SoliCITOR, BARRISTER, PSYCHOTHERAPIST. A LIFETIME OF INTEGRATION. SARAH WOOLRICH

SARAH WOOLRICH

Ignorance is a wonderful motivator.

It is an accelerator to move on in life, to find the answer to the things we do not know. 

The burning question propelling me to study and to work as a therapist at the Northern Guild was “Why do families get into such knots?” 

 I really wanted to understand what drove us repeat the mistakes and conflicts of the previous generations; to repeat destructive patterns in our lives. 

The questions that followed included:  Does therapy make a difference?  How soon?  Does it really take such a long time?   What is the ‘best’ therapy? 

I wanted to know if a parent, usually a mother, had the right therapy at the right time, would she be able to parent her children better?     

I was asking these questions from my vantage point of being a family lawyer.  By 2004 I been involved in family work and youth crime for two decades plus.   The first half of my career at that time had been as a solicitor.   After almost 12 years as a solicitor, I transferred to the bar to develop my work as an advocate.    

Working with young offenders was quite exhilarating at times.  They were a vibrant group though often committing really anti-social offences.   The offender was usually a teenage boy with a hard-pressed single mother.   I became very fond of these families, but the youth justice system had a hard time turning things round for them.   

Most of my work was with separating couples in conflict over the arrangements for the children or the division of usually very limited assets.    Very few families can actually afford to divorce and working through what they had and how it should be divided often raised psychological problems as well as economic ones.       I would have loved to have the time and skills at that point to study ‘The Role of the Record Collection in Marriage Breakdown’.  I was fascinated that couples could, with help,  negotiate the division of the family home,  pensions,  and responsibilities for financial maintenance.  Having done all this, they would find themselves in an intractable and heated arguments about the vinyl record collection.

More tragically of course were the family separations where one or more of the children   is deprived of a relationship with a parent.

Many parents were so stuck in their narrative about what had happened in their marriage, that it was impossible to allow the other parent to have a relationship with the child.   There were parents, more commonly fathers, so stuck in a pattern of controlling and coercive behaviour, who perceived their partner’s attempts to separate from them as a massive attack, that they retaliated with extreme and calculated violence.  There were women so hurt by being abandoned as they saw it, that they could not foster a relationship between the children and their father. 

Over time, I became more involved in safeguarding work and care proceedings.    It became apparent  that the parents had usually suffered trauma as children;  that their problems were compounded by alcohol or drug abuse, mental health problems and / or a pattern of destructive relationships.    Many of these parents were referred for psychological or other specialist assessment.  

The assessments often concluded that the parent had a personality disorder or traits of a disorder, commonly borderline personality disorder.    The recommendation was for 12 – 18 months of therapy.    There was clearly a compelling need and an apparent answer. 

Why then were perfectly deserving clients only offered 4 to 6 weeks of first tier counselling to address say their anxiety or depression with nothing offered to address their personality issues which had developed in response to early trauma?

Often the psychologist would nominate a specific therapy :  CBT, DBT,  person-centred,  psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment therapy, EMDR,  counselling.   What did all these terms mean?  What was the difference between them?  Does it really make a difference?  Who offers such therapy and how do you access it? 

Family law and lawyers were really skilled at finding out what had happened, gathering evidence, making sense of what looks at times like a jumble of contradictions.   Greatly assisted by the Children Act 1989,  courts make as good job as they can of working out what is best for children  in the long run, whether to return to parents or to be cared for elsewhere.  

At the end of these processes though,   there would often be a grieving parent whose children were not coming home.    Services lost interest in them.   Or the parent may recover their children but would not have the support long term to really turn things round.  

So I was drawn first to train in mediation and then to study therapy.   

One of the very attractive things about the Guild is that people from such diverse professional backgrounds, or none, are drawn by their own set of questions to start a course of study and also to have therapy.    It is a small and nurturing place in which to train  and where you are encouraged not only to become proficient in theory and therapeutic ‘techniques’ but also to become aware of your own vulnerabilities and strengths.  

Therapy is one of the few professions that really insist on a bringing together of who you are as a person,  your story and your practice as a therapist.      

I remember feeling a great sense of excitement as I started training.      One of the very consoling features of therapy is that one cannot possibly fall into the delusion that you can know everything about the subject,   it is vast and complex.  Each person you meet as a therapist is an unknown.   It is disrespectful to assess and neatly slot anyone into some diagnostic category.   However, being aware of patterns of behaviour and what they might mean,  how they might guide you to work with someone, was very helpful.  

As I started practice, I discovered something that I had taken for granted about my profession as an advocate.    Speed.   You have to work incredibly quickly as a lawyer,   to absorb a vast amount of information about a family in a short time, working with the facts,  to slot everything together.   

To be an effective therapist, you have to slow right down.   The sense of pressure, urgency,  to know it all now,  has to go.   

I also had to learn to be much more open to my inner landscape and my client’s emotions, and effectively face in a very different direction from being a lawyer.   

In the course of training, I encountered so much theory which was relevant to my legal experience.   

The structure of the training of course is adapted over time but the aim is  that by the end of three or four year training,  whether studying for a diploma or masters level, counselling or psychotherapy, you will have a number of models to draw on and will at least be in the process of developing an integrated approach to working with clients.   

Learning each model was fascinating.  Eric Berne’s  Transactional Analysis and the theory of Ego states,  derived from Freud’s work;  Stephen Karpman’s Drama and John Bowlby’s Attachment theory were the foundational models for me.  The Drama Triangle of course is a concept lying within TA but is such a great and accessible tool for seeing what is happening in any situation of conflict.     

In due course, having completed the masters course and having studied, worked and taught at the Guild,  I realised that so much was relevant to my work as a family lawyer. 

It seemed to be a vocational calling to return and take back what I had learned, at least in an indirect way. 

I also understood better the constrictions on how the system works.  My mental health placement left me with a sense of injustice on behalf of parents who could  not access long term psychotherapeutic work on the NHS.    There were services there but families that came from educationally and socially areas found them hard or impossible to reach.

I also learnt that such therapy is lengthy and  challenging;  there are no quick fixes.    It did need someone to be in a relatively stable place in their life.    Many people who I worked with had so many practical challenges in their life, that it would be difficult to commit to a long term plan of work with a therapist.    

By 2010 I committed myself to a return to the Bar and to bring with me what I had   learned.    Suddenly I was back to absorbing the life of an entire family captured in a few hundred pages of reports overnight and had to regain speed over the capacity to reflect.    I worked with a small number of clients over this time, and finally said farewell to practice after a year.  

I use what I learned at the Guild 15 – 20 years ago every day, in my working life and of course, in my personal life.     I continue my work as a barrister the family justice system within a local authority.   

The concepts of TA are invaluable in working through struggles with power and control.   A court room is an excellent place to watch the ego states at work.   If there is one ego state  most useful in this setting it is the observing Adult.     When working directly with parents, I sometimes explicitly used the model to help them understand why having been raised by frightening adults might have shaped their own responses to their children.    

Attachment theory is so incredibly value as a way of understanding what might be driving parental behaviour;  what a child might need from a care giver. 

At least as much as the psychological theories,  the ethical practice of therapy shaped how I work as a lawyer.    Understanding boundaries, appropriate interventions,  learning restraint at times and also how to use yourself at others was really liberating.

Returning finally to theory,  Erikson’s stages of development  was one I found interesting.     The idea of the key conflicts for different stages of development and the resolution of those conflicts in a competent and life-enhancing way, is a useful model.     It needs an overhaul though.     Given that my age next birthday will be 65, I was horrified to see that I was about to head into ‘integrity vs despair’  which runs from 65 to death.       Since Erikson developed his theory around 1950,  shortly after the birth of the NHS,  life expectancy has increased by approximately 13 years, so for men, from 66 – 79 and for women from 70 to 83.      I hope to remain in the previous  stage of ‘Generativity vs Stagnation’ for some time yet.

It is useful to think about this whole question of conflict as central to both life as a lawyer and life as a therapist.  

Therapists are working with conflict:  the internal conflict experienced by their client; conflict as it may manifest in the relationship in the therapeutic relationship;  conflict as it appears in a therapy group.   

Lawyers are dealing with conflicts in more obvious and external way.  The conflicts between  their clients are often played out in conflictual relationships between the advocates.   

Learning to observe the conflict,  to see the impasse,  to watch it, to understand it better,  to resist if possible being drawn into it, are valuable skills.    

I will forever value my time at the Guild.   It was so much more than a training in theory and models.  It inspires its students to really bring their whole selves into the work and, if they chose not to pursue a career in therapy,  to take what they have learned into other fields.  

Sarah Woolrich

3 September 2024

References

For more on the seven stages of coercive control,  this is a helpful video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC99xS4mYw0

For the current position on NHS Talking Therapies https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/nhs-talking-therapies/

For information on the NHS at 70, thinking of changes to lifespan and healthcare:

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-07/facts-and-figs-website.pdf

Blackpool to paris and beyond

BLACKPOOL

I took my Clinical TA exam in Blackpool. I was gutted. Everyone else in my training group went to exotic locations - San Francisco, Gstaad, Kerala. Me, I got the seaside town of my childhood that my grandmother always took me to for holidays. That year Blackpool had successfully bid to host the EATA conference in the UK. We all thought the UK won on cost.

I tried to be positive. No expensive flights. All the big TA names  only a  car drive away. Cheap accommodation. One of my more sophisticated friends from the southern hemisphere staying in a luxury seaside flat expostulated for hours about how anyone could expect you to carry 50 pence pieces to feed an electricity meter. We all feigned shock and ignorance. In truth, we were dissembling. This was Blackpool in the late eighties. What could you expect?

At the conference dinner the Mayor of Blackpool did not disappoint. He regaled our European colleagues with perplexing tales of how many yards of toilet roll were required each season to take care of holiday maker needs. And, of course, how many links of sausages were eaten at breakfast. We Brits cringed and would happily have crawled under the table.

The culinary nadir came when a very sophisticated New Yorker from our training group demanded to see the chef during the conference banquet.  He left him in no doubt that tinned tomatoes and  baked beans was not a banquet dinner fit  for anyone, including a vegetarian. Our trainer niftily calmed the situation by suggesting that we all went out the next night to the best restaurant in town. To be fair to Blackpool, it was an absolutely delicious meal that night, but eye wateringly expensive.

But back to my exam. My trainer had ordered me to go on The Revolution the night before my exam. Back in the day it was the biggest and scariest ride any theme park in Europe had to offer. The idea was to break down my tension with screaming. She commanded a big chunky Geordie guy in our training group to accompany me. He readily agreed.

On the day he did a no-show. Jennie waited for over an hour with me. But he didn’t come. We left it right up to the point when the ride was about to close. Reluctantly, but heroically, Jennie said she would come with me.

The Adrenalin rush was incredible. I walked off the ride floating. Unfortunately, it made me too high. And next morning at breakfast I walked up to the table where the Chair of my board was eating and introduced myself. He looked disconcerted and gently dispatched me with Antipodean charm and kindness.

Jennie had made me a peach two-piece to wear for the exam. I felt amazing.

My board was made up of four. Three Europeans and the Chair from New Zealand. The exam was an hour. I had prepared every marking category in the hope I would answer fluently. But inevitably there were questions that took me by surprise and caused me to pause. Our trainer had schooled us well and told us that at such moments we could say we needed a moment to think or even ask for the question to be re- phrased.

