I have recently got a website of my own after many years of working with and sharing one with Mary Barnett, Dr Jane Blunden and Marcus Page. I am no longer part of this cross-modality working group which has been supportive, stimulating and nourishing. I wish Jane and Mary a happy retirement!
Of course, I still have other professional groups. One that is particularly important to me is Brighton and Hove CBT Link, which I set up about three years ago. This is for private CBT practitioners locally, and we meet up every two months for CPD (continuing professional development) and support. The format is that one person does a presentation, for example a research paper or feedback from recent training, and then we have a discussion about what this means for our clinical practice. While this group is for CBT practitioners, some of us have previous training in other modalities, some of us have done mindfulness teacher training and many of us practice EMDR, so there are many voices.
Many voices are also heard in the EMDR supervision group I am part of. The nature of EMDR training is that you must already be a practicing therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist, so by definition, a group of EMDR practitioners will include a range of therapeutic backgrounds. I have enjoyed being in a group with a psychiatrist, a humanistic person-centered psychotherapist and an integrative psychotherapist. Different perspectives are enriching and keep me on my toes.
At Salomons Institute for applied Psychology I am part of a weekly meta-supervision group for IAPT CBT training supervisors. This has been facilitated by a systemic practitioner which has been especially helpful as the supervision is offered in groups, so group dynamics are as important as the CBT. When I chose to have therapy myself I chose Group Psychotherapy as there were aspects of my family life that I wished to address, and I was right in hoping that a group setting would help me with this.
All this is to say that although I now have a website on my own, I remain very much part of a wider community of professional psychotherapists. My base modality is CBT, not because it is the best, but because of serendipity and because it suits my personality.