WELCOME BACK TO OUR NEWCASTLE CENTRE RE-IMAGINED AND LOVINGLY RE-FURBISHED
A New Chandelier for Topaz
83 Jesmond Road has a fascinating story. Originally it was owned from 1877 – 1888 by George Robert Stephenson a railway engineer and relative of the famous Stephenson family. He lived there with his wife Isabella, their son and three servants. He was followed by the incumbent of Jesmond Parish Church and the Vicar of the parish church on City Road. In 1895 the Governor of HMP Newcastle - upon –Tyne, Captain Roderick Hamilton Burgoyne, became the master of the house for four years.
By 1932 number 83 had become a boarding house. The first land lady was Mrs Mary Elizabeth Violet Brittain. You could book one of Mrs Brittain’s rooms by telephoning Jesmond 1477. The house continued as a boarding house until 1959 when it was bought by the Newcastle Band of Hope Union who occupied it together with the North of England Temperance Union and The Abstaining Motorists Association. The Temperance Society had a beautiful wooden piano in what is now The Guild Hall. They held their meetings in there. They also offered respite accommodation for people who were struggling to manage their lives and themselves.
In 1998 when we acquired 83 Jesmond Road to become the home of the Northern Guild, it was owned by the Temperance Society who rented out the rooms in the main building as company offices. The rooms were sad, soulless and shabby. Endless computer cables were the only decor. And all the walls were off- white with dull grey paintwork. But even so, the beauty of the building shone through the shoddy corporate gloom. The beautiful stained-glass window was a riot of colour in the afternoon light. The rear annex of the building was rented out to a taxi company whose offices were open twenty-four hours a day. Everybody in that office was a chain smoker and the stench of nicotine was awful. When, eventually, we were able to reclaim the annex (now our offices) we were forced to knock down the walls and completely rebuild them because it was impossible to eliminate the smell of the tobacco.
One of the first things we did with Jesmond Road when we took ownership was to ask a Feng Shui consultant, Philip, to help us bring light and positive energy into the building. He worked with us sensitively and thoughtfully but, that said, he took no hostages. I had to re-think the design I had come up with for Opal because he insisted that it was a room for wood and I was choosing things that were metal. One of the therapists had devised a magnificent purple and black colour scheme for Topaz (then known as Anubis after the Egyptian god) Philp demanded yellow. There were some strong opinions exchanged, but Philip got his way.
Philip said the only thing we could do about the negative energy coming from the taxi office was to divert it back into their part of the building. But we were required to first cleanse the whole building by going round every room with incense from burning sage leaves and we had to make loud noises with anything that took our fancy from a pan lid and spoon to a proper percussion instrument so as to drive out any negative energy. A long line of giggling therapists processed from one room to the next banging loudly and making sure the sage smoke went into every corner. The tricky part came when we reached the door of the taxi office. But one of our number, Janet, was a doughty Scots woman with a silvern tongue and she persuaded the taxi people to let us in. They were very obliging but clearly thought they were humouring a group of new age nit wits who were several sandwiches short of a picnic. They did, however, allow Janet to nail a mirror to the adjoining door between their annexe and our main building, thus allowing us to achieve the most important part of Philip’s instruction – a mirror shining into their office that directed their energy back on themselves. We went back to our own part of the building high on success and sage smoke and had a shared feast to celebrate taking ownership of number 83 Jesmond Road.
There were still a few hurdles in that initial refurb. The decorator, I’ll call him ‘Harry’, seemed unusually slow. Then, as now, Jennie was our Five Star General in all things to do with the building. Kind, understanding and permissive in her dealings with workmen even she grew frustrated by Harry’s slowness (it took ten days to paint the cupboard under the stairs). Then one afternoon she found him asleep on a pile of decorating sheets. There was a strong smell of hops in the air. It turned out that Harry favoured a visit to the local hostelry at lunch time. We parted company with our colourful Geordie decorator who we were all very fond of despite the shortcomings of his time-keeping. Our new decorator was much more reliable but he lacked Harry’s charm and cheekiness.
One of the things that marked out those early days of redecorating and furnishing our new building was the communal nature of it. Everyone pitched in. Everyone’s opinion mattered and every therapist named and helped design the room from which they would be working. Of course, we were a much smaller organisation in those days. One of our amazing therapists was Ellen who seemed to be able to spirit up fantastic furniture that people didn’t want anymore and that was ours for the asking. We furnished most of the consulting rooms in this way originally. They were heady days, when establishing a second centre for Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy, and later Child Therapy, in the North East was a vision that was all-engrossing for Jennie and for me. We did it against a back drop of me being diagnosed with a carcinoma and going through the full suit of treatments over an eighteen month period. Only our families knew about this and they were keen to persuade us to rein-in our vision. But we both felt that our vision gave us strength, courage and purpose. This, and some wonderful medical treatment, saw us through and brought us great satisfaction.
The 2020 refurbishment of 83 Jesmond Road has been delayed by two years due to Covid-19. And, of course, Covid itself has already altered how we think about our building. To accommodate the totally unexpected emergence of on-line working, we have had to have the whole building re-wired so that there is reliable Wi-Fi in every room. This has necessitated finding a home for two very ugly data cabinets, one in the office and one in Opal. They look like something out of a sci fi movie. They need as much camouflage as possible to make them disappear into the background. Then there are the now, de rigeur, wall-mounted hand sanitiser dispensers
Like so many cafes, Covid brought the closure of Café Freudz. We have been having a long, hard think about where we go next with Freudz. We have decided to try out having a receptionist in Freudz itself so that there is a friendly face and a warm welcome straightaway when you come in to the building, as well as the offer of a warm drink. Our inspiration comes from our beginnings in Jesmond Road but re-imagined with twenty first century care. We will also move our Dissertation Library into Freudz and make a small private study area for reading.
Then there is the frightening speed and impact of climate change which has led us to decide to have new electric heating in each room rather than to replace our gas boilers. We are very mindful that we have to be pro-active in helping to push back against climate warming and the havoc it is wreaking across the world.
The beauty of the new rooms is beginning to emerge. Topaz has transformed into an exquisite space with a soft, warm gold feature wallpaper giving it an opulent, lustrous feeling. It has an exquisite new golden chandelier that brings a mellow brightness. The room reaches out and asks you to come in, sit down and take some time out. Moonlight has new coral sofas with a matching rug. Northern Light has new leather and tweed chairs which combine luxurious comfort with solidity and reassurance.
