Empower (y)our Profession.
Connection. Ideas. Development.
Find likeminded colleagues to make the most of our incredible (but sometimes lonely and fragmented) profession. Together we are stronger.
Non-profit Platform.
Our Services
About Our Company
We have founded this platform to invite like-minded colleagues to meet and connect our community. Our profession is beautiful but can feel isolated and fragmented, especially in private practice. We face many challenges, from professional isolation to a diverse (and often confusing) market place, to navigating government- organisational- and accrediting-body polices. In some workplaces, it can be a challenge to exist and practice with integrity. Let’s support each other to find creative solutions and make the most of our professional life and our practice. (isolation of schools/echo chamber/dogmatism).
As stated in my bio (Anna), I am interested in synergies in groups, and how we can create the conditions for the emergence of an ‘integrative factor’ that works in support of mutual growth, collaboration, creativity and transcendence. Instead of ‘everyone doing their own thing’, I believe we could create better therapeutic products if we work together more. (something about the dialectic discussion, the third perspective – contra the common culture).
This also has a political dimension: As a profession, we are trained to understand human relationships and to facilitate emotional health. We are experts in ethical conduct and systemic, ‘big picture’ thinking. Our collective voice is important as a political force in a global society that struggles with devastating, existentially threatening conflicts. If we as humans do not figure out how to exist together, we may not exist at all. Let’s come together as professionals to bridge our differences and see how we can use our voice to facilitate conflict-resolution and integration. (culture wars, actual wars – can we hold both/and).
Meet the Team
Dr. Anna Lertsson
Founder
Anna is a BACP-registered therapist who began the café format in 2019 after finding herself isolated in private practice. She has worked in the charity sector, counselling training, and trauma-informed care.
Debra Modi
Administrator
Debra joined the team in 2021 and handles all CPD certificates, listings, and event admin. She is a trained integrative counsellor and passionate about peer connection.
Zannie Ortiz
Community Host
Zannie supports online cafés and acts as host for meet-ups in London. She is also a yoga teacher and mindfulness practitioner.
Assoc Prof Sigrid Stjerswaerd
ASSOCIATE
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
People increasingly use AI to explore their own mind and answer personal questions. Some people seem to become confused about the difference between a human being and a machine as a social companion (or a therapist). This new technology is both amazing and terrifying. Providing expert input into how AI models are trained, regulated and used will be an important task for our profession to ensure they function safely and ethically. Becoming clearer on what constitutes this ‘integrating factor’ will be important for implementing it into this new technology, so that it does not do it’s opposite and work destructively. Being clear on the difference between the experiential quality of human empathy and subjectivity and its mimicry by a bot will be absolutely vital for our collective survival as people.
Our training has taught us to see ourselves and each other more clearly, including the ongoing limitations of our insight and the emerging nature of our journey. We need the perspective of the ‘other’ to keep knowing ourselves. (inbetween, more than either). We think if the ‘integrating factor’ works correctly, (self-) compassion deepens along (self-) recognition. We become more fully human.
We are trained to see each other – let’s use it.
NB: We are a non-profit organisation. Meeting fees are to cover room rent, snacks and admin. We are in the initial stages of developing this platform and interested to hear ideas of what our community needs and wants. Please bear with us as we all have full-time jobs.
Our work is inspired by deathcafe.com – a brilliant concept, do check out their meetings.