5 was the top mark in any category. My training group was very competitive and it mattered how many 5s you got. But all of that fell by the wayside when after the boards’ scoring and discussion the Chair said those magic words,
‘Congratulations, Christine, you’ve passed!’

Jennie and some our counselling group trainees were outside the exam room. They let out whoops of delight when they saw my smiling face and pressed a bucket of flowers into my hands which they had brought from their own gardens at home. I burst into tears. After all those arduous long years travelling to our training in London, often every weekend, I had done it. No more saving Mars Bar Vouchers towards tickets on the National Express coach.  No more sofa surfing on Saturday nights.

Now just Jennie’s exam in Paris that autumn to prepare for.

THE FANTASTICAL TALE OF THE FAIRY PRINCESS AND THE REBELLIOUS ADVENTURER (OR HOW NORTHERN GUILD WAS BORN)

This is the story I shared at our 40th Anniversary Celebration Evening.

Once upon a time, long ago, in the lands to the far, far North, a chance meeting in a co-counselling group took place between a fairy princess and a rebellious adventurer. It was not a success.

Secretly, the princess called the adventurer ‘Red Nails’ and thought her far too forward. Red Nails, called the princess ‘Frilly Skirt’ and thought her too easily pleased. You won’t be surprised to hear that they decided to have nothing more to do with one another. Although, it would have been against the group rules of that time to say any of this so they each kept quiet about their decision.

But the fates had another plan.

After four weeks Red Nails declared she was leaving the group because the rules were getting in the way of real relationships. 

A terrible wave of shock made the group shudder. But nobody said anything.

Then Frilly Skirt spoke up,’ If you are leaving can I keep in touch?’

An even bigger wave of shock shook the group.

Even Frilly Skirt was surprised at herself. Being an adventurer, Red Nails said ‘Yes’ far too quickly and then wondered what she had done. Shouldn’t she have said ‘no’?

But the fates are clever and they understand that unconscious processes are there to be worked with, especially if you can surprise them.

And so it was that this unlikely pair started to talk. Slowly, they became closer and closer. They would talk long into the night, have picnics in the snow and read books on TA together. A lot of people gave them cold pricklies for making an ‘unsuitable’ relationship. But the warm fuzzy feelings that they felt when they were together were much stronger than the pricklies.  And they just carried on having good times together.

They started talking to anyone who was interested about the autonomy each of them was discovering. It was scary because other people didn’t always understand. But it felt so good to be spontaneous and close and who you really are. They couldn’t help sharing it. And slowly but surely others looking for their own autonomy started to gather around, listening and sharing their own seeking and journeying.

Many moons waxed and waned, until the day came when the two women decided it was time to make the journey to the far-off land where the teachers of knowledge could be found. There was so much more to learn. They were excited to find out all that they could.

Their journeying in this far off land lasted over the course of more than 84 full moons. And you won’t be surprised to hear that the biggest part of the journey was to a place called ‘the self’.

 Some very surprising things happened there.

 Red Nails started to wear frilly skirts sometimes. The frills tickled her legs and made her feel giggly. A fluffy, floaty feeling - like a marshmallow being tickled by a soft white feather –  would envelope her. She had never felt this before.

Frilly skirt turned out to be an intrepid adventurer who loved nothing more than travelling far and wide discovering new ways of thinking and doing things like eating bread buns stuffed to the brim with cabbage for breakfast.

In the end, the fairy princess and the rebellious adventurer from the start of our tale simply disappeared one day without a trace. In their place stood two strong-minded, thoughtful, tolerant women with a passion for sharing what they had come to know and understand about real freedom and the journey that you must take to find it. They were very clear that this journey is not safe or right for everyone. And that true, inner wisdom lies in knowing for yourself the right path.

By now many other seekers of truth and openness, spontaneity and intimacy were making their own journeys alongside our two. Those drawn to the path of their own knowing. In their own unique and special way, everyone shared a vision of a world where you could talk about what was in your heart, share your awareness, shout out new insights without fear of being derided, diminished or disavowed.  People listened  -carefully and with interest- to each other. Offering support, validation and even practical help when it was needed.

Eventually, everyone started taking their knowledge far and wide all across the land and over the ocean, sharing all they knew. And there were so many of them that they made an enormous, unstoppable river of hope and help, kindness and caring that flowed

 quietly, wordlessly and irrepressibly

high into the mountains and deep into the oceans across all the lands.

Many, many moons have now waxed and waned. And still, many are born and have cast on them at birth that bad spell where their own knowing is not listened to.

 If you are not listened to for long enough you completely forget what you know. You become captive to the fantastical tales of others and what they say.

Here, tonight we have a waning crescent moon. This is is a time for us to reconnect with our own inner knowing. To listen to our hearts, to follow our vision and to trust our intuition, the ‘unthought known’ that is the source of our inner wisdom. If we listen to ourselves we will hear others more clearly helping them trust their own journeying and

Connect their Hearts Minds and Souls

CONNECTING HEARTS MINDS AND SOULS | FINDING NORTHERN GUILD

 40th Anniversary Graduation Speech by Kate Uher

Normally, when I give a talk, I don't plan it out, because planning makes me nervous. My usual way of approaching this sort of situation is to get on stage, allow myself to disassociate and whatever happens happens. I like this because people come up to me afterwards and tell me how great I was, and I have no idea what on earth I just said. But Compliments are nice. That's always worked for me in the past. As least as far as I can remember. But this is the Northern Guild for Psychotherapy, and the Guild has a particular importance to me. So, for this talk, I have made a plan. I'm going to talk about three things that happened in 1983.

The first thing I'm going to talk about which happened in 1983 is that the term ‘cosplay’ was introduced into the world by a Japanese reporter covering comicons. Cosplay, for people who don't know, is a bit of a complicated concept. It is essentially the combination of the words: ‘Costume’ and ‘Play.’ For those of you who haven’t read about it or aren't familiar with it, cosplay is an act where people dress up like their favourite characters from comic books or movies. These characters often have admirable traits, such as being cool or witty or heroic; but they also have traits that make them more complex like anxiety, depression or identity uncertainty. There are aspects of the character that are often widely admired and there are aspect of the character that people might feel insecure about within themselves. Dressing up like a particular character is an opportunity to put armour around our humanity. To have a representation of that which makes us human and that which we might be scared of in ourselves. It's also an opportunity to try on different personas so that we might discover who we are.

The second thing which happened in 1983 that I wanted to talk about was that I was offered a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Condition. Back then my mother thought it was probably going to do more harm than good, and I think she was likely right, so she didn't tell anyone, including me. This meant that growing up I felt like there was something different about me, but I lacked a name for what it was.

In my teenage years I got interested in psychology, I was really wanting to make sense of the world around me and my own experience. I started reading some of my mum’s, psychology textbooks from university. I got interested in one book in particular which had a list of different disorders people might have. I liked the simplicity of how the book was structured. I would read about things and I would think… That could be me…. That could be me…. That could be me….

I liked having a language that might describe some of my experiences. For me that felt like having the magic keys. After discovering that book I very excitedly told my mum, ‘I think I'm interested in psychology.’ She responded, ‘Well, that would be wonderful for you because often people who go into psychology struggle, a lot in their childhood.’ She meant that to be genuinely encouraging. But at 13 what I understood from that was that my interest in psychology was a telltale sign that something was wrong with me. As a resul I became very embarrassed about this part of myself. I started hiding my psychology books under my bed. And for the next 20 years of my life that is where my psychology texts would live.

It was in my 30s after my son was diagnosed with autistic spectrum condition that I was finally told about my own early diagnosis. After a few years of self-reflection, I thought I would like to train as a psychotherapist. Finding the Northern Guild was not the product of a lot of in-depth research. I googled ‘psychotherapy training near me.’

I found the Guild.

It looked kind of small, and I wasn’t sure if it would be any good. I had no idea what transactional analysis was. I had I'm okay. You're okay, under my bed. But I couldn't have told you who wrote it. And I would not have known that guy had anything to do with transactional analysis even if I could have.

I went to an open evening.

In my 36 years of life, I had not felt like I could sustainably fit in anywhere, so I was a little bit nervous as I looked around the room wondering. Where these my people? Should I invest in this emotionally, financially, temporally? Could I hold this job? Signing up and starting the training was a real leap of faith. I spent the first year feeling scared. I remember when I started my first placement, how insecure I was about what I was doing. To prepare I went on  Counselling Directory.com and studied the faces of practising therapists. I wanted to identify what attributes made someone a good therapist.

I realized that a good therapist is someone who has: strong eyebrows, a Greek nose if at all possible, an eclectic fashion sense, and chunky jewellery. I started to identify tropes within the therapist community. I could see there was the earth, mother type, the schoolteacher type, the nurturing parent. The every- man, the every- woman type. I was staring at faces of people who represented who I wanted to be and who I was scared of being. My early days as a therapist were me trying to dress the part as I sought to learn what sort of therapist am I?

Mark Twain wrote, ‘The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.’

My first client and I worked together for a year and a half. The evening after we ended, I sat in my living room writing up my notes. I had a feeling of satisfaction that I hadn't felt about anything before. I had helped someone in a way that felt authentic to me. That aligned with my ethics. My need to be equal rather than the expert. My need to be human rather than robotic. We had I-thou  moments. I was still new to this, but I believed I had done a good enough job. And I felt proud of that.

As my mind wondered, my eyes stared straight ahead, until I became aware that I was staring at my bookshelf. I grabbed an empty laundry basket and cleared one of the shelves of my husband’s science fiction fantasy books. It’s okay. He has many more. He’s someone who thinks if you need bookends you don’t have enough books. So, I lugged the books upstairs and dumped them on my bed. I then got on my hands and knees and pulled out all of my psychology texts. I went back downstairs and filled the shelf with these books. I didn't have to be afraid of this part of me. I was a Psychotherapist.

The third thing I wanted to talk about which happened in 1983 was Christine Lister Ford and Jennie McNamara started the Northern Guild for Psychotherapy. In her talk Jennie  gave credit to us for making the Guild what it is, but the reality is that none of us would be here if it weren’t for them creating this school. The school is small compared to large universities, but its smallness is a gift. The smallness allows the Guild to teach something which is hard to teach in anonymous lecture halls in large institutions. It teaches us humanism. Which is to respect humanity and autonomy, starting with ourselves. It makes sense that this is taught well in a more intimate setting. We go as therapists and counsellors into a room with one or sometimes two other people and the magic is the I-thou moments. We can’t learn that in a large and impersonal space.

When I was asked to speak here today, I wanted to create a talk that was worthy of the Guild. I started listening to graduation speeches given by famous people like Neil Gaiman, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah and others. One of the themes I noticed which came up in every talk I listened to was the theme of failure. I was curious about why that was such a common theme. Then I realised, it was because the graduation speeches I was listening to were directed at an audience of people in their early 20s, many going out into the adult world for the first time. For them failure is a sensible thing to talk about. To let them know that it's okay to fail, to let them know that failure is inevitable. But when I thought about the speech I would give today, I thought most of the people I've met who've gone into training at the Guild have already experienced some failures and hurt and roadblocks. A lot of them have gone into this training because of such experiences.

Most of the people, I've met don't need to be told it's okay to fail. Instead, many of us have needed to be told it's okay to self-actualize and take up space and be potent. It's okay to look at and embody the scary bits of ourselves, to face our insecurities. The insecurities are not a one-off. We are constantly graduating from one place to another in our lives. Acquiring new skills, acquiring new qualifications, starting new careers, or new levels in our careers. Allowing ourselves to be okay with the scary bits, to learn, to self-actualize is a privilege because we increasingly live in a world that does not permit such behaviour. But I think not only is it okay to have this privilege, we need to insist on it.