Amber’s sofas are in vibrant Teal. Lorna, our designer has chosen a botanical feature wall paper to sit behind the larger sofa. It will bring a feeling of space and light. The Cherry Red sofas in Heavenly Window have been transformed and the room totally re-arranged. Sunlight has a contemporary grey and orange look with its new sofa and toning chair. Lorna has worked with Jennie on colour schemes for the whole building and in the coming weeks Marcus, our lovely, and very talented, hip decorator will be completing the transformation of our building.
It takes imagination, creativity and flair balanced with equal amounts of practical intelligence and skill to take a building the size of Jesmond Road and transform it. Jennie has masterminded the whole project with enthusiasm, hard work, talent and love. A new epoch dawns for 83 Jesmond Road.
JENNIE
THE COVID MONTHS | BACP, BACK TO IN-PERSON
Phil Smith
Phil Smith talks about his role as BACP Liaison and returning to in-person training.
In September 2020, I started in my role at Northern Guild as ‘BACP Liaison’. At the time the UK was around about seven months into the Covid-19 Pandemic and the new academic year was starting as the previous one had finished; online.
Very soon into this role I had the opportunity to attend a number of working groups which BACP hosted for organisations, such as Northern Guild, who provided BACP accredited trainings. At these meetings course representatives met with the BACP training and standards team met to share experiences, discuss best practice and feedback to BACP the challenges and opportunities that course providers were facing. I really valued these sessions to meet and talk with colleagues from across the UK. I have also really appreciated the BACP approach to supporting organisation such as Northern Guild to manage these unprecedented times and the complexities for our profession that the pandemic has wrought. I have found it to be energising and inspiring to work with colleagues from other organisation who share in the passion that we have at Northern Guild for training.
Since the beginning of the pandemic BACP allowed all accredited courses to move training to online platforms in order to ensure that it was able to continue and that trainees are able to progress as planned through their chosen course with as little disruption as possible. This means that any and all training that has been attended at Northern Guild via online platforms since March 2020 until Easter is and will be acknowledged by BACP and will not impact eligibility for qualification or registration with them.
These measures were, however, always a temporary arrangement. As Covid restrictions now ease the BACP are expecting accredited courses to begin the transition back to in-person training over the next couple of months. As a temporary option only, BACP are allowing courses to continue with online provision for those who are self-isolating or advised to shield because of clinical vulnerability.
A positive and lasting outcome of the changes brought by the pandemic is that BACP is creating a route for courses to deliver a proportion of training online in the near future. Courses will have to make a formal application to offer this.
Northern Guild is currently reviewing our courses in order to decide how best to write this into our professional trainings. We will then apply formally to BACP to have this recognised as part of our accredited training.
I am grateful to BACP for their flexibility over the past couple of years. It has I think been a mutually beneficial relationship, as we have worked together to find ways to ride the Covid waves.
THE COVID MONTHS | ARWEN, TEN DAYS OF LIVING OFF GRID
ANNA KERSHAW describes living through the effects of Storm Arwen for ten days and nights and how she looks at life differently now.
Remember when you were little and you’d fall on the trampoline and everyone would keep jumping so you couldn’t get back up? That’s exactly how this whole year has felt.
A friend posted this on social media late last week and my whole body responded with a resounding “Yes - this!” When our home first lost power during Storm Arwen on Friday 26th November there was a familiar lurch in my stomach, as if trying to find my feet when the ground is constantly moving. I went into crisis mode, as you do, sitting up through the night with my daughter watching the storm, using my reserves to keep her steady. Getting up pre-dawn and hastily applying some make up by candlelight, heart racing as I detoured to avoid the fallen trees blocking my usual route into Jesmond to run a PD group on that Saturday morning, as the snow came down. I thought I knew at that point that this was just a temporary blip; that I just needed to find the reserves to get through the morning and soon order would be restored. Ten days on and my reserves have taken quite a bashing.
Our power was finally restored last night after ten full days and nights off-grid. While politicians and power companies make grand announcements about lessons learned, today I am mulling over the more personal lessons I will take away from this strange period of time.
For the first few days, I did not sleep well – it’s difficult to rest at ease when there are unattended candles upstairs in your children’s bedrooms and the fabric of the building feels so very different to usual: the air colder, the usual sounds of pipes and artificial background light replaced by a greater awareness of the flickering flames of the wood burner reflecting off the corridor walls and the dripping gutter resounding and making my heart race. For the first few days I was determined to keep things in perspective: let’s face it, we are the lucky ones! We have a wood burning stove and an old Aga, which really came into its own, providing us with some hot water, cooking facilities and much appreciated warmth. In terms of practical things, we managed. We had the basics for survival: food, shelter, warmth. We knew we’d be alright.
But as time went on, I’ve reflected more and more on what we take for granted and how much a shift in circumstances can trigger original trauma. A sense of being forgotten; my needs are not important. No matter how much I shout, help is not coming. How difficult it is to ask for help, or to receive, when original trauma is alive and kicking. How reactive I become, flinching as my son’s coat brushed my arm, intolerant of the slightest sudden move. My Adult is struggling to stay in the executive as my Child is rubber-banded back to a scarier place.
For the first forty-eight hours we could not even log the fault with the power company; their phone lines and website were swamped and we had no way of knowing if they even knew about us. On the Monday night they came out and did a temporary fix which restored our neighbours’ power. We were on the wrong side of the fault. It was an entire week before we saw anyone from the power company again.
My husband is ever resourceful and as the workmen left on that Monday night he determined to find a way to harness the power from my electric car, and successfully got three lamps and his PC up and running – oh, the excitement! Once he could work and we could charge the children’s devices, surely the worst was past and I could relax a little? So many people had it so much worse…
I find it interesting to note the impact of the removal of my usual little routines – all the machines, devices and basic fabric of my life that I take for granted. How low my mood fell over the course of the ten days and how my brain started to struggle to function beyond basic fire-fighting. We pack our lives so full and forget that we can only go on doing what we do and maintaining a full diary of demands if all our usual systems are fully functioning. My husband and I have been very aware this week of how many other people are dependent on us to keep them steady, and just how hard this is when we are wobbling up and down on a trampoline that just won’t be still. At the beginning of the week I told people we needed to stay at home to keep my daughter who has autism in her usual routines. I realise now I was kidding myself – I need those routines as much as anyone. My routines keep me steady and grounded, when the world outside is feeling post-apocalyptical and terrifying.
