Thinking Clinically: Guilt and Shame with Dr. Jan McGregor Hepburn

“Persecutory Guilt and pathological shame are in essence symptoms of internal conflicts and disturbances…The symptoms of excessive guilt and/or shame will show the nature of the internal conflicts and the ways which the individual has acquired to try and manage these conflicts.” Using clinical material Jan McGregor Hepburn will help us think about how an examination of the meaning and purpose of guilt and shame allows the clinician to have “purchase on the intractable nature of such feelings.”

Dr. Jan McGregor Hepburn with discussant psychoanalyst Susie Godsil

Dr. Jan McGregor Hepburn has a background in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Social Work management. She has presented papers at conferences and devised and facilitated both seminars and workshops on a variety of subjects related to both management dynamics and clinical topics. She is the author of a book chapter and journal articles. She is a registrant of the British Psychoanalytic Council and a trainer for the North of England Association for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She was the Registrar of the British Psychoanalytic Council from 2005 to 2020, and now chairs the Professional Standards Committee. She is on the Reading Panel of the British Journal of Psychotherapy and has a doctorate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the University of Northumbria. She has particular interests in narcissism and echoism, and guilt and shame. Her book ‘Guilt and Shame, a Clinician’s Guide’ was published in 2021 by nscience

Susie Godsil is a Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis and has a psychoanalytic practice in Leeds. She teaches on a variety of professional trainings and is active in the development of psychoanalysis beyond London and especially in the North of England. She has a particular interest in the creative relationship between psychoanalysis and the arts.