We need to be told it’s okay to love what you do, and get paid for what you love, because you can tell when someone you go to for help has stopped loving what they do. Because when that happens, what they do becomes a means to an end. And you become the object (rather than the person) they are working with. And that is scary.

It’s okay to shine in the presence of others, because in doing that we help others to do it too. That is where the healing is. When you are close to someone who shines you heal a little bit. When you learn how to shine yourself you heal completely.

I expect to be graduating from my PhD next July, and I won’t miss it, but I already know it won’t compare to a Guild Graduation. My experience here was very much about self-actualization and I can’t think of a better more important graduation in life than to find a deeper more meaningful and truer version of yourself.

As we go forward from here, we go into different places. Some of you will go into private work, some maybe go into work for different institutions or different charities. Some of you will find that you step immediately into a place where the humanistic ethos is embodied and respected and upheld. And others may find that the people they work with don't quite get it. It takes effort to maintain what we've been trained to do. It takes ethical bravery to question, challenge and educate others around us, particularly when the Critical Parents start running the show. But we must continue to challenge and educate because our privilege of living authentically cannot be a passive one. So, I hope as you embark on this relationship with yourself and your career that you give yourself permission, not just to be happy, but to protect that happiness and cultivate it in others.

MEET OUR GRADUATES |ROSA LETO DPc, PG Dip,DiP, UKCP REGISTRANT

My Story

I am Australian by birth, my parents were migrants from the south of Italy.  I was brought up bi-lingually, starting school not speaking any English.  As a child I had to help my parents negotiate life and work, interpreting for them (and relatives) and being a young carer.  I came to higher education late, supporting myself as a young adult to gain university entrance and graduating with honours from The University of Sydney.

I moved to the UK with my husband and two small children in 1995. I then completed a PGCE in Secondary Education and taught in a multi-cultural school in Cardiff Bay, an area of severe deprivation. I then changed careers and trained for Presbyteral Ministry in The Methodist Church, starting at St Michaels College and Cardiff University and ending my ministerial studies at Durham University with a Master’s in Theological Research specialising in Psychology and Religion. I served as a District Officer in Business, Industry and Commerce and a chaplain to business and industry in the North East. I also had pastoral responsibility within churches which included  providing pastoral support to families and individuals in times of bereavement, social and economic hardship, parenting and family life. I was also a national trainer for workplace chaplaincy working ecumenically in the UK and chaired various local and national committees.

After resigning from The Methodist Church, I then worked as Director of Multi-Faith Chaplaincy Services, advising on Religious and EDI Issues, providing mediation and conflict resolution for a major FE College in South Yorkshire and providing pastoral support to students, as well as managing teams of chaplains in the steel industry and fire and rescue services. After working with this chaplaincy, a colleague and I began an independent company to provide advice to both private and public sector bodies on EDI and Religious Issues, providing mediation services and pastoral support to students and staff. 

I now work as a psychotherapeutic counsellor, having qualified for both children and adults, and as a psychotherapist qualified to work with children and young people having trained through Northern Guild.  It has been an amazing journey moving here, having lived in Australia, the USA and now the UK. But I am fortunate in having relatives, friends and colleagues both in the UK and around the world.

Where are you based?

In the North-East of England, mainly Durham and South Shields.

What are you doing now?

 I am self-employed as a Psychotherapist and currently hold a contract as Mental Health Practitioner with a primary school in South Shields and work independently as a consultant to public and private sector bodies on a range of organisational and mental health issues.  I am also studying for an MSc in Psychotherapy and Diploma in Clinical Supervision.

 What does your working week look like?

 I am in school for two days a week offering clinical face-to-face, one-to-one, psychotherapy sessions to the children as well as a drop-in service, and mediation services.  I also offer support to parents and school staff.  Other days are taken up with administrative work, clinical supervision, my consultancy work and research for my MSc in Psychotherapy.

How has the emergence of online working impacted your practice? 

I do have experience of online working, but my practice is currently all face-to-face.  The school that I work with prefers face-to-face but would use online if another pandemic lockdown occurred, as long as it could be safeguarded appropriately. I feel confident with online practice based on past experience.  In terms of attending case conferences, clinical supervision, accessing CPD, consultancy work, online working has made this all more accessible and inclusive for me.  I find working online brings different senses to the foreground  - it’s a bit like watching a movie with no sound, so I have to work harder and activate my other senses into the foreground because I can’t hear what people are saying with their body language and smell for instance.  Once I got used to it I found I could still get behind the words and read what might be really going on - I had to dig deeper within my own senses to stay connected but that felt quite wholistic.  It’s brought more choice regarding accessibility and practice and if worked well, is no bad thing.

How did your training at Northern Guild prepare you for working as a therapist?

 From day one you take responsibility for how you use your time, how much you want to get from the training – you don’t get spoon-fed.  I felt held to a very high standard of professionalism which is how I like to work, so the training was a good fit for me.  It is amazing to look back and see how much was covered in the training. It follows you around – I have been told more than once that people can tell that I trained through Northern Guild ‘you can always tell the difference’ they say (which was also the case when I applied for placements during my training). 

What opportunities have opened up for you since qualifying?

Quite a few actually, the variety of placements I did in the NHS CAMHS, educational, and charity sectors provided with me with a good amount of experience, choice, offers, work and connections.  My preference is to work within organisations that have a strong sense of community, with a client base that is made up of the whole spectrum of people from diverse backgrounds.  I have come away from working for a national mental health charity, preferring to work as self-employed with individuals and agencies, so I can set my own standard and type of service delivery placing the therapeutic relationship and the client’s needs first. 

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

 Mentoring, training, delivering psychotherapeutic services, learning – much the same as what I am doing now.  I am an educationalist as well as a psychotherapist at heart, and I really enjoy supporting people in their own personal and professional growth.

MEET OUR GRADUATES | LEESA JENKINSON MSc, PGDiP, DiP, DPC, UKCP ACCREDITED PSYCHOTHERAPIST - FROM BELFAST TO France VIA NEWCASTLE

LEESA JENKINSON

Brief Biography

I was born and grew up in a small town outside Belfast in Northern Ireland in 1978, went to the local primary and then Grammar school.

After studying for a Health and social care vocational qualification alongside Sociology A Level, I then took a year out to work and save money for university, working in local nursing homes, the psychiatric hospital and Learning disabilities hospital as a support worker.  During this year I achieved my certificate in counselling studies at evening class.

In 1998 at 19 years old, just a few months after the Peace agreement in Northern Ireland I left to study Social Policy at Newcastle University.  Alongside my studies I continued to work as a Nursing Auxiliary in nursing homes, as well as the general and psychiatric hospitals around Newcastle.  On completion of my degree in 2001 I worked (in an orphanage for boys up to the age of 18) and travelled for a few months in America before returning to Newcastle and finding employment as a Support Worker in a west end residential service supporting people with issues such as addictions, mental health, domestic violence, immigration and refugee status and involvement in the criminal justice system.  I also attended Newcastle College to study counselling. 

In 2002 I began my studies at Northern Guild, where I initially obtained my Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, then continued my studies to achieve the Diploma in Psychotherapy and MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy. I completed my studies in 2008, then soon after moved to France with my now husband, I returned to Newcastle for graduation in July 2009.

Where are you based?

Pau, South West France.

Capital of the Béarn department in the Aquitaine region, Pau is an old royal city beautifully set between the mountains and the ocean, at the extreme southwest tip of France.

https://www.france.fr/en/bordeaux/article/pau-0

What are you doing now?

I have a small private practice made up mainly of anglophone ex-pats, American exchange students from the university, and occasional French native speakers.

What does your working week look like?

On average I see up to 10 clients spread throughout the week, both online and in person. I generally work between the hours of 9-5 Mon, Tue, Thurs, Fri and until 1pm on a Wednesday to accommodate childcare as I have 3 children, 5-year-old twins and an 8-year-old.

How was the emergence of online working impacted your practice?

Generally positively, I worked online a bit pre covid so it wasn’t a total shock.

Working with an ex-pat population means I’d often have clients move before they were ready to finish therapy so we would continue via skype (back in the day!). I like that there is a much wider acceptance of working online and a greater choice of platforms to use too.

How did your training at Northern Guild prepare you for working as a therapist?

Overall, I would say that the quality and depth of the training gave me the tools and confidence to set up in private practice and instilled deeply in me the importance of working ethically and with integrity.

What opportunities have opened up for you since qualifying?

Thanks to the recognised level of training at the guild I was able to undertake my EMDR training which I have used extensively. In my capacity as an independent therapist, I have advised the local International School on many occasions and helped in the development of a drop-in guidance counselling service. I also advise the local university’s American student exchange service when the need arises and often work with their students.

 Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

I envisage that as my children become more independent, I will expand my private practice and continue to build on what I have already created.

UNMASKING THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF COSPLAY - KATE UHER

Looking at the sea of Insta pics produced from every cosplay event ever, one would be forgiven for thinking it was just the narcissistic counterculture of gen-Zers, but that would be wrong.

Every summer, I traverse comic-cons with my "Don" (that's my clever combo of daughter and son). amidst a kaleidoscope of scantily clad Pokémon, dango eating Totoros and fabulously dressed Lolita maids, I get transported back to my own teen years. Though aesthetically different from my grunge-loving, nouveau-hippie friends of 30 years past, the vibe is oddly familiar. The energy is that of rebelling against social convention, a celebration of Eastern culture, sexual and gender liberation, and the use alternative arts to spread messages of peace, love, and personal freedom.

When asking my don what they get from cosplay they responded, ‘When I first started, I was overwhelmed with a sense of community. It was an opportunity to meet like-minded people off the internet.’ This tracks with my client work. I work with many neurodivergent clients in which cosplay becomes both a shield and a bridge, enabling them to navigate overwhelming situations and form instant connections with like-minded souls.

I had hoped to highlight parallels between cosplayers and the transformative hippie movement of the 60s. However, when I suggested such a connection to my don they served me a reality check with a touch of emoji sadness: "Hippies were a political movement. Cosplay is a hobby." Ouch! My don continued, "not everything needs to be political. Cosplay's essence is about embracing ourselves as we are, and just being. Making it political would defeat the point." What my therapist self heard was that my don experienced a sense of individuation through cosplay. Cosplay archetypes offer congruence with our stories, allowing us to proudly embrace our quirks and insecurities, integrating conscious and unconscious elements of the self through creative expression. The characters often have atrabutes or life stories which include strife and adversity, and yet they are loved. Embodying a character, one relates to could be seen as an act of crafting the life script we desire - "I can be weird and likable, and that's perfectly me."

The term 'kosupure' (cosplay) was originally introduced by Nobuyuki Takahashi in June 1983, in an article discussing fans who dressed up as manga and anime characters at the Comiket convention in Tokyo. The article showcased a diverse range of cosplayers, including those portraying superheroes, robots, transgender characters, and sexy personas. In the following year, during Takahashi's attendance at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Los Angeles, the term was anglicized to "cosplay."

Born in the rad '80s of Japan, cosplay has become a cultural phenomenon which has soared across the globe over the last four decades. From a distance, however, one might see cosplay as being similar to reenactments, resistance fairs or living museums. From and even greater distance we can see the act of dressing up as something timeless. Donning costumes has been seen as early as ancient Celtic Samhain (AKA Halloween) to rituals in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, people have worn costumes as a way to pay homage.