As I write, the power has been back on for less than 24 hours. I am noticing and appreciating so many minor details today – not just the obvious ones like light and central heating, but my radio alarm clock waking me up, reminding me that a new day has dawned and the world is still turning as it should. The radiator and shower pump giving my morning ablutions an entirely more welcome backdrop. My fridge - knowing there is food at hand and I don’t have to keep thinking about where the next meal is coming from. The telly! Christmas ads, light, hope, familiar voices, distraction from the dark – just the thought of being able to curl up in front of the TV tonight brings a smile to my face!
I am reminded of the concept of headwinds and tailwinds. How we can’t even perceive all the little things that serve as a tailwind, keeping us moving along in life more easily – whether it’s reliable power sources, an education which enables us to access steady employment, or being born into a privileged majority group. It is all too easy for us to overlook the difficulties others face and to forget the many small things that add up to keep us steady and on track. It can be hard for us to spot the headwinds that hold our clients back and keep them in a reactive cycle that prevents them from seeing their choices clearly and achieving autonomy. So many people only hope to survive, not thrive.
I will no doubt forget the lessons I’ve learned from Storm Arwen as time passes. But one thing I do want to hold onto is the awareness that our resources are finite. My reserves need attention and nurture to keep them topped up. Another social media post I spotted this week hit home. If we are going to keep shining our lights to guide others as we move into uncertain times ahead, we have to find ways to keep our own lights shining. For me, that is music, books and friends and being part of a mutually supportive community. And of course, the telly!
THE COVID MONTHS | AN OWL CALLED ERIC
Phil Smith describes leading a creative training workshop using blended learning. Students share their experiences and name the Owl.
The Playful Child is a workshop Northern Guild has been running for the past three academic years. The workshop offers a deep dive into theoretical perspectives on the central role that play has for becoming human in relationship with others and the world. The workshop considers a range of skills and interventions to harness innate creativity and to apply them to therapeutic work with children and young people. Here play is used in the broadest of terms and understood to be a means of working through emotional and psychological difficulties towards growth, healing, autonomy, spontaneity and intimacy. It is one of the pieces of teaching that I most love to facilitate.
My relationship to the workshop has changed considerably over the past three years. Originally designed for in-person, colleagues and I scrambled to think about how we could move this experiential workshop into an online format which included creative ways to work therapeutically online as well as in-person, all over zoom. As a result, the format has evolved and had several iterations, while the spirit and learning outcomes of the workshop have remained the same.
Over the penultimate weekend of November this year, I and fourteen year 1 trainees had the exciting opportunity to try out yet another new iteration of this workshop; the blended approach. Although I remain a techno sceptic, I do in my life seek to embrace and welcome the new, the perplexing and uncertain. I can also be scared of change, reluctant often to move to the next challenge, especially over the past 18 months which have presented so many of us with challenge after challenge after challenge. I remember watching the film ‘The Martian’ starring Mat Daemon at the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Matt is marooned on Mars after his crew accidently leave him behind. The film follows Matt as he encounters problem after problem, seeking simply to stay alive and even get back home to earth. At the end of the film (and evoking the spirit of the original Apollo 13 crew) teaching a fresh class of budding astronauts, Matt says the following;
‘You solve one problem and you solve the next one and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.
And so, I volunteered to give it a go, to be one of the first workshops to try out the technology and weather the inevitable teething problems, to solve problems. Happily, I was not alone. What follows are a series of reflections and posed photographs that seek to describe and reflect upon the experience from the trainees who joined me in this venture, four online and ten in-person.
Philippa Gib-Kirk; (In-person)
My Northern Guild experience had been online from the very beginning, the assessment day, interview, weekend course and a workshop. I wanted to attend The Playful Child Workshop in person, to experience the building, meet people and occupy a space outside of my own home.
I knew for some of my fellow students that was not possible, they made choices to access the workshop at home. They had autonomy, I had the experience I wanted and we had the Owl. I'm okay, you're okay. One day I may need to make the same choice to be at home.
There sits the Owl, in the middle of the room, an unobtrusive, sleek and good looking gadget, It has a little face. This clever creature somehow extended the room to include people outside of it, and allowed those in the room to leave and enter their space. The Owl connected us, and we used it as only a budding group of Psychotherapists could. We had to contract, what do we do if the Owl misses something, or you cannot hear? How can we stay mindful of the Owl? Who will remind us of the Owl if we forget? Who will move the Owl so the best view can be given of play? We negotiated, checked in, the Owl was a central part of the learning, discussion and observation. The Owl enabled connection, facilitated relationships. The Owl provided opportunities for deep discussion, sacred silences and fertile voids. The Owl offered confidentiality and safe spaces. Over time, trust in the Owl developed. The Owl, like us, was not perfect, but with the help of the Owl, we made it work. In my mind, I will call the Owl, Eric.
Lara Berndes (via Zoom)
Originally I had planned to be at the workshop in person however due to a last minute commitment I had to be London. The fact there was an option to join the workshop via Zoom meant I am able to attend both which really helpful and much appreciated. I have never experienced working with the Owl before however it made my whole experience of the weekend very enjoyable. At first when the people in the room showed us we were positioned and how the Owl worked, I thought I might feel left out and separated from those in the room however this was not the case and I felt very much included in all discussions and breakout rooms. I also thought it was very interesting to observe Phil demonstrating working online with someone - something which I am sure as trainee psychotherapists we will have to encounter at some point in the future. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and would have no hesitation in the future to join via Zoom.
Alison Woodward (in-person)
As Phil adjusted the mic and various trainees took turns to manipulate the angle of the laptop or Owl (camera), five more trainees were enabled to take part in our Playful Child training via Zoom.
Problems included:
traffic noise from the slightly open window, which distracted the Owl.
Difficulties for the Owl in picking up softly spoken voices.
Zoom’s filter of loud noises, which frustrated collaborative experiments with sound.
Most technical difficulties were overcome, thanks to the ingenuity and sensitivity of Phil and the trainees. Whether the training was experienced in the necessary depth on Zoom as it was by those of us in the room is a question to consider, but Zoom is a very important means of accessing training for those who are self-isolating or who are, for some other reason, unable to attend in person and personally I am grateful to have the option to attend online.
