cultural approaches to counselling/psychotherapy, collaborative learning and counsellor education.
“As a person-centred and creative arts counsellor and supervisor, I bring over a decade of experience working with diverse clients and supervisees across a range of settings. I maintain memberships with the BACP and NCPS, run a small private practice and hold therapeutic creative arts workshops with my wife, Charlotte, as Two Birds Therapy.
Currently, I am a full-time lecturer at Edge Hill University, teaching on the undergraduate counselling and psychotherapy programmes for the past five years, with previous experience at the University Centre at Blackburn College. In addition to teaching, I am external examiner at two other universities, and I supervise both undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. I am also in the final stages of my Professional Doctorate in Psychotherapy Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), where my research focuses on the experiences of adopted adults.
I am a dedicated board member and tutor for the Association for Person-centred Creative Arts (APCCA), actively supporting its growth and development, and my passion lies in integrating creative arts within therapy, teaching, and research. Personal development in counsellor training and practice is close to my heart, and my ongoing involvement in conferences and encounter groups is central to my professional journey.
With APCCA co-hosting the 2025 PCE Symposium in Glasgow, I am really excited to co-create an inspiring and transformative weekend with all of you!”
Leonore Langner is a person-centred psychotherapist and sound therapist in private practice in Austria. She has further training in person-centred group therapy, trauma therapy and person-centred creative arts. For many years she worked in geriatric and palliative care units using Pre-Therapy and nonverbal methods with seriously ill, disabled and people in a persistent vegetative state. She is a tutor at the Peter Hess Academy (Austrian Institute for Sound-Massage-Therapy) and at APCCA (Association for Person Centred Creative Arts) and was chair of the board of PCE Europe from 2019-2025. Beside her client work she regularly holds workshops and lectures.
I am Person-Centred counsellor affiliated with ICPS (College for Humanistic Sciences) in Athens, Greece. I was born in the United States and am of Greek parentage. I was awarded my BA in 1982 in Cultural Anthropology, from the University of Chicago. In 1983 I moved to London completing my Masters (1984) and PhD (1990) at the London School of Economics in Social Anthropology. In 1990 I moved to Greece working as a lecturer of Anthropology from 1990 until 2000 at the University of the Aegean, and Panteion University, Athens.
I re-trained as a Person Centred Counsellor at TCPCA Athens (now ICPS) receiving my Diploma in Counselling from the University of Strathclyde in 2004. In 2017 I completed Natalie Rogers’ program in the Person-Centred Expressive Arts. I work as a trainer, therapist, and supervisor with ICPS and have presented papers and published a few articles in both fields.
“My name is Rachel McIlree and I have been a counsellor for 20 years. In recent years I have been based in the Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde, returning to where I had once been a student myself, although in those days of course it was the Jordonhill campus. I now enjoy being part of the team of tutors on our MSc courses, here at Strathclyde.
Since qualifying as a counsellor I have been lucky to work with many fascinating people in a wide range of services – as a counsellor, a supervisor and as a trainer. Initially trained in the Person-centred Approach this continues to the be the theoretical base for how I practice and how I make any sense of myself, others and the world. I am also a qualified Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and until recently have been involved in delivering CBT training too, developing a special interest in respectful discourse among therapeutic modalities, learning from one another as well as noticing and valuing important and significant differences.
I think this outlook has grown out of my experiences in my first field of study which was Theology. This established an enduring curiosity as to how we might better relate to differences we meet in one another, and also within ourselves, whether these encounters are welcome, wonderful, baffling or particularly difficult. I am appreciative of all the folks and communities who have contributed to my own experiences in this along the way, for their generosity with their own experiences!
Now working primarily with students and supervisee’s, I am continually moved by how often the extraordinary is to be found in the ordinary and how 20 years on in this world of counselling and psychotherapy, I can still anticipate surprise and the unexpected.”
Sonny Hallett is a Person Centred therapist, supervisor, and trainer, based in Edinburgh, UK, where they work in private practice predominantly with clients who straddle the intersections between neurodivergent, disabled, queer, and racial and ethnic minorities.
They are a co-founder and former chair of AMASE (Autistic Mutual Aid Society Edinburgh), and write and contribute to research on the experiences of minoritised populations. They also draw a lot on their own experience in their work and writing, as a trans, autistic, mixed race person who grew up travelling between the two very contrasting cultures of China and the UK.
They are particularly interested in the ways in which therapy can both challenge and reinforce normative and oppressive expectations, and how humans can understand each other better across gulfs of difference and complexity.
Suzanne has worked as a person-centred practitioner since 1997 in private practice and educational settings with young people in London, UK. Over the years she’s delivered workshops for person-centred colleagues all over Europe and in 1998 represented the British Association for Person-Centred Approach at the inaugural meeting in Luxembourg of the network now known as PCE Europe. She can also remember staying up late into the night working with colleagues on the first statutes of the PCE World Association in Chicago 2000.
She spent many years as part of the organising group for Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility involved in the political activism of therapy and currently co-facilitates their regular open encounter group on Examining Whiteness.
She has written articles and chapters and edited books and special issues of the PCEP journal on ethics, gender, ecotherapy, young people, disability, spirituality, human rights, idiosyncratic practice and her experience of training. Her taxonomy of love in person-centred therapy was published in BACP’s Therapy Today in 2017.