On a personal level cosplay is about embracing the personas of our cherished fictional icons - the heroes or anti-heroes who truly resonate with us, or perhaps as a way of simply discovering how it feels to be someone else. Not unlike the act of dressing up in grandma's chunky high heels or grandpa’s bowler hat and cloppy wingtip shoes? Cosplay is a sensory experience which enables us to briefly become someone or something else - an enchanting embodiment of self-expression.

I asked my don if I could get a picture of them for the article. ‘It’s totally fine to say no,’ I assured them.

‘I really want to play Michael from the Magnus archives again. Maybe I could dress up as him and you could take my picture.’

‘What do you like about Michael?’

‘He’s funny.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He’s technically a villain. He is distortion incarnate, nothing about him makes sense and it’s not supposed to, that’s what makes him scary. As an autistic person the world around me is inherently distorted, whether that’s how I view the world, how people view me, or the simple fact that I don’t make sense to people and that scares them.’ Life is scary and distorted, and that is a lot for young people to process. I can see there is something empowering about embodying ‘distortion incarnate.’

Beyond self-discovery, cosplay offers a therapeutic haven for those with social anxiety or relational trauma. It provides a safe stage to express emotions that might otherwise be stifled in everyday life. Here, individuation blends with the universality of human experiences represented through archetypes (or tropes) thus fostering visibility and affirmation. In this way cosplay offers a sense of community akin to Renaissance fairs, reenactments, and living museums.

As I have written this article, I have identified many links between Jung’s theories and cosplay and have developed a deeper appreciation for this therapeutic ‘hobby.’ It is more than just snapping selfies for Insta or TikTok trends. I find that at the heart of the cosplay community is the use of profound creativity to transcend boundaries. Allowing deep self-exploration and expression without shame. Cosplay is identity affirming, body positive, and diversity embracing. In essence, the heart of cosplay beats to the rhythm of harmony and understanding – an ethos that transcends movements.

WHAT IS HUMANISTIC PHILOSOPHY ANYWAY? PHIL SMITH

A couple of weeks ago the internet in my house went down. It plunged my household into a crisis. What would the children do now? How would I know what the weather would be like this afternoon? The dog was the only one happy about the situation as attention moved from screens to playful encounters in the garden.

I immediately got onto the phone to call the internet provider to sort out the problem. After waiting in line and navigating the automated responses and countless options, an engineer came onto the call …

Hello, my name is Simon, am I speaking to Mr Smith

Call me Phil, and yes you are.

How are you today Phil?

Erm, fine, yea, so the internet isn’t working, I have tried resetting the router and it still won’t work. The green light is flashing, I think it normally doesn’t do that.

Certainly Sir, I will talk you though steps that can be taken in a minute, first I need to go through some security checks…

We went through the security checks and Simon walked me through several steps to check connectivity and make a hard re-set on the router, which did the job, fixed the problem and abated the crisis. Phew!

Is there anything else I can help you with?

No, that’s all good, so….

Ok Phil, its been nice to talk to you…

Oh, well, good…(phone moves away from my ear and into the palm of my hand…I am looking down at the phone with my thumb hovering over the red button to hang up when Simon suddenly asks)

Have you any plans for the afternoon?

Not really…so… (thumb still hovering…)

Ah, ok

Yep…ok…

(thumb still hovering)

-          Silence 

-          Silence

Hello?

Hi Phil.

So, was there anything else?

No, that should all now be working for you with no more problems. (phone back to my ear…)

Great, that’s great…thank you

Your very welcome Phil, sometimes these problems happen, and they can easily be fixed if you know how.

Yes, that’s it. I had no idea you could do a hard re-set, I thought you just had to push the reset button. Thanks for showing me how to do that. Where are you based Simon?

Milton Keynes, do you know where that is?

Yes I do, South’ish right?

Right.

How is the weather there today?

Sunny and hot.

Yea, like it is here as well.

Too hot for me.

I like the heat, but  I can imagine if your working in an office it get too hot for comfort.

It really does. I am off next week though so that will be nice, if the weather holds.

Oh yes, that sounds good. Going anywhere nice?

A week at home, in my garden, some walks probably.

Lovely.

Yes, I think it will be.

Well, thanks again Simon, I really appreciate you sorting this out for us, the children will be happy.

-          Laughs

Your very welcome. Take care.

You take care as well, bye Simon.

-          End Call

Immediately after the call I went and sat on bench in my garden. What just happened? At Northern Guild it is Clinical Practice Assessment season, and I have spent the past weeks analysing transcripts with trainees. Now I think back on the transcript that has just taken place. I felt different after the call then I did before it, and it wasn’t just the fact that the internet was working now. Simon changed as well. By the end his voice had changed, he felt more present, more tonal in sound. And the strange thing was that I felt different as well, happier, more relaxed.

As I reflected I though about how I had approached the call. It was inconvenient that the internet had stopped, and I was keen to get it sorted as soon as possible, it didn’t matter who was on the other end of the call, as long as they could fix it. In this way, ‘Simon’ could have been anyone, perhaps even Artificial Intelligence, just as long as he could give me what I wanted when I wanted it. Once that was done, I would just hangup, I n longer needed him.

As I reflect on this, I wondered if in taking this approach I somehow ignored or even denied Simon’s humanity and in so doing,  also discounted my own. By objectifying him into a faceless tool on the other end of a phone, I somehow also objectified myself.

There is an undervalued yet essential component to humanism that I, once again, learned the importance of through this encounter with Simon; Gratitude.  Gratitude is an exercise in recognition; recognition of the humanity on the other end of the phone, behind a counter, screen or mask. It is easy to discount another person, ‘its their Job’. What I missed was that ‘their’ was a person, a human being with thoughts, feelings, a life… when I said ‘thank you’ to Simon and we spoke of other things, that was when I felt myself, and noticed him, change.

In this way, gratitude is perhaps an act of recognition of humanity behind the roles that we take on in life and the services offered. I am grateful for the internet going down and I am grateful to Simon for talking with me for twenty minutes on the phone and reminding me of this simple yet important precept.

This year at Northern guild we celebrate 40 years of the organisation. This celebration is an act of gratitude, of thankfulness for all that the organisation has given and received from the countless people whose lives have been touched by it in someway over the past four decades. I look forwards with hope and a renewed belief in the humanistic tradition that Northern Guild has stood for all these years.

Recognition of a person’s humanity requires of me to recognise my own. To see the pain in the person before me, I need also to recognise and accept my own. If I can express joy and gratitude for the presence of the other in my life, then in doing so I find my humanity.

I am looking forwards to the party at Acklam Hall, an opportunity as a community recognise and give thanks for the work of the Northern Guild, of which you and I are both part of, and together to affirm our common humanity in all of its wonderful complexity.

Richard Erskine’s WORKSHOP AFFIRMed EVERYTHING ALISON WOODWARD & Carolyn Dobbing

Carolyn & Alison

Last month we took part in Dr Richard Erskine’s two day workshop: Shame, Obsession & Habitual Worrying: A Perspective from Relational and Integrative Psychotherapy. 

We had prepared for this event by doing some worrying of our own!  Would we feel foolish alongside a group of practicing therapists, we wondered.   As we approached the end of our second year of training, we imagined their years of experience.  Would we fit in?  Would we feel shame and regret our decision to take part?

However, Erskine’s contribution to psychotherapy forms part of our core teaching and  we quickly  felt at home with his relational and integrative approach.  Although this was not a TA workshop, we could detect the TA theory underlying the integrative approach of the workshop.  As we listened, enthusiastically scribbling notes, our worries fell away and we felt increasingly at ease.  And why wouldn’t we?  His training affirmed the quality of teaching and supervision we have at the Guild.  In fact, our tutor, Sarah Clarke, was in the room and as Erskine spoke of meeting developmental needs and working with ‘the client in the room’, we exchanged knowing looks!

We so appreciate the quality of the training we have been able to access at Northern Guild, including the training therapy which is indispensable in helping us to understand and connect with ourselves.  We have experienced ‘Hallelujah’ moments, embraced change, and developed new relationships with self and others.  When Erskine asked a question of the audience on the second day, guess whose hand shot up?  With the answer he wanted, too! 

WHY MY NORTHERN GUILD TRAINING IS SO GOOD BY VICTORIA PURUSHOTHAMAN

Victoria Purushothaman

In March of this year I attended the BACP Children, Young People &
Families Conference, ‘Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Promoting Healing
and Hope’. It was a great one-day conference primarily looking at the impact of trauma and dissociation on children and their families and the kinds of therapeutic work that will support them.. The topics ranged from understanding complex trauma, its triggers, the role of Polyvagal theory in aiding clinical work, creative tools that may be useful when working with trauma and dissociation. It was a very informative day. However, I was almost immediately struck by how much knowledge of this topic I already held as only a second year trainee, with only a few months of practice under my belt. I had gone to the conference expecting to be out of my depth, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself on familiar ground. In many ways perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, as I had just recently gone through a few evenings of teaching at the Northern Guild on trauma and the neurobiology of psychotherapy. What this conference cemented in my mind was a thought, or rather a truth, that had been fledging for a
while, that the quality of teaching and training at the Northern Guild
is extremely good.

Sitting amongst a few hundred people I couldn't help but draw comparisons and find with great pride that I really was receiving some of the best training, experience, practice and knowledge that is available in the UK. As I head into my final year and think
about final assessment and leaving the Northern Guild, I am filled with a
sense of thankfulness and certainty that not only have I, myself, benefited from a great training with the Northern Guild, but the children and young
people who I and my fellow trainees will meet will also benefit. And isn't
that what it's all about.

ONLY CONNECT!

Creation Hands Leonardo Da Vinci

Our Covid legacy has been on my mind for a while. I have so many questions - What is it? How does it affect us? How have things changed? Recently, I came across a fascinating new book, Covid -19 & Shame; Political Emotions & Public Health in the UK[ii] .

The book’s over-arching thesis is historical, namely that epidemics and pandemics call for social control of the populace. This is invariably achieved through the manipulation of our fears. Our explicit fear of contagion and death, most recently the Covid virus, is harnessed and subjugated to our implicit fear of social shame and opprobrium if we get things wrong. The public naming, blaming & shaming of people and groups is a key weapon in making people toe the line during a pandemic. The book takes us through six shaming scenarios common during the height of the covid pandemic – Using  language to shame, Shaming Health Care professionals, Racialized shaming, Fat shaming, British Common Sense and Surveillance shaming, and Operation Moonshot, governmental face-saving.

The authors draw on the work of Scheff et al who describe shame as the ‘Master Emotion’[iii]. Scheff et al  see shame as a generic term for a ‘family’ of emotions including embarrassment, humiliation, shyness and conscience. Shame is, of course, twinned with pride. Whilst pride enhances our sense of self-worth and our social standing, shame eats away at it and threatens our social bonding. We want to feel proud of ourselves, we want to shine in the eyes of others.

When I step into my own rememberings about all those endless months and months of enforced Covid changes I feel a disconnect.  I cannot quite believe that I actually lived like that for so long with so little fuss. Who was that me? Where is she now? Was I a passive bystander?

 The WHO declared Covid-19 a Pandemic on 11 March 2020 , this hastened changes in language and brought the creation of nasty new names like ‘coviidiot’. Used frequently in social media posts and WhatsApp groups as well as in the press, their purpose was to point the finger at, shame and stigmatize, those not doing the right thing. The list of not-right things grew ever bigger and evolved over time. It included stockpiling toilet tissue, dried pasta and tinned tomatoes; walking your dog with a coffee in your hand; not wearing a mask in a supermarket unless you were exempt on health grounds, although none of us knew when that was being faked. And, of course, failing to be seen  to clap for the NHS at 8.00pm each Thursday evening.

