CPD
AFSP Conference 2026 – 'Come as you are: Lived experience as our resource for training, practice and research'
We are excited to confirm that the 2026 AFSP Annual Conference will take place in the heart of Glasgow at the Doubletree by Hilton
CPD
Registration available soon
Doubletree by Hilton Glasgow Central Hotel
Organiser
Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
After celebrating AFSP’s 50th anniversary last year, the AFSP Conference 2026 looks ahead to how we continue to grow a field that is clinically grounded, socially responsive, and attentive to what people have lived through. ‘Come as you are’ invites us to treat lived experience as a resource we can develop with skill and care – shaping how we train, practise, supervise and research as systemic psychotherapists.
In Glasgow, the conference brings systemic ideas into conversation with the contexts that press on our work: inequality, migration, class, neurodiversity and polarisation – alongside the different forms of resistance, growth and resilience (both collective and personal) that show up in relationships and services.
We will explore lived experience as something we can lean into with skill and care: a source of knowledge, an ethical stance, and a way of staying relationally responsible in changing social worlds. We will also attend to recursiveness – how experience shapes practice, how practice reshapes us as learners, and how ongoing systemic work informs what we notice, what we ask, and what we build as knowledge through research.
Across participatory keynotes, panels, co-created workshops and creative encounters, the conference is designed for participation rather than performance, with space for emerging and quieter voices alongside established contributors, and learning that travels back into therapy rooms, training spaces, supervision, and communities.
Speakers and contributors
Darren McGarvey
Author, columnist, broadcaster and rapper
Darren McGarvey is a Scottish author, columnist, broadcaster and rapper (Loki) known for insightful commentary on social issues, poverty and inequality. His acclaimed debut, Poverty Safari (2017), won the 2018 Orwell Prize. A former rapper-in-residence for Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit, he explores trauma, addiction and social class and uses his experience to advocate for a deeper understanding of social deprivation, often focusing on the trauma roots of societal challenges.
Satinder Panesar
Psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, trainer and coach
Satinder Panesar is an integrative psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience working across the third sector, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, education and private practice, both nationally and internationally. She holds an MA in Integrative Counselling from the University of Derby and is an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS).
Satinder is also an individual and group clinical supervisor (University of Strathclyde), clinical consultant and executive coach. Her clinical work spans face-to-face and remote practice with young people and adults across the UK, Europe and internationally.
Her particular areas of interest include trauma-informed practice, tradition and culture, and intersectionality. She has extensive experience supporting professionals and organisations through clinical supervision, reflective practice, coaching and consultancy, including work with NHS professionals across multiple departments, educational settings, emergency services, sexual assault referral centres (SARCs), homelessness and refuge services, addiction services, and migrant mothers.
She also works closely with senior leaders, including CEOs and directors, supporting leadership wellbeing and organisational resilience.
Satinder provides organisational consultancy, offering clinical insight to strengthen psychologically-informed cultures, reflective practice and safety within teams.
Professor Peter Rober
Professor in Clinical Psychology, Institute for Family and Sexuality Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium
Professor Peter Rober is, first and foremost, a therapist, working with families. Furthermore he is a professor in Clinical Psychology at the Institute for Family and Sexuality Studies, Faculty of Medicine, University of Leuven, Belgium. He is also responsible for Context – Center of Marital and Family Therapy at UPC KU Leuven.
Professor Rober’s primary research interests focus on the family therapeutic process. In particular he is interested in the therapist’s inner dialogue and in silences in families.
Professor Liz Forbat
Research psychologist and family therapist, University of Stirling
Professor Liz Forbat is a research psychologist and family therapist. Her research and clinical practice focus on how families and relationships are impacted when someone gets ill, for example with cancer or other life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.
Professor Forbat’s research projects centralise patient/carer involvement, to ensure that the work she does is always grounded in their priorities.
Professor Forbat also supervises doctoral students on topics such as family and professional relationships in palliative care and prostate cancer service development.
Dr Sami Timimi
Consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist
Dr Sami Timimi is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author. He qualified as a doctor from Dundee University in 1988 and became a Member of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1992, becoming a Fellow of the college in 2012. He has many innovation awards and has led multiple service developments including being the consultant for the child and adolescent team of the year at the 2023 annual Royal College of Psychiatrists awards.
He regularly presents as keynote speaker at national and international conferences and has many interviews with press, media and podcasts. He is an author who writes from a critical psychiatry perspective on topics relating to mental health and has published over 150 articles and tens of chapters on many subjects including childhood, psychotherapy, behavioural problems and cross-cultural psychiatry.
He has authored 7 books, co-edited 4 books, and co-authored 2 others. His latest book, first published in 2025 is Searching for Normal A New Approach to Understanding Distress and Neurodiversity.
Peter Mackay
Scottish poet, academic and broadcaster who was appointed as Scotland’s Makar (National Poet)
‘S ann à Leòdhas a tha Pàdraig MacAoidh, agus chaidh dà leabhar bàrdachd leis fhoillseachadh le Acair – Gu Leòr (2015) agus Nàdur De (2020) – agus pamflaid le Clutag Press, From another island (2010).’ S e àrd-ollamh aig Oilthigh Chill Rìmhinn a th’ann agus ann an 2024 chaidh ainmeachadh Makar na h-Alba.
Peter Mackay is a poet, broadcaster, translator and lecturer. He has two collections of poetry with Acair – Galore (2015) and Some Kind of (2020) – and a pamphlet, From another island (2010), with Clutag Press. Originally from the Isle of Lewis, he lives in Edinburgh and is a professor in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. In 2024 he was appointed Scottish Makar.
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