PPNow 2026
This year's flagship conference, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now, will take place on the Saturday 14 November.
Every other year, PPNow looks further into a topic relevant in today’s climate. This year we will explore The slippery slope: boundary violations in the consulting room and in our institutions.
Sexual boundary violations are not new to the psychoanalytic world, and we know that they are not unique to this profession but are in fact prevalent when power dynamics are at play. The BPC has investigated a series of significant sexual boundary violations in recent years, resulting in Registrants being removed from our Register. There have also been cases in the press, which have led to repeated calls for the profession of psychotherapy to be statutorily regulated.
In this conference, we will explore how and why such violations happen, and what can be done to prevent them. This conference aims to address the noticeable scarcity of publications and events on this topic, opening a dialogue to think about the unthinkable in our profession. Many questions arise around such issues: is more oversight of the profession needed? Does more attention need to be paid during training to the importance of ethical practice? Is there sufficient accountability, especially in the senior echelons of the profession?
As well as the consequences for the lives of victims, and for the perpetrators, we cannot overlook the damage such cases have on public confidence in our profession. In addition to investigating what happens when things go wrong, the BPC has an important role in deepening our understanding of the problem, to inform effective preventative measures whilst supporting safe psychoanalytic therapy.
About PPNow 2026
The conference will be held on Saturday 14 November at 10 Union Street, SE1 between 09:30 and 18:00.
PPNow is open to all; BPC Registrants, clinicians from other organisations, trainees, members of the Scholars’ Network, kite marked practitioners and anyone with an interest in psychoanalytic thinking.
In person and online tickets are available. Please note that the deadline for booking in-person tickets is midnight on 3 November. Online tickets can be purchased up until midnight on 11 November.
Book here to secure your place: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now 2026.
Meet this year's speakers
Keynote speaker, Andrea Celenza, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and Assistant Clinical Professor at Harvard Medical School. She has consulted with over 450 cases of therapist-patient sexual boundary transgressions. She has written numerous papers and four books on love, sexuality and psychoanalysis.
Andrea’s first book, Sexual Boundary Violations: Therapeutic, Supervisory and Academic Contexts, was published by Jason Aronson in 2007. Her work has been recognized with The Karl Menninger Award, The Helena Deutsch Prize, and The Simonds Prize. Her writings have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Chinese, and Farsi. Her third book, entitled, Transference, Love, and Being: Essential Essays from the Field, was published in 2022 by Routledge and was nominated for the Gradiva Award. Her fourth book, published by Routledge in 2024 is Erotic Transferences: A Contemporary Introduction. Dr. Celenza is in private practice in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA.
Gabriella has consulted to teams, leaders and organisations across mental health, arts and culture, charities, education and the private sector for over twenty-five years. She has also directed/been on staff of international group relations conferences on authority, role, boundaries, leadership and followership. Her work has included helping organisations explore both unconscious and systemic issues behind serious boundary violations.
She has a master’s from the Tavistock Clinic in applying psychoanalysis and systems thinking to consultancy. Her book, All That We Are: Uncovering the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work, was published by Little, Brown in 2022.
Juliet Rosenfeld is a Psychoanalyst and member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a UKCP and BACP accredited Psychotherapist. Juliet was an elected Trustee of the UKCP Board from 2019-2022 and is now Vice Chair of the Freud Museum London. She is a frequent contributor to newspapers and publications on mental health and the author of two books “The State Of Disbelief” (Hachette, 2020) and “Affairs, True Stories of Love, Lies, Hope and Desire” (Pan Macmillan 2025). Her doctoral work at UCL considers the decline of monogamy, the birth rate and the rise of misogyny in the UK, and asks what perspectives psychoanalysis brings today to women’s changing relational landscapes.
Prior to training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Juliet studied at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and Regents University in Integrative Psychotherapy. She was an Honorary Psychotherapist at the Camden Psychotherapy Unit and in the Tavistock Couples Department.
Before training as a Psychotherapist and following Oxford, she worked in advertising and marketing for 12 years, ending up in the Cabinet Office in government communication. Juliet consults at the Queen Anne Street Practice where she sees adults and couples. She is interested in statutory regulation and increasing access to psychoanalytic ideas for a wider non-clinical audience and policy makers.
See below for the draft programme, details may be subject to change:
09.00 Registration opens for in-person attendees.
09.45 Conference opens for online attendees.
10.00 Welcome by BPC Chair, Lee Smith and BPC Chief Executive, Greg Ross-Sampson.
10.10 An introduction by Juliet Rosenfeld.
10.40 An outline of the BPC’s role, approach and work on boundary violations by Greg Ross-Sampson.
11.00 Coffee break.
11.15 Gabriella Braun in conversation with Member Institutions, followed by Q&A.
12.15 Lunch.
13.00 Keynote address by Andrea Celenza, followed by Q&A.
14.15 Breakout group discussion / task for online attendees.
15.15 Coffee break.
15.30 PPNow Awards, presented by BPC Chair, Lee Smith.
15.50 Discussion and reflections from our speakers and the audience.
16.50 Closing statement by BPC Chair, Lee Smith.
17.00 Drinks reception for in-person attendees.
18.00 Close.
Book here to secure your place: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now 2026.
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