The government used podium slogans and televised briefings beamed straight into our domestic digital fortresses to keep us on our toes. The first of these, ‘Stay home, Protect the NHS, Save lives.’  was legally enforceable. But as March 2020 was gloriously hot and sunny it felt like school had broken up early and we had been gifted an unexpected holiday.  Some months later the slogan morphed into ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’. A muddled message providing vague guidance that allowed us all  to have our own take on things and giving more opportunity  for my- way- or- no- way thinking and behaving.

 In the UK we have lived for so long with a neo liberal underpinning to the way our society operates that it has become all too easy to put onto others what it is no longer comfortable or safe to see in ourselves. We allow our fears, our vulnerabilities and our shortcomings to shape - shift. They become the gremlins who goad and mock us into a binary world of  Splits and Splitting - Black and white; Right and Wrong; Good and Bad. Here there is only one way, one answer one option. We lose our capacity for reflective thought, for compromise and cooperation. Parent and Child Ego States drown out Adult. We retreat into the chemical intoxication and drama of Revenge Psychological Game Playing - Uproar, Let’s You & Them Fight & Court Room tantalise and enchant us. Without meaning to we throw out and abandon our capacity for relationship, closeness and intimacy. If we are not careful, lose each other, finding an illusory safe harbour in blaming and shaming and gaming.

Of course, the Covid-19 Pandemic is not the only factor to bring unsettling changes in recent years. Brexit was finalised on 31 January 2020, just weeks before the pandemic, after several years of viscious fighting between parliamentarians, families and with our European neighbours and cousins. And now we are all in the thumb screws of barely controllable inflation. A rollercoaster of Prime Ministers, budgets and mini-budgets can’t seem to find definitive solutions.  Of course we are scared.

But as Psychotherapists and Counsellors we can do better. We are gifted with the knowledge to understand some of this. We have the tools to face our inner selves. We can stand up to our  internal demons and prisoners, refuse to allow the things we fear to be weaponised against us. We have the power, the knowledge and the skill to stop our innermost fears being turned into disowned, protected shadows that stalk the corridors of our communities & neighbourhoods, trolling and terrorising. It just takes one of us to dial back on a WhatsApp thread to open a new dialogue, that has openness, caring and compassion at its heart to bring change. Even though our living imaginations carry the trauma of the pandemic we can refuse these ghosts of that past and look  instead to our present and our future. We can do what we have been doing so powerfully for Forty years now – Connect our Hearts, Souls and Minds with those of our friends and families, our neighbours  and colleagues and our fellow humans across the world.

[i] ‘Only Connect!’ Forster, E.M.,  Howards End. London: Penguin Classics.

[ii] Cooper, Fred, Dolezal, Luna Rose, Arthur (2023) Covid-19 & Shame. Political Emotions & Public Health in the UK. London: Bloomsbury Academic

[iii]  Scheff, Thomsa J. and Retzinger, Suzanne M., Shame As The Master Emotion of Everyday Life’.  www.academia.edu

CONNECTING HEARTS MINDS AND SOULS SINCE 1983 |CHRISTINE IN CONVERSATION WITH Graduate PAULINE POWLESLAND

Pauline with Sidney

Christine  You are a Registered Psychotherapist. What was your Northern Guild training like?

Pauline  Excellent!   I started training at Northern Guild in 1998, the year the Newcastle Centre was opened.  I was a student on the MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy.  I was already a qualified integrative counsellor and BACP accredited, with my own private practice and working as a staff counsellor for the Occupational Health Department at my local hospital. 

I valued the warmth and friendliness of my group. The tutors were lovely, they gave me support and help when I needed it. I had to cram all the learning and tutorials into each weekend because of the long distance that I travelled from West London. 

You and Jennie were amongst my trainers.  You both had an interactive approach that was stimulating and energising.   I was lucky to have Jennie as my supervisor and personal tutor.  I learned a lot.  Of course, things weren’t always easy.  Case presentations and writing case studies was new to me.   I found that challenging.

I graduated in 2003 with both a Diploma and an MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy.

I gained a Distinction in both.  I am incredibly proud of what I achieved.  My Northern Guild graduation ceremony was at Judges Hotel in Yarm in 2003. Dr Neil Frude from The University of Wales presented the awards. it was amazing!  I felt so proud of all I had achieved.  And my dissertation sits in the University of Wales’ library.  That feels very significant.

My training at Northern Guild was incredibly fulfilling.  It will stay with me forever.

Christine   You are the longest-serving HIPC Administrator.  What was it that appealed to you about the role?

Pauline   Jennie was Chair of the Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy Section. The Honorary Secretary was resigning.  As I lived in London Jennie asked me to help with the administration. This meant attending the HIPS meetings and taking the minutes.  I couldn’t become the new Hon Sec because I wasn’t a delegate, so a new paid role was created in 1999 - HIPS Administrator.  

I agreed to work for a few hours a week which fitted with my private practice.  

I remember my first task was to set up a contact list of names, addresses and phone numbers - there were no e -mails back in the day!

I really enjoyed the meetings.  Everyone was very warm and I felt appreciated.  Liaising with delegates from organisations across the country was really interesting.  The meetings broadened my understanding of the Humanistic and Integrative field, it’s so diverse, broad and rich.

Christine    Were there any moments when the Psychotherapist in you wanted to speak out in a meeting?

Pauline   Oh! Yes.   But I was careful to stick to my role and its boundaries.  I gradually developed an instinct of not being enticed into speaking.

Christine   What did you most dislike about your role ?

Pauline   Taking minutes and typing them up afterwards. And delegates who wanted reports sending out late at night before the next day’s meeting.

Christine   What changes have you seen in your time as administrator?

Pauline   The number of Organisational Members has massively expanded. Delegates have more than trebled from around 20 to over 70. 

UKCP itself also underwent significant structural changes in 2010. All the Sections became Colleges in their own right with more autonomy to decide how they wanted to run things for their members. HIPS became the Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC). 

HIPC has always been the largest college in UKCP with over 4,000 members. It has approximately a third of the total UKCP membership.  

 In 2016 it was decided that the college would be run by a Steering Committee so that the load could be shared. Instead of working for three people I had to respond to a whole committee.  I also had to attend monthly meetings. It was very time consuming.  My job title changed from HIPC Administrator to HIPC Co-ordinator.  I became a non-voting member of the Steering Committee.  

Christine   What advice would you offer to a new Administrator? 

Pauline   Be alert! Remember you are dealing with different personalities and a range of Ego States. Keep neutral and don’t give an opinion, no matter how tempting

Christine   Why did you step down?

Pauline   In January 2022, UKCP Central made some more sweeping changes which then prevented HIPC from having their own paid administrator.  They offered me a temporary contract to work generically across all the colleges, but there was no job title and the job description was vague and uncertain. It was very upsetting.  My love, care and commitment were to HIPC.  After nearly 21 years I knew it was time to say goodbye.  

Christine   What are your special memories and moments?

Pauline   The HIPC Conference: “Transforming Lives in Changing Times:  Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapies in Practice” which was held on Saturday, 14 September 2019

at Roehampton University, London.  It brought together College members, students and psychotherapists from all modalities. The presentations were experiential and showcased

a range of creative approaches and inspiring workshops by leading practitioners.

I appreciated being supported by delegates which enabled me to cope with constant changes in times of transformation.

My good relationship with some delegates who I have known for more than 20 years.  I could contact them if I needed help in dealing with a challenging situation within HIPC.  I valued their friendship and advice.

 A Few of the Sixty Tributes Paid to Pauline by HIPC When She Stepped Down

Dear Pauline,
This small gift cannot do justice to all the work you have done over the years, and it is not possible to find words that adequately express how important that work has been to so many people. Perhaps even more significant is the way you have done your work; thank you, for your commitment, your diligence and your grace.

With much love and warmest wishes for the future,

the Steering Committee …

I am shocked and saddened at the position you have been put in.  And so very sad you will not be part of HIPC and the College’s smooth running any longer.   I do not know what we will do without you.    Thank you Pauline for everything you have done and also for friendship.  Do stay in touch.  I find myself reeling in shock, anger and despair at your news.”  Love, D.

I am so sorry you are going through such a horrible experience and have been made such a mean and inadequate job offer …   I shall absolutely miss you.   It is your welcoming face and warmth that I look forward to at meetings and that helped me to feel part of the group. 

I think you are superb at your work, how you navigate your way through our zig zagging discussions I can’t imagine.  But you do and our sometimes maelstrom of words never ceases to appear in orderly and comprehensible minutes.   Whatever occurs, you hold your form.”  Love, C.

You have given such long and dedicated service to HIPC and to UKCP. 

I have many fond and potent memories from when we worked together for many years way back when I was Chair of HIPC and the original HIPC Child Committee.  You were responsible for bringing HIPC into administrative good order and for taking minutes of meetings that at times have been complex, super stressful and upsetting.  You made yourself available to all HIPC members to give advice, information and support as and when required. 

You were incredibly kind and supportive and professional throughout.  At all times you conducted yourself with personal integrity.   Thank you both on a personal level and on behalf of Northern Guild for your dedicated service to the profession.”   With fondest love, J.

 About Pauline

I live with my husband Eddie and my 4 year old cocker spaniel, Sidney in a semi rural part of Surrey, surrounded by woodland walks.  Sidney and I share the same birthday, but just a few years apart!!   I love looking after Sidney, socialising with family and friends, walking, knitting, reading, gardening, playing classical guitar and piano and singing in a local Choral Society. 

I have a small private practice in Psychotherapy & Supervision. I really enjoy seeing people grow and develop and gain in confidence.

CONNECTING HEARTS, MINDS AND SOULS SINCE 1983

Northern Guild is 40 this year! The walls of our centres are alive with the energy and passion of the wonderful people who have stopped awhile to share their stories. From those who came carrying heavy labels that squashed and belittled them, to some of the children of Cleveland suddenly caught up in a bewildering tidal wave of medical diagnosis, to the so-called ‘worried well’ who had nowhere to turn because services simply didn’t exist for them. Our centres vibrate and pulse with the life-force of those determined to transform themselves and their lives.

Our students, our magnificent students, pioneered the first voluntary GP Placements in Counselling in the North East, if not the UK.  For 40 years our trainees have provided thousands and thousands of hours of free counselling to people in communities throughout the land. And our Graduates are some of the most respected Psychotherapists and Counsellors in the country, highly sought after to fill  vital professional roles.

We have lived through some strange times together, most recently Covid distancings and lockdowns. We have seen our profession erupt into Zoom and embrace the digital when three short years before it was decreed impossible and anti-therapeutic.

It is time stop and stare. To come together to share our memories, to celebrate our achievements, to wonder in disbelief how such an insignificant little acorn fed only with love, passion and gritty determination, grew into such a mighty oak. Come and share in making that tapestry of memories from NOW to THEN. Make this a Celebration to Remember!

On September 8th our Graduation will be held in the afternoon at Acklam Hall. It will be followed in the evening by a Celebration Party with live music, yummy food and lots, lots more.

Save the Date! That’s 8th September.

We’ll let you know more very soon.   

A NEW FILM, ‘COUNSELLING PEOPLE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA - AN UNMET NEED’

Heather Wilkinson has helped in the making of this film about the importance of offereing counselling to those living with Dementia.