My thanks to each member of the workshop group who approached the opportunities and the problems with light hearts and a ‘can do’ spirit. One of the topics we discussed at length over the weekend was the role of play, or of ‘tinkering’ in order to adjust our approach to therapeutic work; ‘ok, so this didn’t work…how about this’? It was the same with the blended approach to the workshop, we tried out different things, experimented, reflected, recalibrated, readjusted, and then tried again.
After Thought
It can be tough this life I think, especially when things change so quickly and when those changes require a whole new approach to something. Or at least it can be for me. I have often found myself these past months wishing for what was before and dreaming myself into the future when ‘everything is back to normal’. I sometimes forget to be here, with how things actually are, one step at a time. At times like that, I am reminded of a poem that was once shared with me by a trusted companion along the way, a poem which continues to accompany me as I take each step in this ever-changing world. As I do so, I give thanks for colleagues, my teachers and those who I teach as we move forwards together, one step at a time.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
THE COVID MONTHS | BLENDED LEARNING
As we continue to navigate how to train our students in the midst of a pandemic we are moving into a new phase at Northern Guild. Teaching students in-person is, we know, the best way to do things.. When this was pulled from our grasp by C-19 we moved all our teaching overnight to Zoom . It was a cataclysmic and terrifying moment. We had to get to grips with something we had never done before and a fair few technophobes amongst us were outed, myself included. But bit by bit we started to make friends with Zoom and in the end we had mercifully few catastrophic moments. But when they did happen the WhatsApp Hot Line would kick in and help was always there for the asking. Zoom gradually became familiar and we adapted to its demand for obedience to its idiosyncrasies and its rules of engagement. Only one person must speak at a time. If your tutor closes your breakout room you come flying back through digital space whether or not you want to, and so on.
Now we are on the move again. Its not the time yet to return to the training room without an alternative in place for those who must self-isolate or have compromised immunity. And so a middle way has been created. We are introducing Blended Learning so that students who are able to do so can return to their training rooms and their friends, whilst for those for whom that moment has not arrived yet Zoom is still there. It is a complex mix and not easy for students or tutors to navigate. Our new year one adult evening course students and their tutor share their experience of blended teaching sessions.
Rebecca Reed
REBECCA REED shares her impressions of in-person sessions
My experience of blended learning has so far felt really positive. It’s clear that a great deal of thought has been put into making the experience run smoothly and feel as inclusive as possible. The meeting owl isn’t something I’ve come across before but I think it’s working very well to help ensure the people joining us via zoom feel included. Like all firsts it’s taking a little bit of getting used to but everyone has been patient and cooperative.
During our second blended learning session we attempted the skills practice in ‘hybrid’ groups using a laptop and tablet to speak to the people at home. After a few teething problems we managed to get things going and preceded with the skills practice. It felt a little strange at first to observe the people at home, as body language and paraverbal skills aren’t as easy to pick up on a screen. However, I think everyone agreed that it was great to get to know the other people in our group a bit better and the practise felt valuable, despite the circumstances. We also acknowledged that it made sense to get used to counselling clients in this way, as we’re still a way off from things returning to normal.
All in all I think the blended learning approach is working well. After everything we’ve been through it feels like everyone is eager to connect and make the best out of the situation we all face. I certainly feel grateful to be able to attend the sessions in person and am keen to do what I can to ensure we’re able to communicate and continue working together in this way.
Kim Tserkezie
KIM TSERKEZIE shares her experience of being on Zoom
The plan was for us to begin our psychotherapeutic counselling course online. I felt relieved, for as a disabled person advised to shield during Covid19, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t feel safe yet to spend time in a room full of unmasked fellow trainees.
I thoroughly enjoyed our introductory class via Zoom. I could see and hear everyone well and although a virtual space wasn’t the ideal, here we were, all of us, together, making the best of it. So, it came as a surprise to hear that we could move to blended learning. We now had the choice to participate in class online or attend in person, but it really didn’t feel like a choice for me, not without risking my health. Panic crept in. What if it was just me who wanted to stay on virtually?
It wasn’t just me. Six of us joined online, whilst the majority attended in person. Moving forward, I suspect some technical adjustments could help remedy this, but I was able to see and hear my tutor well on screen, but not the rest of the class as a group. I could hear them only when one person spoke at a time, and they weren’t very visible. What I could see clearly though was a bunch of my course mates in a room together - without me - and I didn’t like it. I felt deflated and segregated. Would this situation now inevitably turn into ‘them and us’?
This feeling overwhelmed me in the first half hour. I found myself drifting, trying to make sense of this new set up and my insecurities, rather than concentrating on my learning.
But as time went on, I found myself settling in, accepting this was a new situation and needing to give it a chance. It became easier and when we moved into smaller group work, I felt even more relaxed, connecting further. It also helped that, as a whole course group, we were able to acknowledge that this situation was challenging for us and others in different ways, so I felt the support of my tutor and all of my peers was there. We were still in this together.
I came away feeling so grateful that this blended facility was offered. Each and every one of us had been given the chance to learn in the environment that most accommodated our own needs.
Upon further reflection, I’ve gone from being daunted and disappointed about utilising the virtual side of blended learning, to excited about what this means for inclusion in counselling for both client and therapist. Is ‘in person’ always best for everyone? How can technology help us reach people who find ‘in person’ counselling very difficult? How can we become more skilled at counselling on virtual platforms? By being flexible and by challenging ourselves to step outside of what is typically done, we have an opportunity to learn how to make therapy more inclusive.
Glenda McIntosh
GLENDA MCINTOSH talks about her joy at being back in the training room with students and the challenges of teaching through blended approaches
Thoughts of technology and the dynamics of a blended group had preoccupied me, leaving no time to consider what it would be like to sit in a room with students again. With the door and window open, training materials prepared, chairs positioned and a conspicuous appliance shaped like an owl in front of me, I was ready. Then, as the group began to arrive, feelings of concern for the practicalities were replaced with an instantaneous flood of mixed emotions. Great joy at seeing people in person and the prospect of feeling the energy of a full room, sadness at the reality of how much has been lost and that we weren’t a whole group together alongside the anxiety of staying safe in proximity to each other. I took a moment to share my thoughts and feelings with the group and we all paused to reflect on the conflicting feelings many of us were experiencing. We talked about how we might manage this new way of being together and shared some suggestions, recognising that as a new experience this might pose some challenges as well as opportunities.
