How about a Christmas gift of attendance at this event? ‘Think it possible that you may be mistaken’ is the intriguing title of our next Annual Conference which, all being well, we can enjoy in the beautiful surroundings of Dartington Hall in Devon. This weekend event will be guaranteed to challenge your assumptions and help develop new ideas with five international speakers. At £400 all in, it is extremely reasonably priced as well! The weekend starts with a presentation from Dr Lars-Eric Unestahl from Sweden who started Inner Mental Training (self-hypnosis by another name), followed by the David Houghton Memorial Lecture given by Professor Christina Liossi, a paediatric psychologist and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton with interests in pain and oncology. The day finishes with a presentation by Professor Paul Dieppe who is a professor of health and well-being at Exeter Medical School. Having spent a distinguished career researching rheumatism and specifically knee pain, he shifted his focus onto the placebo effect and, most recently, humans’ natural ability to heal themselves.

Following our AGM we have our Conference dinner and if past years are anything to go by, entertainment by those members who are prepared to stand up and sing, tell a story or a joke! A good time is pretty much guaranteed!

Sunday’s programme has presentations by Devin Terhune, who is a Cognitive Neuroscientist at the University of London and Ben Parris, an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University, whose current research interests include investigating attentional control in hypnosis and suggestion and in non-neurotypical populations such as those with ADHD.

Have you ever wondered how Grigor Dimitrov beat Roger Federer in the US Open? Well, you can find out during the weekend! You can learn how misunderstanding, misattribution and mistakes have limited our clinical efficacy in engaging with dissociation and suggestibility. Do you think hypnosis should be seen as a valuable reactive clinical adjunct and /or as a proactive medium for all?

Dartington Hall near Totnes, in Devon, is a country estate that is the headquarters of the Dartington Hall Trust, a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability. The estate dates from medieval times and provides a stunning and unique venue for our 2022 conference. We had a conference at Dartington many years ago and I well remember the beautiful buildings and the surrounding grounds filled with majestic trees… I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone there again!

Ann Williamson