Keynote Speakers

Manu Bazzano

Manu Bazzano

Title: In Praise of Pandemonium – A polyphonic, contrapuntal perspective on the notion of the organism in experiential psychotherapies and beyond

Dr Manu Bazzano is a writer, psychotherapist/supervisor in private practice, and independent researcher. Among his books: Subversion and Desire: Pathways to Transindividuation (2023) Nietzsche and Psychotherapy (2019); Re-visioning Existential TherapyCounter-traditional Perspectives (Ed, 2020); Re-visioning Person-centred Therapy: Theory and Practice of a Radical Paradigm (Ed, 2018); Zen and Therapy: Heretical Perspectives (2017);  Therapy and the Counter-tradition (co-edited with Julie Webb, 2016); After Mindfulness (Ed, 2014); Spectre of the Stranger (2012); The Speed of Angels (2013); Buddha is Dead: Nietzsche and the Dawn of European Zen (2006); Haiku For Lovers (2003); Zen Poems (2002). He studied Eastern contemplative practices since 1980 and in 2004 was ordained in the Soto and Rinzai traditions of Zen Buddhism. He has been co-editor of PCEP Journal and is associate editor of Self & Society Journal of Humanistic Psychology. From September 2023 to June 2024 he will facilitate a monthly course (in person and online), The Primacy of Affect: an Introduction to Affect-based Therapy, Supervision and Research.

Read more: manubazzano.com

Siebrecht Vanhooren

Siebrecht Vanhooren

Title: Chaos, Growth, and Existential Empathy

Siebrecht Vanhooren (PhD) is professor of clinical psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. He teaches counseling, psychological interventions, and person-centered, experiential, and existential psychotherapy at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level. He is the director of the person-centered therapy training programs and the existential well-being counseling program at KU Leuven. He also supervises the person-centered and focusing team at PraxisP (KU Leuven). He is the co-director KU Leuven’s Meaning & Existence research center and a committee member of The Eugene T. Gendlin Center for Research in Experiential Philosophy and Psychology (The Focusing Institute). His research includes topics such as existential concerns, meaning in life, posttraumatic growth, experiential-existential interventions, focusing, and existential empathy. Last but not least, he enjoys being alive, spending time with his family and friends, and tries to get a good sound out of his saxophone.

Malikiosi Loizos

Maria Malikiosi-Loizos

Title: Can we be congruent both with the outer and inner voices?

Maria Malikiosi-Loizos is Professor Emeritus of Counselling Psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.  She studied Psychology (M.A.  1974, Ed.D. 1978­) in the USA, where she also worked as a research and teaching assistant.

She has worked as a Researcher at the National Center of Social Research in Athens, Greece; as a post-doctoral intern at the Laboratory of Social Psychology of the National Centre of Scientific Research, (C.N.R.S.) Université Paris VII; and at UNESCO’s International Institute  for Educational Planning in Paris, France. 

She founded, directed, and supervised the Peer Counseling Center of the University of Athens, Greece for twenty years, where she also trained peer counsellors. She initiated the first post graduate program in counseling and counseling psychology in Greece. She has taught counselling psychology courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in Greece, the US and several European countries. She has been invited as a lecturer in seminars and congresses in Greece and abroad. She has authored and co-authored several books, edited and also participated in publications in Greece and abroad with research articles for journals and book chapters.

She is and has been member of several scientific societies, in Europe and the United States including the APA and Division 17 of counselling psychology

She has been granted the award of outstanding contribution to European counselling psychology (the European Association for Counselling); an honorary award for her contribution to the development of counselling psychology in Greece (the Hellenic Psychological Society); the honorary membership of the Hellenic Association for Person Centered and Experiential Approach (hapcea); and also, the honorary memebership of the Hellenic Association for Counselling.

She founded the Greek Association of Peer Counselling (Hellenic Scientific Association  of Peer Counselling),which she presides   since its foundation in 2013 and is active as a trainer, supervisor and counselling psychologist.
Jo Hilton

Jo Hilton

Title: How can our awareness of polyphony support the way we construct meaning?

Jo Hilton has pursued a lifelong interest in learning and facilitation of learning. She has worked in this field for more than 40 years, initially within theatre and the performing arts before moving into the field of counselling and psychotherapy, latterly as a clinical fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Inspired by the work of Paulo Freire and Carl Rogers, she has worked to facilitate dialogue with many counsellors-in-training from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australasia. She has hugely appreciated the different cultural experiences and personal developmental processes that she has witnessed in students and in her client work. She recently retired from the University of Edinburgh but her research interests in person-centred and psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy continue.