How to Reframe the Transition to Post Menopause as a Creative Turning Point, A Society of Psychotherapy Workshop with Dr Stella Duffy
Long before French physician Gardenne coined the term ‘menopause’ in 1821, both women and men were believed to experience 'the climacteric’, signifying a crucial turning point in life.
While this crux was often associated with a decline in reproductive ability, it was considered a shift, rather than an end point. How might it benefit our clients and ourselves if we were to attend more closely to our culture’s ageist assumptions and our own internalised ageism?
What if we looked beyond colonial Euro-North American ideas of ageing to learn from other cultures? And what creative possibilities might open for us if we perceived the transition to postmenopause and the start of old(er) as signifiers of change rather than dead ends?
Bring your ageing insights, questions, concerns and hopes!
Course Content
Organisation
The Society, founded in 1998, sponsors lectures and seminars on all aspects of psychotherapy.
Presenter
Digby worked in the NHS for nearly 40 years as a general psychiatrist and later a consultant psychotherapist. He began the first clinic in the world for the assessment of autistic adults in 1980. He is an existential psychotherapist and a group analyst. He is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry in the University of Sheffield; a Visiting Professor of Psychology at Middlesex University; and Deputy Principal of the New School of Psychotherapy in London, where He is course leader for the MA in Diversity Studies.
Stella is an existential psychotherapist in private practice having also worked in cancer support in the NHS and hospice bereavement support. She teaches on the Development Through the Life Span and Existential Theory and Practice modules at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Her doctoral research was in the embodied experience of postmenopause. The co-founder and for eight years the co-director of Fun Palaces, supporting community-led co-creation across the UK, she has been active in equalities work in the arts and LGBTQ+ communities for many decades. In 2016 she was awarded the OBE for Services to the Arts. An award-winning writer of 17 novels, over 70 short stories and 15 plays, Stella is also a theatremaker with a particular interest in the creative possibilities of existential psychotherapy.