The film was made in order to share some of the research findings from a feasibility research study funded by a UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award which explored the experience of clients and therapists during a series of counselling sessions for people living with dementia. Findings highlighted that counselling interventions are seldom offered to people living with dementia individually, although, where they do participate in therapy, their high compliance levels are encouraging. When offered, an undue focus can be placed on the preservation of cognitive abilities that may be counterproductive to emotional health. Additionally, specially trained therapists and tailored programmes (Shoesmith et al., 2020) are crucial elements for effectiveness.

The content of the film is based on what people living with dementia, carers and counsellors told us during interviews to discover their views on counselling and what they perceived as important for setting up and running an accessible counselling service. Participants spoke of the extreme emotional challenges that accompany a diagnosis of dementia, stressing therapeutic support as a key Human Right. They spoke of the need for local, flexible counselling accessible across the dementia timeline.

The promotional film, ‘Counselling people living with dementia – an unmet need’ is based on these findings and emergent data from our current research seeks to: 1) Raise awareness of the mental health needs of those with dementia 2) Clearly demonstrate the beneficial impacts of therapeutic counselling for people living with dementia; 3) Adopt a destigmatising and inclusive approach to educate and inform a wide audience about the value of counselling in this context 4) Positively influence potential funders to support the final phase of our tripartite research programme.

This film is now freely available through the BACP website or the ECRED website (Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia, University of Edinburgh)

https://www.bacp.co.uk/news/news-from-bacp/2023/16-january-new-film-shows-value-of-counselling-people-with-dementia/

To share feedback or for further information please contact Heather Wilkinson on h.wilkinson@ed.ac.uk

References

SHOESMITH, E., GRIFFITHS, A. W., SASS, C. & CHARURA, D. 2020. Effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapeutic interventions for people with dementia and their families: a systematic review. Ageing and Society, 1-28.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE

‘Internal Reflection’ – Part of the ‘Mamma, In the Meantime’ Series

Shared with kind permission of Tony Luciani - © 2014 Tony Luciani.

Sarah Jackson’s moving account of Marjorie’s journey to herself.

When you really age, you are engaged, and from that deeper taste of being a participant, your life finds purpose and meaning, gifts of soul. Now aging is a joyful experience, because you want to be open to learning and experiences as you feel the seeds of yourself sprouting and blossoming in your evolving life.

(Moore, 2017, p.9)

Since starting my training with the Northern Guild, I was drawn to the term ‘Physis’ (Berne, 1957) – that innate powerful drive toward growth and self-actualisation that impels and surges throughout life. I have never experienced this more strongly than with my client Marjorie who, in her early 80’s, found herself deeply uncomfortable with the life she had led (and that which she hadn’t), and no longer able or willing to ignore the parts of herself submerged since childhood – now clamouring to be heard and have their needs met. No client had impacted me personally and professionally the way this lady had. I was in awe of her determination to become acquainted with her true self while there was still time, and to find what might finally bring her joy – having felt controlled and coerced by others for so long. Working with Marjorie was to be a profound lesson in the powerful force of ‘Physis’ – spurring her onward toward fulfilment and authenticity in this final phase of her life – (anonymised therapeutic material included with client consent).

When seeking to fulfil the requirement to work with older clients as part of my Northern Guild qualifications, I had no idea this would prove to be the most inspiring and enlivening work of my practice to date. So much so, I chose Marjorie as the subject of my MSc dissertation – a case-study focusing on the use of imagery and metaphor to connect with, illuminate and ease the impacts of early trauma. When reviewing the literature to sit alongside the case-study, I was shocked at the degree to which older people are viewed as a homogenised and stigmatised group – as Thompson (1993) pointed out: “While ageist stereotypes cast the elderly population as homogenous, older individuals are more different from one another than any other segment of our population” (Thompson, 1993, cited in Kropf & Tandy, 1998) – not least because of their extensive and unique life experiences. Ageing also seemed often to be described as if a problem to be solved – with older people depicted as feeble, sick and miserable (as noted by Kerr, 1999, p.37). Marjorie was none of these things. She was creative, reflective, eloquent, determined and challenging. I was curious as to why older clients were so often overlooked in therapeutic and research terms. Was this in part because people didn’t see the benefit in working at therapeutic depth with clients who are in their later or perhaps last phase of life? I will admit that, when first working with Marjorie, I did have concerns about opening up the extensive wounds of her past. Would it be too much for her? Was it ethical? What benefit could there be to delving into such painful experiences at this time in her life, when much of what she’d experienced could not now be rectified? These were valid ethical considerations, which I not only took to supervision, but also took account of in my therapeutic contracting with Marjorie – trusting that, in inviting Marjorie to think about and express the depth to which she was happy to go, this would guide us safely through the work.

I was surprised to discover that research often misses older people as a group worthy of exploration or, where they are included, it is in terms of a specific diagnosis (e.g. PTSD) or life experiences (e.g. Veterans, Prisoners of War or Holocaust survivors) or illnesses (e.g. dementia or stroke patients in care facilities). The general ‘Community Dwelling’ (e.g. as discussed in Van Assche et al, 2020) older population are much less explored and included. And, even where they are, there are often limited methodological adaptations made to aid their full participation – which may be as simple as providing questionnaires with larger font sizes or consideration of any hearing issues in interview-based assessment (Thorp et al, 2017, p.434).

I came across other factors potentially influencing the lack of attention or inclusion of older clients. For example, cultural stigma that may have been instilled in older generations relating to mental health difficulties. Hiskey & McPherson (2013) speak of how older people may internalise distress – perhaps due to mental illness historically being aligned with social deviance or, how talking about one’s distress may be viewed as a sign of weakness or self-indulgence. Therefore, perhaps some older people do not speak up and seek help who might really benefit from it? Or perhaps, having sought help, their symptoms may be misdiagnosed as related to ageing rather than mental suffering? What I have learned from my own client is that the process of ageing – which will likely include new losses and changes in life circumstance – may be the precipitating factor that brings feelings of distress or stuckness to the fore, perhaps to such a degree that they can no longer be ignored or tolerated. This may be deeply uncomfortable, but can also be the swell of energy needed to inspire action. As Florida Scott Maxwell wrote in her 1968 memoir:

All emotions grow more intense as I age ... As we age, we are more alive than seems likely, convenient, or even bearable.

(Maxwell, 1968 – cited in Kerr, 1999, p.38)

Marjorie first came to counselling for help with anxiety - now living alone since her husband of over 50 years was taken into care, and grieving the death of a dear friend. As she began to share her story, she described significant loss and trauma in her early life. Both her parents died in her infancy, she was taken in and raised by a domineering and affectionless family member, and singled out and humiliated at school for being an orphan. She described feeling extremely lonely, constrained and cruelly treated as a child, and remembered the constant fear that she’d be abandoned to an orphanage.

We began working with Marjorie’s own metaphors early on, when she identified her recent cutting back of ivy from a much-loved rose as being like the therapy she was embarking on – cutting away upsetting things that had been choking her. As her story of early loss and trauma emerged – and learning from my training and reading how imagery could provide a gentle channel for exploring such issues – I started paying attention to the imagery Marjorie brought to our sessions. We began to use this mutual language to explore her experience of self and others in the world. This led to some significant and recurring imagery entering our work – for example the image of a door – initially representing safety, both from abandonment and the perceived dangers of intimacy, and later moving to represent the possibility of freedom and real human connection. Similarly the metaphor of “Performing” became prevalent – symbolising Marjorie’s early ‘Adapted Child’ (Dusay, 1972) strategies for mollifying her strict care-giver, and later her means to portray happy relationships at the same time as keeping true intimacy at arm’s length.

Marjorie began to discuss her dreams in our sessions. One significant dream involved a fridge with shiny outward appearance but empty shelves inside. Inviting Marjorie to fill this fridge with what she would like, she initially did so with things that might be pleasing to others – noting “This looks a bit like my life doesn’t it? Have all the things that look good, but are not really good.” She then decided to fill the shelves with sweet treats “Things I really like but are condemned by others”. This felt strongly connected to her desire to have freedom to meet her own wants and needs – describing the feeling of doing so as “Very contented … feeling of achievement, to have had all these things put inside, to be nourished with the things that I love”.

Subsequently, Marjorie brought a dream of a little girl trapped behind a heavy door crying out to be acknowledged and set free. Revisiting the dream, I invited Marjorie to take whatever action felt right within the dream. She found a way to open the locked door, hold and comfort the distressed child, eventually leading her to safety and then merging with her. Marjorie stated: “I sort of analysed the dream as the little girl being me. The little girl needing attention, the little girl crying out for attention. The woman crying out for attention”.

Another significant moment in our work was when we undertook a guided imagery involving two imaginary friends from Marjorie’s childhood. In meeting and speaking with these two imaginary friends, it seemed they represented dissociated parts of herself that had not been tolerated in her childhood, and were only safe to bring out behind the safety of her bedroom door. This session helped Marjorie gain an understanding of these archaic parts which she had “Submerged”, in order to keep herself safe and not be abandoned. Following this exercise, Marjorie stated:

You are bringing up a lot of things. I couldn’t reason why they were there [imaginary friends]. I’m getting a sense of me for the first time … I do feel that I’m getting to know me – which I didn’t know before … I am beginning to see it wasn’t my fault. I want to hug that little girl and tell her she’s worth a lot. 

In exploring her early experiences through imagery, Marjorie finally understood the pernicious ripples that had been set in motion and subsequently shaped her adult life, relationships and decisions. She acknowledged and mourned precious opportunities passed up to appease others, and started untangling the binds of shame and unworthiness that had kept her life small. She considered what might finally bring her joy, and how she might allow this in. A path was being illuminated toward the greater freedom, authenticity and autonomy she desired for herself.

Working with Marjorie has undone any prejudices I might have had about working with older clients, and opened my eyes to the privilege of helping a client work through and emerge from a lifetime of self-denial. I have learned, despite my initial reservations, Marjorie does not need my protection from her own feelings; she does not complain of her age or see it as her reason for being in therapy – instead she has an unassailable drive to know and be her fully authentic self, perhaps for the first time ever – through gaining an understanding of the experiences and influences in her childhood and how these have echoed throughout her life.

My work with Marjorie has embedded for me that giving voice to and finding peace with all parts of oneself, at any stage in life, is a gift worth striving for. The work we have done has finally given permission for Marjorie’s ‘Natural Child’ (Kahler, 1978) to emerge. I saw this in the brightly coloured clothes she started wearing to sessions, her creative passion reignited as she once again started writing poetry and stories as she had in childhood, and her reconnecting with her slightly mischievous and playful side – her vibrant, occasionally risqué humour leaving us both laughing and feeling alive. Marjorie was finally able to express her sadness at the lack of affection she received as a child, as well as finding some compassion for the hardships experienced by her care-giver that made it difficult to be emotionally present and giving toward her. She was also able to vent her anger at the cruel treatment she was subjected to at school. And, as she made sense of how these early relational dynamics shaped and manifested in her adult relationships, she is considering if and how she might want to open the door to more intimacy in her current relationships.

Marjorie has taught me that older people are not to be pitied, discounted or lumped together. They deserve our time, our interest and our full commitment. She has changed me both as a practitioner and a person. I find myself more open and curious about all facets of life, as well as having my own creativity reawakened. Overall, the greatest lesson I have learned from Marjorie is – it need never be too late to change your life.