The “meeting owl”, a combined microphone, speaker and camera used specifically for mixed in person and online meetings, is new to me and I was keen to experiment with the functionality. The camera is designed to be noise activated and move to whoever is speaking and we tested that in the room when talking. It works best the closer the person is to it but the microphone picked up people at the back of the room well enough. We realised it helped to say our names before speaking so our colleagues online knew who it was. Overall it worked well and wasn’t intrusive although we all agree that having our online colleagues feel involved remains a challenge.
I reflect on the evening with a sense of acceptance and pride. Blended learning isn’t perfect but it is a good enough compromise allowing us to accommodate the circumstances and wellbeing of each student. This group took up the challenge to pilot a blended approach and their patience, curiosity, honesty and positivity fills me with optimism and pride. Once again, in the face of adversity, human spirit abounds.
THE COVID MONTHS | Two middle eastern women MEET BY CHANCE in scotland, united by a baby.
Katy with her beautiful husky, Mara, adopted from Lebanon
Catherine (Katy) Kassis left Lebanon aged twenty one to move to Scotland. Finding a mother and baby for her infant observation led her to back into the heart of her Middle Eastern heritage.
Two years ago, I commenced my infant observation journey completely unaware of the richness of learning, the intensity of challenges, and the unthinkable degree of self-discovery that was yet to come. This journey began with a fairytale-like moment of fate, or better, what I believe to be a perfect moment of synchronicity. I had been volunteering at a charity that provides school tutoring for young Syrian refugees in Scotland. After numerous failed attempts at finding a mother through GP surgeries and parent groups, I decided to put word out at the charity. Two hours later, I received a call from one of the teenagers saying that their mother’s friend’s friend had heard about my search through the grapevine and wanted to be a part of it. It had so happened that she was a young Syrian lady who had never been given a chance to get an education and wanted to support me as a young Lebanese woman in achieving my academic goals – perfect synchronicity.
It is a well-known fact that infant observation comes with numerous challenges, primarily related to the maintenance of boundaries. The maintenance of boundaries between two middle eastern women with collectivistic values who have been separated from their families and are minorities in Scotland? To call it challenging is by far an understatement. Middle Eastern culture dictates that women help other women during pregnancy and early motherhood, but in that moment being a Lebanese woman was not my only identity, I was also a trainee psychotherapist bound by ethical codes. Week after week I felt a deep discomfort and indescribable heartache at having to refrain from checking up on how Mum was doing and how she was coping without her family. They say “it takes a village to raise a child”. I personally feel that, although it highlights the role of community in child rearing, this famous saying is but a fraction of the truth when applied to Syrian and Lebanese cultures. It doesn’t begin to describe the intensity and extent to which all family members and friends want to be and are involved in a newborn’s life, something mothers describe as supportive and suffocating in equal measure. Mum and I weren’t bound by familial ties or by previous friendship, but we were bound by the shared knowledge of the importance of having that Arabic-infused village in a Middle Eastern mother’s life. Unspoken emotions and silent conversations of this mutually understood connection filled the room with a corporeal pressure that felt too much to bear at times. I was relentlessly flooded with the guilt of not being able to provide a partial semblance of that village for Mum, such as not being able to tell Mum to rest and that I’d take care of Baby and handle things around the house when she was clearly exhausted. All I could think of during and after observation sessions was how rude Mum and Husband must find me and how I am disgracing my upbringing and familial values and betraying my cultural identity. I was therefore faced with a weekly struggle of having to put aside all I was taught, in order to fully integrate all I was learning through my therapy course.
The first observation session marked the beginning of two years’ worth of parallel process, one I wasn’t aware of at the time, but one that contributed to my personal and professional development. Mum and I were of the same age and similar cultural background, only Mum was a mother of three who had gotten married at sixteen while I was a single woman pursuing her education. In observation sessions, I would be preoccupied with looking for anything and everything that matched my theoretical learning and jotting it down in my notebook. Mum, on the other hand, was preoccupied with the emotional world of Baby and his siblings. While raising them, she could fully and unapologetically express her cultural values.
As sessions progressed, I found myself being less scientific and more reflective about what was going on inside me during Mum’s interactions with Baby; I was not prepared for this development as my culture emphasizes the importance of avoiding emotion in order to be taken seriously as a woman engaged in education. However, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief when Baby was sleeping, discomfort when Baby cried, or loss whenever Mum hugged Baby. Through my seminars I realised that I had been suppressing feelings of guilt for going against the grain by focusing on my education, especially as it was something Mum herself had wished for. However, I soon became aware of the fact that both Mum and I had something the other didn’t, one that each was living through the other. Mum had given up education to fully embrace the values of her culture; while, in my case, education came at the cost of my culture.
Through observing Mum’s interaction with Baby in its rawest form, I was reminded of all the social and emotional values my culture blessed me with and how it made me want to study human connection. Over time, I somehow reverted to a more natural version of myself where I was no longer solely focused on academic guidelines and subduing cultural values that seemingly betrayed those guidelines. I was simply an observer in the room who had the privilege of witnessing firsthand those special moments between Mum and Baby.
It was through this experience that I became aware of the importance of integrating all parts of myself in who I want to be and who I believe I am as a practitioner. I am not just a blank observer, nor am I an erudite trainee therapist who fully operates by one perspective. I am a young person who understands the importance of equality and diversity in the world of psychotherapy and have come to see my cultural background as a strength, not a weakness.
About Katy
I am a trainee psychotherapist at the Northern Guild. I spent the first twenty one years of my life in Lebanon before moving to Scotland a few years ago. I have dedicated my post-school years to the study of mental health, completing a BA Hons in Psychology, a MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Psychological Practice, and now through my journey with the Northern Guild. My early experiences in Lebanon juxtaposed with my life in the UK made me aware of how value for equality and respect for diversity are at the heart of all I do.
I love books, rock climbing, and walks in the countryside with my partner and the two dogs we adopted: beautiful, playful husky Mara from Lebanon; and mischievous, loving terrier Mila from Romania.
THE COVID MONTHS | BOnnes VACANCES
Cartoon - Nic Airey
The series concludes with hopes high for next year.
