Symposia

Closing date for submissions – 30 January 2026

Read the information on this page in conjunction with the general submissions information.

About the format

Symposia include multiple presentations, typically 4 or 5, focusing on a specific clinical or research area. Some talks may be very data-focused, centred on new studies and/or trials and their outcomes, others may be more applied, looking at service or clinical skills-related subjects. However there is an expectation that clinical or service-related presentations are empirically or theoretically grounded, and include an evaluative component.

Speakers may range from presenters at an early stage in their careers presenting their own work to leaders in the world of CBT. Talks from experts by experience are also strongly encouraged. The overall aim of a symposium is to provide a coherent and complementary set of talks that, via the depth or the breadth of what is covered, add up to more than the sum of the individual presentations. Typically, there is time for questions from the audience either after each talk or at the end of the session.

Generally, symposia will consist of a convenor and chair (which will normally be the same person, but do not have to be), individual presenters, and potentially a discussant (optional) at the end to draw together the main themes covered. Symposia will usually be scheduled for sessions of either 60 or 90 minutes dependent on the schedule of talks. There should be a maximum of 5 speakers per symposium (including discussant).

Submission instructions

To ensure we receive adequate information, all submitted symposia should have a symposium abstract of maximum of 2,500 characters. This should be a general description of the overall symposium, including the names of at least three presenters. We recommend providing a short summary of what each speaker will present: The more specific details you can provide about what will be presented, the easier it is for the submission to be rated; submissions that lack coherence or are vague are difficult to rate very positively and thus at higher risk of rejection.

However, at the submission stage, we do not require the individual abstracts for each speaker. These will be requested if the submission is accepted, and these individual abstracts will then be what will appear in the conference programme – the overall symposium abstract is only used for rating purposes and not published. If the symposium includes published studies or studies for which there is information publicly available such as a pre-registration or protocol it can be very helpful to include links to these in the abstract to help demonstrate the quality of the submission.

The name and contact details of the symposium convenor/organiser must be provided. This individual accepts responsibility for ensuring that all speakers provide individual abstracts, when requested. They must also ensure that speakers register to attend the conference (including confertence fee) and when required communicate practical information to the Scientific Committee as well as to individual speakers in the symposium.

Click here for an example clinical symposium abstract

Click here for an example research symposium abstract

Please note that for space and production reasons only the author presenting in the symposium will appear in the conference programme. However, full authorship will appear in the electronic abstract book, up to a maximum of seven authors.

It is expected that in most cases all speakers contributing to the symposium will deliver their presentation in person (“In-person” option). However, if one or more presenters can only attend the conference remotely, and register to attend the conference online, they can supply their talk to the convenor in the form of a pre-recorded video (please indicate any pre-recorded talks in the abstract below). Please note that there is no option for a live remote presentation, and not all symposia will be broadcast online. This means that someone supplying a pre-recorded talk may not be able to follow the symposium online. There will also be limited space in the programme to submit a fully pre-recorded symposium that will be shown to delegates in full at a scheduled time in the programme (Select the “Completely pre-recorded” option). It will be the responsibility of the convenor to coordinate the individual presentations into a single file that will be submitted to the scientific secretariat as an Mp4 file by a deadline that will be agreed if the submission is accepted. All speakers will still have to pay the registration fee to attend the conference (either as in-person or online attendees).

Please note that if a symposium is rejected, the individual speakers will be invited to submit their individual presentations for consideration as open papers or posters.