What I have discovered by working with this population is that people don’t fade with age, they open and bloom. Furthermore, when people in the latter stages of life are given an opportunity for creative self-expression, they not only rise to the challenge, but also offer those around them a greater perspective into their own experiences. Charron (2015, p.15)

REFERENCES

§  Berne, E. (1957). A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis. New York: Simon & Schuster

§  Charron, A. (2015). ‘Art therapy with older adults in long term care facilities’, Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal, 14, 15-27.

§  Clarkson, P. (1992). Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy: An Integrated Approach, Reprint, London: Routledge, 1998.

§  Dusay, J.M. (1972). ‘Egograms and the “Constancy Hypothesis”’, Transactional Analysis Journal, 2, 37–41.

§  Hiskey, S. & McPherson, S. (2013). ‘That's just life: Older adult constructs of trauma’, Aging & Mental Health, 17(6), 689–696. 

§  Kahler, T. (1978). Transactional Analysis Revisited. Little Rock: Human Development Publications.

§  Kerr, C.C. (1999) ‘The psychosocial significance of creativity in the elderly’, Art Therapy, 16(1), 37-41.

§  Kropf, N.P. & Tandy, C. (1998) ‘Narrative therapy with older clients’, Clinical Gerontologist, 18(4), 3-16.

§  Moore, T. (2017). Ageless Soul: The Lifelong Journey Toward Meaning and Joy. New York: St Martin’s Press

§  Thorp, S.R. et al. (2017) ‘Trauma-focused therapy for older adults’, APA Handbook of Trauma Psychology: Trauma Practice, Vol.2, 431–448. [Accessed: author’s copy via personal communication].

§  Van Assche, L. et al. (2020). ‘Ghosts from the past? The association between childhood interpersonal trauma, attachment and anxiety and depression in late life’, Aging & Mental Health, 24(6), 898-905.

REFLECTIONS ON WORKING WITH OLDER CLIENTS

Sarah Woodroff reflects on the meaning of working with older clients.

“Never grow old dear”, is a phrase I have heard from lots of older people. I worked as a health care assistant in a residential care home when I was in my early twenties, and it was here that I first faced the difficulties that ageing can bring: loss of physical and mental abilities, loss of health, friends, partners, social status, and freedom to name a few. In a society where youth and beauty are aspired to above experience and wisdom, devaluing and isolation can often be the experience of our elderly. It can be uncomfortable to sit with this; existential anxieties of our own mortality and powerlessness can be triggered. “Never grow old”: we can grow old or die young. Neither option is appealing.

   Yalom (2013) tells us that these existential anxieties can be as intolerable as “staring at the sun”. Aged 21, I coped by eating all the superfoods I could stomach, hoping that the antioxidants contained in blueberries and sweet potatoes would be the magical elixir humanity has spent millennia hunting for. Of course, they weren’t - there’s no such thing, and we will all grow old. Hopefully.

   I think that these anxieties can be the root cause for reluctance in some therapists to work with this client group. I think that it is understandable, particularly in the beginning of practice when, perhaps, they have not been worked through in personal therapy. However, our BACP (2018) ethical framework tells us to consider the principles of “courage”, “fairness”, “resilience” and “beneficence”. If we face these fears and work through them, not only are we working ethically for our clients, but also for ourselves. Yalom tells us to face our anxieties so we can live a full life. As therapists we can help our clients do this, and possibly, in turn they help us.

   I have worked with older people in various capacities for twenty years and can say with all honesty that I have found it to be rewarding and healing both for the older people I have been with, and for myself. Yes, ageing brings pain and sorrow, but it also comes with beauty and new possibilities. I have sat with clients as they work with their grief, find a new place within their social network and in society, find a new love and a new identity. I have been thoroughly entertained with lifetime stories and new hopes for the future. I would like to share a journey I had with an older client to illustrate how true this is:

Sheila

All identifying details have been changed to protect client identity

Sheila (82), came to counselling following the death of a loved one she had spent the past 20 years caring for. When I met her, she was despondent. She felt there was no point to life; she had lost the person she had built her life around and all that was left was death. She hoped that would come soon. Sheila didn’t contact friends through fear of “being a burden”. She wasn’t eating, sleeping, or attending to her personal care.

At first, this felt overwhelming; her grief was immense, and her sense of purpose seemed non-existent. How could I to begin to help her? I remembered what brought me to this profession – the belief in the healing power of being truly listened to, heard, and understood. This is where we started. Sheila told me her story, from early childhood, all the way through to the present day. She had had a rich and varied life, full of ups and downs, and we laughed and cried over the weeks and months we worked together. We did grief work - she told stories and shared photos of her loved one. She put a picture frame in the kitchen where she talked to them while she cooked – she was eating again. Sheila joined a walking group and spent days out with her grandson. She regained her sense of purpose. Her loved one stayed with her, in a new way, and she found new connections with friends and family.

Sheila told me that a perk of old age is the permission to go slower “I spend hours watching the birds, it’s so peaceful”. Therapy helped Sheila move through her grief and find a new purpose in life. Sheila helped me find the permission to slow down, I think of her when I watch the birds in my own garden, and feel the peace Sheila described.

Working closely with older clients has helped me to embrace and look forward to my own old age and celebrate theirs. Now I reach for blueberries, not in desperation to hold onto remnants of my younger self, but because they are delicious!

References:

BACP (2018). Ethical Framework For The Counselling Professions. Available at: https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/3103/bacp-ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions-2018.pdf

Yalom, I., 2013. Staring at the sun. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.

WHY THINK ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF THOSE LIVING WITH DEMENTIA?

Heather Wilkinson is a Registered Psychotherapist and a Professor of Dementia Research at the University of Edinburgh, here she shares her thoughts about the value of therapy for those with Dementia.

Statistics tell us that there are over 600,000 people in the UK estimated to be living with dementia (Alzheimer’s Scotland 2019). Many of us will know one of these people, maybe someone in our close family. From a neurological, clinical perspective, dementia is understood to be an umbrella term that describes a group of symptoms that can be caused by a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s Diease, multi-infarct dementia, and Lewy Body Dementia. The most common symptoms are often associated with a decline in cognitive skills such as memory and thinking, and dementia affects the ability to carry out daily tasks to the extent that it has an increasingly serious impact on daily living over time (Alzheimer’s Society 2020). These symptoms are visible to us through the challenges of living with and caring for someone who might seem to be increasingly disconnected from us and ‘losing’ their sense of self.

As there is little progress in finding a ‘breakthrough’ in drug development (Alzheimer’s Disease International 2019), our main focus remains, therefore, on how we best support individuals and their carers to ‘live well’ with the disease. Successive dementia strategies across the UK have encouraged early diagnosis, guaranteed time-limited post-diagnostic support (in Scotland) and better palliative care models for people in the later stages (e.g. Department for Health 2015, Scottish Government 2010, 2013, 2017).

Importantly, people are increasingly receiving a diagnosis at an earlier stage and, therefore, at a stage when they are more likely to be able to engage in talking therapies. During my 25 years of working with people living with dementia, I have been told many times by people that they want to be able to access emotional support/counselling. Following a life-changing diagnosis people want help to deal with the news, particularly in relation to feelings of grief, sadness, anger and loss. We know (from the work of people such as Collins and Smyer 2005; Windle 2011; Janssen et al. 2011) that for people at the beginning of their dementia experience, the post-diagnostic period has been characterized by isolation, mixed emotions on receiving a diagnosis, challenges of getting service support, and variable ways of coping. Not only is the fabric of a familiar life undergoing enormous internal change, including a redefining of close personal relationships (Botsford et al. 2012), but this re-narration of everyday life must also contemplate and engage with an array of services and practitioners as well as a shifting landscape of social relationships (Clarke et al. 2010).

So why do we not provide this support? In offering therapeutic support we are up against the common (and stereotypical) view that people with dementia cannot benefit from therapy. However, existing evidence suggests that therapeutic relationships of different kinds for people with in different points of their dementia can be beneficial. In 2017, a systematic review of evidence for individual and group psychotherapy with people affected by dementia showed support for an intensive, multi-faceted intervention and for the beneficial use, post-diagnosis, of short-term group therapy (Cheston and Ivanecka). Nevertheless, research evidence on psychotherapy in dementia is under-developed, underlining a need for conceptual and practice knowledge.

For my MSc dissertation I completed a piece of work with Cath, a women in her 80s living with dementia. I was interested in how Cath as client, and myself as therapist, experienced a series of psychotherapy sessions. Even going into this relationship with my positive outlook I was surprised at some of the challenges but also the depth of some of the outcomes from our sessions. Our work used Cath’s connection to past stories about her life to build alliance, to sustain her sense of self and to connect to places of safety during the psychotherapeutic process. On the whole Cath’s secure attachment style allowed us to safely explore her nightmares and hallucinations. White’s (2019) work on attachment was useful in helping me understand when working with someone with dementia, attachment is linked to the human response to fear and is most clearly evident when there are threats of separation or actual separation and abandonment. For someone living with dementia who is experiencing fear and anxiety as familiar environments become unsafe places and disorientation undermines confidence and safety, the aim of psychotherapy can be to work with their attachment system in states of arousal to find safety with an attachment figure to provide protection and affect regulation and regain a state of feeling safe. Beattie and West (2021) applied attachment theory to understanding behaviours and responses from people living with dementia. They argue that using attachment theory in everyday practices can help people living with dementia to feel safer and more secure, which in turn can support them to maintain relationships, connect with their community and engage in support and care.

I would argue that if psychotherapy as a therapeutic intervention aims to enhance emotional well-being, using the conversations between therapist and client as a co-regulating relationship (Schore 2003) then to work towards a wholeness and a safety, is, therefore, an essential element in offering emotional support. Our training and practice opportunities should be extended so we can offer therapeutic work with people living with dementia - the current context for growing numbers of people living with dementia in the UK is one that fails to meet their emotional needs.

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References

Alzheimer Disease International (2019) World Alzheimer Report. London

Alzheimer’s Scotland. (2019). Statistics: Number of people with dementia in Scotland 2017 [Online]. https://www.alzscot.org/campaigning/statistics.

Alzheimer's Society. (2020). What is dementia? [Online] Alzheimer's Society. Available: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/what-dementia

Beattie, J. and West, J. (2021). Dementia: attachment matters. IRISS: Glasgow

Botsford, J., Clarke, C.L. and Gibb, C.E. (2012). Dementia and relationships: experiences of partners in minority ethnic communities. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 68 (10): 2207–2217.

Cheston, R. and Ivanecka, A. (2017). Individual and group psychotherapy with people diagnosed with dementia: a systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 32: 3-31.

Clarke, C., Keady, J., Wilkinson, H., Gibb, C., Luce, A., Cook, A. and Williams, L. (2010). Dementia and risk: contested territories of everyday life. Journal of Nursing & Healthcare of Chronic Illnesses. 2 (2): 102–12.

Collins, A. and Smyer, M. A. (2005). The resilience of self-esteem in late adulthood. Journal of Aging and Health. 17 (4): 471–89.

Department of Health (2015). Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia. Retrieved from: https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/prime-ministers-challenge-on-dementia 2020

Janssen, B., Van Regenmortel, T. and Abma, T. (2011). Identifying sources of strength: resilience from the perspective of older people receiving long-term community care. European Journal of Ageing. 8 (3): 145–56.

Schore, A.N. (2003). Affect dysregulation and disorders of the Self. New York, NY: Norton.

