Making Connections programme
Edinburgh, Wednesday 26 November 2025

We’re delighted to welcome back our free in-person Making Connections events.

These regular face to face conferences take place throughout the year and give you the chance to network with other members and our divisional executive members.

10.50am – 11.35am

The aim of the session will be to educate professionals and those involved and interested in the field around how the impact of maintaining, upholding and aligning to reputation in the Asian community impacts their relationships.

To provide insight to people about where it (reputation) stems from and the historical nature of it. This would look at how intergenerational trauma can also play a part in this and how upbringing for people culminates in their every day life. The focus here would be looking at history and the importance of how ‘looking’ and ‘being’ good in your community was a sign of status, but also a mark of respect and adherence to the community you lived in.

To share knowledge and experience to people as to why it is so important for people in the Asian community to uphold this and the significance of ensuring that this is at the heart of what they do and the decisions they may make

To inform people when this may occur and how might that happen in relationships or how it looks. This would zone in on looking for signs and being aware of situations and events that predominately activate the reputation of a person/family/community. For instance, weddings, parties or any social events are often seen as a trigger for many, but due to the nature of where people are and their communtities present, they are often silenced and not able to speak up in fear or ruining or harming their families reputation. The significance of this being that often people are out enjoying themselves for a good occasion, but are not able to fully enjoy it due to worrying about what others may think or feel, and this can come down to what they are wearing, who they go with or how they interact with others.

To provide insight to people as to how it plays out in relationships both ‘positively’ and ‘negatively’ in relationships, both personally and professionally. By seeing how it actively plays out in relationships will enable people to understand the direct and indirect ways people are affected. For instance, often you are taught to remail silence than speak up and this is at the detriment of their own mental and physical health. So often it is played out with people suffering in silence and that suppression has led to many feeling resentment, anger and depressed at not being able to speak up and share how they truly feel.

To share knowledge and experiences with people as to what this looks like with real life examples from lived experiences, client work and research and reading conducted

To inform people how best to work with clients through understanding, education and curiosity about people in the Asian community perceive and have relationships

Ìý

11.45am - 12.30pm

This session will summarise the Government’s plans for the future of the NHS in England and how the NHS 10 Year Plan presents opportunities and challenges for the counselling professions.

Stimulate discussion about the importance of counselling professions to the work of the NHS and how we can work in partnership to enhance the prominance of the professions over the next decade.

Providing information about the support we can offer members working in the NHS to help make the case for counselling and psychotherapy locally.

Learning outcomes

Gain a clearer sense of the direction the NHS in England is moving and how this will impact the counselling professions.

Understand how Â鶹ԭ´´ can support members working in the NHS.

Explore Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s work to represent members and the profession to Government and the NHS

Gain an understanding of the employment opportunities that exist for counsellors and psychotherapists in the NHS.

Ìý

3.10pm – 3.55pm

When therapists ask about sex in their session room, one of the most common complaints in both individuals and couples is ‘desire discrepancy’. Over the course of a long term relationship, one person’s desire may wane, while their partner’s increases - and often this will switch around. It can be tempting to embark on magazine style advice to ‘revive your sex life’ but this is a solution rather than a full understanding.

In this session Bridget will clarify what might be happening for the couple and how both partners are equally responsible for consciously considering all the issues at play (including who empties the dishwasher!). It is also important to challenge the myths that many adults carry into the sexual space, myths that have a great deal of power in the absence of useful, viable information about how desire actually works.

Bridget will also outline some core psychosexual theories including spontaneous vs responsive desire and the brakes and accelerators model – which are useful for clients in understanding what is happening between them and together – alleviating the temptation to blame the other and thus push intimacy further away.

Learning outcomes

To clarify the difference between spontaneous desire and responsive desire

To consider how desire moves unconsciously back and forth between two people

To explore what nurtures sexual desire and what dampens it

To encourage a more expansive view for therapists and clients as to what ‘sex’ really means

To suggest accessible tools that can be used by all therapists to enable this conversation with their clients.

Ìý