Amber plus Annecy, misses out to Northumberland.
1. Where do you usually take your summer holiday?
Annecy France
2. Where are you holidaying this year?
Beadnell Northumberland
3. Why did you choose it?
Its our favourite beach in Northumberland, we usually go at Easter but decided to go in the Summer due to the uncertainty around foreign travel at the moment
4. How are you getting there?
Car
5. How long are you going for?
Seven Days
6. Is that longer or shorter than usual?
Shorter
7. Who are you going with?
Family, but we always bump into friends there too
8. Are these the people you usually holiday with?
Yes
9. What is the one essential thing you will take with you?
My Dog Meg!! The beach is so much more fun with her, running up the dunes with the kids, being scared of the waves, finding the stinkiest seaweed possible!
10. If you could go anywhere this summer where would you go?
Annecy France. We lived there in 2008-2009 and have visited every year since apart from last year and this year. I would be sat by the lake, my toes in the cool water, a delightfully strong, bitter coffee, half a fresh baguette watching the kids diving off the pontoon.
Next year………….
THE covid MONTHS |BONNES VACANCES
Swaledale
Sarah Clarke packs up to meet her best friends for a week away.
1. Where do you usually take your summer holiday?
As someone who is stimulated by the new and unknown, I try to do something different every year; go to somewhere I haven’t been before, try a novel activity or see people I have not seen in far too long. However, there are some things that are repeated, either out of desire or necessity. I like to go back to the Midlands and visit my friends from my pre-North Easterly life, I pop in on my parents in York and best of all I take my children to Latitude Festival in Suffolk for a weekend of live music, comedy, wild swimming, dancing under the stars and failing to see Ed Sheeran’s secret set somewhere in the woods at 3am.
2. Where are you holidaying this year?
Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park
3. Why did you choose this place?
It’s called God’s Own Country for a reason! Practically, it’s easy for us all to get to and there are lots of things for us to do ranging from a guided otter spotting in kayaks to the Pencil Museum that we have threatened if there is too much time being spent on devices. Added to which the children usually entertain us with Vic Reeves style Yorkshire accents as they serve us Mason’s Yorkshire Tea Gin in the hope that we forget the Pencil Museum
4. How are you getting there?
By car, packed to the gunnels as if we are going away for the whole summer
5. How long are you going for?
A whole, glorious week
6. Is that longer or shorter than usual?
Same as usual
7. Who are you going with?
My daughters (15 and 12) my best friend Jane from 6th form college and her daughter (11), my best friend from adulthood Louise and her son (12). Louise’s eldest son tragically died of leukemia in 2020 but he will be very much with us in memories and stories of holidays past.
8. Are these the people you usually go with?
This holiday (known affectionately as “The Van” as we stayed in caravans the first time we all went away together) has been a tradition for the past 5 years, though I have holidayed with each of my friends separately for many, many years before that.
9. What is the one essential thing you will take with you?
Marks and Spencer’s “Percy Pigs” sweets; essential for bribing grumpy adolescents to climb hills or to visit Pencil Museums
11. If you could go anywhere on holiday this summer where would you choose?
I have never been to Sardinia. I lived in Italy for 4 years and deliberately didn’t go, thinking I would save it for something really special like a honeymoon. In the end I spent my honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands and still haven’t found the perfect opportunity to explore the fabled Costa Smeralda
THE COVID MONTHS | COSTA COVID, A Short FLIGHT
In this light hearted series of interviews with students and tutors, Christine finds out more about summer holiday plans.
Reigning in their travel plans, a student flies closer to home for a short break.
1. Where do you usually holiday?
Often Europe or North America. A particular favourite is Disney world for fun and adventures!
2. Where are you holidaying this year?
Majorca
3. Why there?
Another favourite place, limited options due to travel restrictions. Love the country, the weather and the people are so friendly. One of my children’s favourite destinations
4. How are you getting there?
Flying.
5. How long are you going for?
A week.
6. Is that longe or shorter?
Shorter than usual.
7. Who are you going with?
Normally we holiday with friends but it felt difficult this year.
8. What was difficult?
Co-ordinating it with all the restrictions. We are hoping to return to America next summer with friends as we all enjoy the rides. We get into free child mode!
9. What is the one essential thing you will take with you?
Headphones for music and audible books.
10. If you could go anywhere on holiday this summer where would you choose?
New Zealand. We’ve wanted to go for several years.
THE COVID MONTHS | COSTA COVID
Cartoon - Nic Airey
In this light hearted series of interviews with students and tutors, Christine finds out more about summer holiday plans.
A new graduate shuts down their laptop and pumps up their bicycle tyres.
1. Where do you usually holiday?
Somewhere in Europe, so we can have a city break mixed in with some outdoors adventures. Croatia’s probably our favourite place for this.
2. Where are you holidaying this year?
The Peak District
3. Why there?
We love the British countryside. It’ll cater to all the family and we hopefully wont have to worry about changes in travel restrictions and quarantining on our return like we would if going abroad.
4. How are you getting there?
Driving
5. How long are you going for?
2 weeks
6. Is that longer or shorter than usual?
Same as usual
7. Who are you going with?
Immediate family.
8. Do you usually holiday with them?
Yes
9. What is the one essential thing you will take with you?
Our bikes!
10. If you could go anywhere this summer where would you go?
I’d be more than happy still going to the Peak District. I’m just excited for some fun yet relaxing family time and a much-needed change of scene.
THE COVID MONTHS |A LOVING FAREWELL TO PETER
Sarah Greening rembers the first Northern Guild training group she and Peter joined and her lifelong frienship with him.
The first TA Psychotherapy training took off in autumn 1988, and our counselling group of the previous year dovetailed into it. It was clear from the outset when a pony-tailed Peter walked in that here was an interesting, deep thinking man, quick to humour and equally quick to talk with great interest on any subject under the sun! Peter was the son of a Russian Jew and his Russian heritage shone through his features: searching blue eyes, a strong Slavic jaw and a well kept goatee beard. And that voice. I loved Peter’s voice; deep, resonant, full of energy and rich in tone. It was a voice he was not afraid to use; sometimes with a gentle sensitivity, at others with a combative and insistent manner, determined to get to the truth of things. Peter loved to hold court; his curiosity and joy of intellectual engagement always drew us into rich and fascinating conversation. Occasionally, we had to interrupt his flow to get a word in ourselves but he never took umbrage at this, and always gave way with grace. Peter had strong morals and values which he lived congruently and thoughtfully. He could be rather a maverick, a part of his character I hugely enjoyed. Peter also brought a strong professionalism to our training group, having worked for many years in Social Services. Peter’s professional experience was one of the reasons Christine suggested we become a paired supervision group and I learnt such a lot from him. He was very kind to me and shared his knowledge generously.