Scottish Government (2010). Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2010-2013. Edinburgh: Scottish Government

Scottish Government (2013). Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2013- 2016. Edinburgh: Scottish Government

Scottish Government (2017). Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2017-2020. Edinburgh: Scottish Government

White, K. (2019). An Attachment Approach to Understanding and Living Well with Dementia. In White, K., Cotter, A. and Leventhal, H. (eds). Dementia. An Attachment Approach. Routledge: Oxford. Pp13 – 42.

Windle, G. (2011). What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology. 21 (2): 152–69.

AN INVITATION TO THE FIRST MEETING OF NORTHERN GUILD’S UKCP ALUMNI

Northern Guild Curator, Julie Harding, talks about the first meeting of the new alumni association.

22 September at 5.00pm at our Jesmond Centre and Online.

This year’s Graduation was on the 22nd of July 2022, the first since 2019. The Pandemic put on hold our annual public celebration of our graduates achievements. This resulted in disappointment for so many students and it was a ‘big miss’ for the for the Graduation team.   

We all have a great fondness for the Graduation, it rounds off the academic year, and there is an atmosphere of pride, admiration and love in the air. For me it encapsulates the whole process of bringing new counsellors and psychotherapists into the world.

On a personal level I look forward each year to filling the Graduation venue with as many  bunches of flowers as my garden can muster. This year the Graduation took place on Teesside in Acklam Hall, a beautiful Stuart mansion. The room looked absolutely stunning. I was filled with pride at the sight of the crisp white table cloths with my flowers in place and all of the beautiful students with their families celebrating their accomplishments.

Those of you who have attended our previous graduations will know that I grow and pick all of the flowers and herbs from my own little garden, I collect the jam jars and decorate them and create a message to go within the posies and bouquets.  Everyone seems to appreciate the flowers and at the end of the day I gain great pleasure giving the flowers away to people.

I have attended every graduation since 2009 and it has been a pleasure and an honour to work with the other members of the staff team who make this event happen. It is an amazing experience to watch our students receive their awards and a delight to congratulate their hard work.

I like to think about the Northern Guild and its students being somewhat like my garden. As I cultivate seeds and plants in order to bloom into gorgeous flowers that grow and produce the bouquets, so we and our students sow and grow together to produce outstanding practitioners.

 I tend to the plants throughout the year and watch them grow until they bloom. I cut them and arrange them into wild yet beautiful bunches that smell gorgeous, look good, and then go out into the world to bring a sense of wellbeing and joy to whomever encounters them. As one of our graduates, you have been on a similar journey yourself. Our hope is that by forming an Alumni Association we will meet back together again to give support on your professional journey withing the membership bodies.

If you are a Northern Guild graduate and current member and Registered with UKCP then we invite you to the first Annual Meeting of the Northern Guild Alumni on the 22nd September 2022 at 5pm at our Newcastle Centre. For those who live at long distance there are some limited places available to join via zoom.

There will be updates and presentations by our delegates to the three colleges of the UKCP with time for questions and discussion on the changes with the professional bodies. We also aim to support our members with their re-accreditation questions and panel formation as we are aware this can cause problems once you are not longer in regular contact with colleagues.

The Northern Guild team are looking forward to welcoming you. and spending time together.

This is your chance to come together and meet other registrants, do some networking  or give us feedback and generate ideas that you may feel we can help you with or that you may want putting forward to UKCP.  There will also be opportunities for you to become involved with professional panels or committees.

This meeting can be counted as CPD as are any hours you commit as a contribution to the profession.

And of course, there will be flowers.

If YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE, DO IT YOURSELF!

Hannah Clarke-McKeran, Member Youth Parliament for North Tyneside

Hannah Clarke - McKeran writes about becoming a Member the UK Youth Parliament.

When we think of the term ‘do it yourself’ the first thing that springs to mind is probably that failed DIY project you started in lockdown or when you get an IKEA delivery and you try to make that coffee table you saw on Pinterest. 

What we don’t think of is applying to be the Member of Youth Parliament at the age of 15 because you hate PSHE and you thought, ‘hey might as well’, and then you have to iron out what your pledge actually is because ‘change PSHE lessons’ isn't really going to cut it, and then you get to the night where they announce the winner, you look around at the other nominees and realise you've only got to the second stage of voting on some fluke and there's no way you're actually going to win it. Then they say your name and suddenly it all starts getting a bit too real and this isn't the type of panic that happens when you can find a screw on that IKEA coffee table, no, this is actual responsibility. This is what it feels like to finally be heard, to have a say in how your future is going to look. And now you’re kind of regretting not paying more attention to your hair and makeup because photos are being taken and you have to wipe your hands on your skirt because otherwise you're going to shake the local MP’s hand and your hands are really sweaty, the speech your asked to make is just a cluttered bunch of thank yous and it's getting more real every second: how little you have prepared, that you haven't thought any of this through. Then you see your mum at the back of the hall; your mum who has cried at every single one of your school productions (just like she is now), your mum who has been there through every single step of your life and in doing so taught you how to walk - not just in the literal sense but also in the sense of self she has taught you, the very foundations of what it is to be Hannah Clarke-McKeran all carefully sculpted by her hand. And now she's looking at you with tears in her eyes and both hands on her heart and all you can do is smile, because even though this is real it's also good. 

I think that was when it clicked for me, that I wanted to change the world. Looking in my mother’s eyes and seeing how proud she was of me, I enjoyed that feeling of this validating pride telling me that what I was doing was good. While I am still very much an introverted teenager who enjoys reading books with the only other company being my cat, I began to crave this validation from anyone I could find. It was my drug, and I played my part as the addict well, I still do. Any time I had to do a public appearance I saw it as a part in a play where my lines were pre-set and my actions layed out in a script. I would stop being just basic old Hannah and become ‘Hannah Clarke-McKeran Member of Youth Parliament for North Tyneside’ and at the end I would get my applause and I relished in it. The spotlight on me, people coming up to me and telling me how inspirational I was, it filled the pit inside of me with a temporary sense of fulfilment and that has brought me to where I am today, surfing these waves of pride I see in strangers eyes when I tell them what I do.

I feel as though I may have disappointed those of you wishing for some writing about how selfless I am and I do this out of the kindness of my own heart (and while that is a very key part of my role and I do believe that change is needed and it is needed now) selfless people do not get power and no one who has power is selfless. That is a rule I have learnt in life through my experiences: as a woman, as a young person and just as a simple human being. So my main message to you is this: if you want and idea to become a vision then you have to take it into your own hands as if it were a baby bird and you have to shield this pure, angelic idea through the battlefields of life and while you may be shot at or tripped up, the only thing in your life is this idea, you have to form this symbiotic relationship with it until it becomes the vision you always had and that is when you get the reward of completion. You have to dedicate yourself so wholly, put so much on the line, sacrifice everything, so that when it evolves you evolve with it, and you are the only person who has the ability to create this vision. So, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

SARAH’s LEGACY

Last night we were priviledged to hear Gary Greening, Sarah’s husband, Annie, her sister and Yvonne Lawrence, her dear friend and colleague, share their memories of Sarah’s years with Northern Guild. They want their words to hold fast to that moment and live on in the hearts and minds of those who heard them.

I want to share my words from last night here because, as a founder of Northern Guild, I want our deep appreciation of Sarah and our love for her to be a matter of written record.

The last four years of Sarah’s life were hard and painful for her, for her family, her friends and us, her colleagues and for me, personally. Sarah was life- loving and life- affirming.  She did not go quietly into that good night. But used every ounce of her courage, ingenuity, intelligence, creativity and innovative spirit to heal her body from the illness that afflicted it. Sarah took her illness seriously but she did not let it stop her living fully even in the midst of a pandemic. And she did not let it stop her family living their lives.

We all have powerful, vibrant memories of Sarah. For each of us here tonight she holds an important place in our heart. A place that is distinct, unique and impossible to replicate. We may share memories of circumstance and events – washing tea bags, her wonderful cooking, her impish naughtiness – but for each one of us the light and shade that made the Sarah we knew will be slightly different. Tonight we have come together to remember Sarah in all her glorious human richness and complexity and to take another step on the road towards trying to make sense of her loss. To come to terms with a death that came far too early and was random, cruel and unforgiving.

Sarah was in her mid-twenties when I first met her. She bounced up the steps of 77 Acklam Road with a big smile. Her wavy hair encircling her face. Her full cotton skirt billowing around her. In the time it took her to reach the door I felt the full impact of her warm, vibrant charismatic energy and her trusting openness.  Through almost four decades I had the privilege to know Sarah profesioanlly in many ways; as a TA trainee, a Psychotherapist, a Trainer and Colleague.

Personally, she allowed me to share important moments in her life. Her Wedding. What a glorious day that was! As you might guess, a traditional white dress was far too mundane for Sarah. She wore stunning Indian red silk with an amazing headpiece of fresh flowers made by her favourite florist, Carl Banks. Her friends and her sister, Annie, buzzed around her like loving butterflies helping her get ready for her big day. Her exquisite bone structure, wide smile and big eyes helped make her one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen.

And in the days before the UK really got to grips with birth doulas, Sarah was on it! She had Gary with her and her team around her, each with their part to play as we waited anxiously and excitedly in the corridors outside the birthing room nibbling cakes from Betty’s.

Sarah gave herself wholeheartedly to every bend in the road, every twist and turn of her life. She was lively, imaginative, caring, committed and involved with everyone she met and all that she embraced. Charming, artistic, loving, loyal, honest, truthful, competitive, impulsive, shy and funny, she brought her full arsenal of talents and abilities to her life and her work. Her Free Child was impossible to resist!

Whatever epoch of her life you look to, there is a constancy about Sarah, the things she believed in, the philosophy she lived by and her way of being. In that constancy we can find her legacy.

We may have lost Sarah but we can hold fast to what she embodied and take it forward in our own lives. We can each, in our own way, ensure that the seeds of human goodness and compassion continue to grow freely and abundantly.

Community mattered hugely to Sarah. She believed in inclusion, co-operation and sharing both in her life and in her work.

Fostering community sounds easy. Sarah knew it wasn’t. It involved hard work. The willingness to hold and share responsibility, to be trusting and show you are trustworthy, to be open, honest and above board and to be involved, committed and caring. Sarah embodied this way of being.

In the later years, her work at Northern Guild was almost exclusively from Acklam Road. She took it upon herself to show the initiative and lead by example, taking care of the small details as well as the big picture. She made beautiful flower arrangements using whatever the garden could offer – ivy, daffodils, rosemary. She brought in milk for tea and coffee. She plumped cushions. Stacked and then unloaded the dishwasher. Put beautiful objects in her work room and always left the room immaculate when she had finished. Mundane details? No! absolutely not. Sarah knew this is the minutiae that really matters if a community is to thrive, be nurturing and support its members.

 If one quality were to stand out above all others for me about Sarah it was her absolute belief in fighting fair. She had strong views which she shared readily. And she was never afraid to disagree. But she was always open, honest and straightforward about her opinions. You never had to guess what she was thinking She told you. And she was willing to stay close, connected and engaged even at the most heated of moments. She could slug it out with the best of them but she never diminished the value of the other person or of their view. Sarah believed in honest, engaged sharing that trusts the bonds of relationship to withstand the strain of difference and to emerge stronger for it.

The International Transactional Analysis Association has introduced a ‘Living Principles’ Award presented to a member who is recognised as having advanced the growth of Transactional Analysis primarily by personal example.

Over nearly four decades, Sarah Greening has advanced the growth of our community at the Northern Guild through her personal example of openness, honesty, commitment, trustworthiness and loving care. We are the richer for what she gave to each of us and to our community.

We mourn her loss and celebrate her life.