2026 FPC Annual Conference

The 2026 FPC Annual Conference will be held from 9.00am to 4.30pm on Saturday 14th March 2026 at Tuke Hall, Regent’s University London, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NS . The speakers are Poul Rohleder  and Jay Barlow. The 28th FPC Annual General Meeting will be held during the conference.

The conference is an in-person only event for FPC members only and will count as 7.5 hours CPD.  The presentations will not be recorded and will not be available online. The fee for attending the Annual Conference is £40 to cover the cost of catering. To book a place please email admin@thefpc.org.uk and we will send you an invoice for the fee.

From ‘Oedipus Simplex’ to ‘Oedipal Complexity’: The Relevance of the Oedipus Complex Today - Poul Rohleder

This lecture will outline some key developments to a contemporary understanding of the Oedipus Complex. It will be pointed out that a narrow adherence to what has been termed an ‘Oedipus Simplex’ Freudian model, with an emphasis on heterosexual incestuous desire, phallic-centricity and castration anxiety, misses a more nuanced thinking about sexuality also offered by Freud in his conception of psychic bisexuality and the ‘complete’ Oedipus complex. The lecture will explore some well-known feminist revisions that challenge the idea of penis envy and cast female sexuality as lacking, as well as contemporary revisions that offer a less heteronormative account of the Oedipus complex, that considers the possibility of healthy development of same-sex desire. Contemporary relational perspectives will be introduced that argue for the need to consider Oedipal complexity for a nuanced understanding of an individuals unique “erotic signature”. Rather than dismiss Freud’s Oedipus Complex as irrelevant or dated, the lecture will explore its continued relevance for understanding the various relational dynamics that individuals bring to our consulting rooms. 

Poul Rohleder is a chartered clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Marylebone, London. He is a senior member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF), and current Chair of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association within the BPF. He is author of ‘The Oedipus Complex: A Contemporary Introduction’ (published by Routledge in September 2025).

Maman - Jay Barlow

This paper traces a decade-long analytic treatment with Alma, who entered intensive analysis as a late adolescent following the death of her father and the intensification of a mother complex.

The clinical narrative centres on the emergence of a recurrent hallucinatory figure - the ‘She’-spider - which evolves from fragmentary sensations and dreams into a fully embodied presence within the consulting room. The spider functions not merely as symptom but as a psychic structure through which early relational trauma, dissociation, and a profoundly ambivalent maternal image-object is lived and communicated.

The paper follows Alma’s developmental journey from late adolescence into early adulthood, showing how dissociative states, internal voices, and psychotic anxieties were gradually held within the analytic relationship rather than interpreted prematurely.

Drawing on Bion, Winnicott, Bick, Meltzer, Laplanche, Jung, and Ferenczi, the paper explores how hallucination, projective and unconscious identification, and participation mystique emerge as necessary modes of communication when affect regulation is tenuous, reflective function is fragmented within dissociative identity structures, and symbolic capacity is compromised by early narratives of psychic survival.

The analyst’s embodied countertransference - experienced somatically, atmospherically, and temporally - is central to the work of containment and witnessing, sustained through patience, waiting, and carefully modulated analytic pacing.

Louise Bourgeois’ art including her spider drawings and Maman sculptures are interwoven throughout as symbolic companions to the clinical material, offering an image-object language for the maternal that is simultaneously protective, predatory, reparative, and entrapping.

The spider motif is further understood as a transgenerational carrier of trauma, linking Alma’s personal history with maternal and ancestral deprivation.

The paper culminates in a pivotal frame change, where a reduction in session frequency precipitates the spider’s dramatic arrival in the consulting room. This rupture marks a shift from malignant dread toward a more integrated relationship with the shadowed maternal object, allowing for the beginnings of separation, mourning, and self-agency.

The analysis is presented not as cure, but as a slow weaving of a tolerable narrative, enabling Alma to live with, rather than be possessed by, her internal world.

Jay Barlow is Director of Training at the Society of Analytical Psychology where he is a training and supervising analyst. In 2022 he was the recipient of the BPC’s diversity in training excellence award for further developing a psychoanalytically informed training programme for “Diversity and Otherness” from a developmental perspective. He was awarded the Michael Fordham Prize in 2024 for his paper “The Umbilical” in the Journal of Analytical Psychology. Jay holds an MA in Jungian and post Jungian studies and has worked as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist within acute Personality Disorders departments in the NHS. Jay teaches clinical seminars on unconscious fantasy, early relational trauma, and human development in relation to early states of mind in the consulting room. He supervises and teaches developing IAAP analytic groups in Eastern Europe and China. His private practice is in Clapham, London.

Programme

9.00 - 9.50     Registration (Tea, Coffee)

9.50 - 10.00   Opening Introduction 

10.00 - 11.00 Poul Rohleder Lecture 

11.00 - 11.40 Informal discussion groups and networking (Tea, Coffee, Pastries)

11.40 - 12.15 Q&A with Poul Rohleder 

12.15 - 1.15   AGM 

1.15 - 2.15     Lunch Break

2.15 - 3.15     Jay Barlow Lecture 

3.15 - 3.55     Informal discussion groups and networking (Tea, Coffee)

3.55 - 4.30     Q&A with Jay Barlow 

4.30               Close