Peter’s relationships were strong and long lasting; most important to him was his close and loving relationship with Yvonne, with whom he shared a life for over 40 years. We will all miss Pete terribly. I will remember him as a very clever, curious, playful and deeply loving man. I like to think of you now, Pete, resting in the beauty and wildness of the Westerdale moors.
THE COVID MONTHS | FOR PETER WITH LOVE …
The North Yorkshire moorland was at it’s best that June day. Lambs, grown enough to enjoy real mischief, played under a cloudless blue sky. The rolling landscape made endless billowing, blowsy pom poms of green as far as the eye could see, all of them dotted with the rich, deep yellow of the field buttercups. The farmer stood nearly six feet down in a large hole determinedly digging through the heavy, wet clay, his spade fighting to get past the stones. It had taken over twelve hours of hard labour and still it was not quite done. He was a friendly, courteous and informative man moving easily between his labour and the curious inquisitive questioning of the trickle of people starting to come into the field. A few hay bales were scattered against the wall behind him, offering seating for anyone without their own chair. A small row of assorted outdoor chairs made a wiggly front row on the uneven ground. People stood around in pairs and small groups talking in hushed tones and keeping a watchful eye.
The journey there had been a bit of a treasure hunt with instructions like ‘… It is easy to miss the field but it is located just after a small barn with a small tree and you are likely to see dustbins by the roadside.’ Peter’s family had come from Bornholm, the Danish Island in the Baltic Sea. Friends from the South mingled with those from nearby cities, towns and villages. Many colleagues from his early training days at Northern Guild were there, some had not met up for the best part of twenty- five years. We were all brought together by one man, a man whom we all loved and cherished in our own individual and unique ways. A man of enormous charisma, charm, humour and kindness. A bon vivant who loved good food, good wine and single malts. A gifted story teller and an exquisite classical guitar player. A man who loved words and wrote in a beautiful, flowing hand. A man of ideals who cared deeply about people and hated injustice, pain and suffering. A man of Russian, Jewish, Irish heritage with a famous martyr for a grandfather.
Peter Eugene Hugh Leviné entered my life with a flourish in 1988 when, on opening the post, I found four pages of closely written, beautiful handwriting, his CV and application to train in Transactional Analysis. Newly endorsed as a Provisional Teaching & Supervising Transactional Analyst, I was excited, nervous and eager. Desperate to form my first training group and worried there wouldn’t be enough interest. I now had a new challenge. Would someone with such a strong professional background and such obvious intellectual curiosity find anything remotely interesting in what I had to say? Could I, should I, dare to try and offer training to someone so knowledgeable and experienced?
Now thirty-three years later I sit at his graveside in disbelief waiting to say a final farewell to a man who had always seemed larger than life and would surely go on for ever. A flash of anger entered my soul.
‘This is too much, Pete! You can’t expect me to have ever imagined a day like this! You gone, me here. This isn’t how it should be. I DON’T want to feel like this!’
As suddenly as it came the anger went and waves of sadness, loss and desolation washed over me. Tears escaped and rolled down my cheek. The terrible, absolute finality of this moment. I looked round. So many of us had made the pilgrimage. So many loving, sad faces. So many eager to say a few words about Peter and what he had brough into our lives, including someone who took me to one side and told me that, as her Psychotherapist, Peter had helped her find the courage to re-engage with life in the face of an overwhelming urge to fall off the edge.
There was solace in the sharing, laughter remembering endearing foibles, comfort in closeness. A green burial in a most beautiful Yorkshire dale, the place he had chosen. There it was then. A life come full circle surrounded by love, warmth and tenderness. What seeds you have sown, Pete!
**********
‘Sa mort nous sépare. Ma mort ne nous réunira pas. C’est ainsi; il est déjà beau que nos vies aient pu si longtemps s’accorder.
His death separates us. My death will not reunite us. That is how it is; it is already truly fine that it has been possible for our lives to have been shared so closely for so long.’
Simone de Beauvoir[i]
[i] Read on the day of Peter’s burial by Alison Holland.
THE COVID MONTHS |IN MEMORY OF GRANDAD
Josephine ‘Phine’ Lund LEVINÉ pays tribute to her grandfather, Peter.
My granddad meant a lot to me. Not just because he was my granddad, but also because he was a kind, funny and caring man, who had the ability to make people feel both seen and heard. Despite living in two different countries, we kept in contact through emails and long conversations on Facetime in between our visits to Denmark and England. He always made me feel understood and supported, even when I doubted myself the most. He is the reason why I was able to finish my studies and he would calmly talk to me on the phone when I was feeling lost and needed guidance. He is the reason why I try to stay curious and seek out new music, films and literature (three of our most favorite topics of conversation) and I would always look forward to his recommendations, which would usually be accompanied by a little word of wisdom or a witty remark. He had a calmness about him that people would gravitate towards and I will always remember the sense of warmth and understanding that I would get from talking to him, no matter how serious or silly our conversations would be. He was much loved and he will be deeply missed. I am not able to attend <the funeral> today, but I will be remembering him today by re-reading the small, personal messages that he would write in the margins of the books that he gave me.
THE COVID MONTHS | PETER EUGENE HUGH LEVINÉ
Peter, one of the first Psychotherapists to train with Northern Guild, has sadly died recently. He was warm, funny and loveable and oozed charm. Over the next two days we take a look at his life and his work in a series of posts from family, friends and colleagues.
EARLY LIFE
Peter was born in 1943, during the war years, in Paddington, London to Eugen ‘Genia’ Leviné, the son of the martyred Communist Revolutionary Eugen Leviné[i], and his wife Rosa Leviné. Genia, of Russian Jewish heritage, was brought up in Germany. When the Nazis came to power he escaped by the skin of his teeth, in danger both as a Jew and Communist. He fled to Britain where he met Doreen ‘Bill’ Byrne a strong and interesting Irish woman whose Catholic mother and Protestant father had had to flee Ireland because their mixed faith relationship was disapproved of by their respective families.
