AFSP Conference 2026 – 'Come as you are: Lived experience as our resource for training, practice and research'
The AFSP Annual Conference 2026 will be a hybrid conference combining a full face-to-face programme, plus evening meal and entertainment, with an online programme for delegates attending remotely.
Ticket options:
2-day ticket, in-person
1-day ticket, in-person
Virtual ticket, 2-day online
Dinner ticket, optional
Doubletree by Hilton Glasgow Central Hotel
36 Cambridge Street,
Glasgow
G2 3HN
and Online
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.
We are excited to share further details of the keynote presentations
Darren McGarvey
With great pleasure, we welcome Darren McGarvey as one of our keynote speakers. Darren is a Scottish author, columnist, broadcaster, and rapper (Loki) known for insightful commentary on social issues, poverty, and inequality. His acclaimed book 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.
Rabbi Charley Baginsky
In the latest conference news we would like to extend a warm welcome to Rabbi Charley Baginsky, who will be joining other presenters for a panel discussion, ‘Identity and belonging – the importance of faith and race in the ‘therapy room”. Rabbi Charley Baginsky is the UK’s most senior female rabbi. She is Co-Lead of The Movement for Progressive Judaism, Britain’s largest Jewish movement by number of communities. Her work includes exploring identity, belonging, interfaith relationships and how communities navigate difference and polarisation.. She is a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 and a signatory to the Drumlanrig Muslim-Jewish Reconciliation Accords.
Prof Liz Forbat and Dr Ramón Karamat Ali (joined by additional panel members to be announced soon) – Empty promises or paradigm shifting? Learning and dilemmas from 20 years of user involvement and engagement
We warmly welcome Professor Liz Forbat. Liz is a research psychologist and family therapist. Her research focuses on how families and relationships are impacted when someone gets ill, for example particularly with cancer or other life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.
Pàdraig MacAoidh (Peter Mackay) – Poetry, dualchas and making your own villages
‘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. In addition to participating in the conference, Peter will also join for the conference dinner.
We are very pleased to announce that Satinder Panesar will be contributing to this years conference. Satinder works as a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, trainer and coach and has over 25+ years of working in the third sector, NHS, education and the private sector. Her specialisms include trauma informed practice and intersectionality.
Dr Ged Smith is a family and systemic psychotherapist with 30 years’ experience; He works as consultant systemic psychotherapist now in private practice, supervisor and trainer roles. He is a visiting lecturer at The Tavistock Clinic in London, as well as to Universities of Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Lancaster and other educational institutes abroad including staff member at Malta Institute of Family Therapy. He publishes and presents his work all over the world, and has been editor of Context, the UK magazine for family therapy and systemic practice for several years, and AFSP rep with the European Family Therapy Association. Ged is based in his hometown of Liverpool.
Prof Peter Rober – The emotionally responsive therapist in family therapy practice
We are very pleased to welcome Prof Peter Rober to the AFSP Conference. Prof 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 for Context – Center of Marital and Family Therapy at UPC KU Leuven. Prof Rober’s primary research interests focus is on the family therapeutic process. In particular he is interested in the therapist’s inner dialogue and in silences in families.
Dr Sami Timimi
Dr Timimi is a widely published author who writes from a critical psychiatry perspective. A key focus has been how distress has been commodified over many decades by pharmaceutical companies, the media and the psychiatric establishment. He has many innovation awards and 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.
We’re excited to announce the following workshops
Me, myself and AI – Marianne Le Coyte Grinney
Externalising and internalised other interviewing: A relational approach to understanding the experience of voice-hearing – Heleni-Georgia Andreadi & Dominic Lyne
From numbness to embodied connection – Agnieszka Religa
Our wee minds matter – in life, therapeutic practice and supervision – Sally Fraser
Power and you – Dr Mark Huhnen
Setting the BEARS free – Paul Hackett & Heidi Karamat Ali
Single session thinking in a Scottish CAMHS context – Gillian Petrie & Dr Clair Gilbert
Staying in relationship when patriarchal ideas emerge in therapy – Kat Smithson & Alex Millham
The domino effect: Stories, systems, and the power of being witnessed – Hazel Kent & Jon Mungate
The Football Families Project: Learning from Practice – Sezer Fahri
Also of interest
See more events
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AFSP bursary scheme
Bursaries for our 2026 conference have now been awarded.