Thirty-five years of developing, teaching and delivering a trauma-based relational psychotherapy – the Conversational Model

In 1965 a form of psychotherapy emerged uniquely in England through the work of psychiatrists Robert Hobson and Russell Meares; it was later called the Conversational Model (CM). Their model of psychodynamic psychotherapy, its teaching, training and clinical delivery, has been further developed since 1983 by Meares, with the assistance of a faculty, in Sydney, Australia (Meares, 2004). Outcome studies and factor research have ensured that the CM is strongly evidence-based (Stevenson and Meares, 1992; Stevenson et al., 2005; Korner et al., 2006; Meares et al., 2011; Stevenson et al., 2015). In the UK Elspeth Guthrie also developed Psychodynamic Interpersonal Psychotherapy, based on the CM, primarily for patient stabilisation in a range of acute presentations, allowing the commencement of community mental health care with psychotherapy (Guthrie and Moghavemi, 2013).