BPC event: Duty of Candour – Protecting the public, protecting the profession

Description

Date: Friday, 23^rd January 2026

Time: 14:15 – 16:00

Price: Registrant – £35, Trainee member – £25

Online, Zoom meetings

This event is for BPC Registrants and Trainee members

Bookings are now closed for this event. 

Event description:

Have you ever felt a colleague was doing something which meant a patient or a member of the public was at risk? Have you ever been concerned you might be putting a patient or a member of the public at risk?

In this online event, we will be exploring the obligation of duty of candour otherwise known as professional candour. Maintaining professional candour is a requirement of the BPC’s Standards of Conduct, Practice and Ethics and plays a vital role in protecting the public and the profession. This event will provide an opportunity to think more deeply about professional candour; what does it mean and how we can understand it in the psychoanalytic context?

Alessandra Lemma will summarise the importance of professional candour, based on her work First Principles: applied ethics for psychoanalytic practice, before joining a discussion with Juliet Rosenfeld to draw out further thoughts, questions and considerations. There will then be an opportunity for questions and reflections from attendees.

Please familiarise yourself with the BPC Standards of Conduct, Practice and Ethics in particular standard 11, prior to the event. You may also want to read Alessandra’s book ahead of the event.

The first part of the event will be recorded and will be available to Registrants for 14 days. For trainee members the recording will be available as a free resource. It is however an invaluable experience attending the event live and participating in the reflections and Q & A.

Programme: 

About the speakers

Alessandra Lemma is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and a Chartered Clinical and Counselling Psychologist with extensive experience as a clinician, academic, and author. Currently Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London, Consultant at the Anna Freud Centre, and Visiting Professor at Centro Winnicott, Rome. Formerly Head of Psychology and Professor of Psychological Therapies at the Tavistock Clinic (in conjunction with Essex University). Recognized internationally for contributions to psychoanalysis, trauma, impact of technology on the psyche, transgender identities, and ethics. She is the recipient of the 2022 Sigourney Award, the 2025 Scharff Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychoanalysis and the BPC’s 2025 Bernard Rattigan Award for Psychoanalysis and Diversity.

Her forthcoming books are: Psychotechnical Becomings; Psychoanalysis, Identity, Desire and Mourning in Times of AI and Digital Mediation (Routledge, 2026) and Journeying Through Psychoanalysis: Lessons from the Couch (Wiley, 2027).

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 currently Clinical Trustee at the Freud Museum. She is a frequent contributor to newspapers and publications writing 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 and marriage in the UK focusing on women, and what perspectives psychoanalysis brings to the changing relational landscape.

Juliet studied at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and has a Masters from Regents University in Integrative Psychotherapy. She has been an Honorary Psychotherapist at the Camden Psychotherapy Unit and in the Tavistock Couples Department. She consults at the Queen Anne Street Practice where she sees adult individuals and couples. She is interested in statutory regulation and increasing access to psychoanalytic ideas to a wider non-clinical audience and policy makers.

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