For the first seven years of his life, Peter and his parents lived communally with other refugee families in London, experiencing a Bohemian lifestyle and multiple homes. Both his parents were committed intellectuals and free thinkers with liberal ideas grounded in socialist ideals. During the course of his childhood, Peter lived in over twenty different homes, including a brief period as an evacuee during the worst of the London bombings when, with his mother, he stayed in Sleights just outside Whitby. When he was seven years old his parents separated.
Between the ages of seven and eleven, Peter lived with his mother. At one stage Bill, now with a new partner, moved to a Cornish Commune where she stayed for a year living amongst other radical thinkers. Peter, treated not as a child but as an adult by the whole community, lived in a tent in the garden on the cliff top. It was a lonely existence and one that later, as a psychotherapist, gave him deep insight into loneliness, isolation and depression and made him an ardent believer in the power of involvement between therapist and client.
Bill went on to take a post as a school matron at a boarding school where she and Peter both lived for a brief time. It was an odd and discordant change, moving from the outdoor solitariness of his tent to a regimented, highly controlled indoor environment.
Perhaps the most settled phase of the time living with his mother was in Telscombe just outside Brighton. Here he was finally able to attend the same primary school for two or three years, eventually passing his 11+
Peter moved back to London eventually to live with father, Genia, in a dilapidated Bloomsbury basement flat. He attended the Royal Philological School, known today as Marylebone Grammar School. He left school during his A Levels, deciding that he did not want to keep studying.
STARTING TO WORK
Peter had an intriguing variety of early jobs which included working as a bicycle mechanic in Georgy Moore’s bicycle shop, reflecting his lifelong love of cycling. Eventually, he moved on to working for Manpower Services Employment as a Manager before branching out again and setting up Tiger Trucks in the early seventies, a small removal business.
His son, Jan, writes’… Me and my school mates used to pile into the back of dad's bright yellow transit van being thrown around like popcorn in a heated saucepan. Terrific fun.
Working the odd weekend helping dad with a move made me feel very grown up.
I remember sitting with him in a smoke - filled Tiger truck office after school, playing cards and watching him chatting away, with a fag in his mouth, enjoying the banter with all his drivers as they came in and collapsed onto the office sofa after a long working day. I could already see that he was good with people.’
MARRIAGE AND PARENTHOOD
In 1969, aged twenty-three, Peter met his first wife Bente, who came from Copenhagen. The couple settled in London where their son, Jan, was born. Peter and Bente eventually separated when Jan was seven years old. Peter, a doting father, remained fully involved in the life of his much loved son.
A NEW PROFESSION AND A NEW LOVE
By his mid-thirties Peter decided that he wanted to train as a Social Worker. To finance his studies at Middlesex Polytechnic he worked for several years as a postman.
In 1980 Peter met Yvonne Lawrence, while still studying for his CQSW. Yvonne was studying for a PGCE at the Institute of Education at the University of London. The couple were introduced by Peter’s friend Judith who was also Yvonne’s course tutor.
An Adventure In Whitby
In 1983 Peter & Yvonne moved to Whitby together when Peter was appointed to a Social Work post in the town. Planned as a short adventure and time out from London, Peter spent the rest of his life in Whitby with Yvonne. He and Yvonne became very rooted in Whitby where they lived together in the same house for thirty seven years, becoming an important part of the community.
MIDDLESBROUGH SOCIAL SERVICES AND THE CLEVELAND AFFAIR
Peter moved from Whitby to Middlesbrough Social Services, initially as a Social Worker and later as a Social Work Manager. He led a Children and Families team and later a Duty Team. In 1987 his work took him into the heart of the Cleveland Child Abuse Crisis. It was a very stressful and distressing time for everyone and Peter, like many of his colleagues, worked very long hours.
Psychotherapy Training
In 1988, Peter began training as a Psychotherapist, eventually qualifying as a Certified Transactional Analyst (C.T.A.) and leaving social work to establish a full time NHS practice in Psychotherapy for over twenty years. Peter’s psychotherapy practice reconnected him with his Russian roots in an entirely unexpected way. As part of the Northern Guild Russian Training Programme, Peter wrote of his experience in True North Therapy, Simultaneous Translation[ii]
Jennie McNamara writes,
‘In the early days of knowing Peter he loaned me a book about his grandfather, Eugen, I had only just returned from my first trip to Russia in 1989, and I was struck by the synchronicity as Eugen had been born and raised in St Petersburg (then Leningrad). Over the years Peter joined in the regular Northern Guild trips, run on a voluntary basis, to train the Russian students helping to organise and deliver psychotherapy workshops. He was passionate about this work and gave generously of his time and energy in supporting individual students as they worked toward their final Psychotherapy exams. This involved the students coming to the UK for extra support and tuition. Peter hosted several students and their families over many years and forged strong bonds with individuals that enabled them to feel welcomed and supported in this country. His contribution to and ongoing belief in the value of the Russian training programme has been invaluable and consistent for over 30 years, he was much loved and respected for his knowledge, skills and above all for his love and humanity which stretched across the generations and from one country to another.
My abiding memory is of standing in deep snow with Peter in a beautiful square in St Petersburg surrounded by large tall elegant building which once housed the wealthy Russian families in pre- revolutionary times. It was 30 degrees below freezing and we stood looking at the place where his Russian ancestors had once lived. Peter found some discomfort connecting with the lived experience of being in the place where his once wealthy great grandparents, brought down by the revolution, had lived and where their son had left home to follow his communist ideals. Ironically, one hundred and two years later, Peter was buried on the same, date June 3rd, that his grandfather had been sentenced to death in 1919.
Baby Genia, Peter’s father, with Eugen and Rosa LEVINÉ, Peter’s grandparents, in 1916
Peter worked with a GP Surgery in Sleights throughout his professional life as a psychotherapist. With Dr Margaret Jackson he set up and led innovative groups, Living with Health & Illness, for those with chronic health issues which explored the links between physical and emotional wellbeing. The groups received funding from the NHS and the successful outcomes were subject to thorough research.
Peter finally retired aged seventy-five. He became very actively involved in his local Labour Party, enjoyed Crown Green Bowling, book and film clubs and keeping up with friends and family both in Denmark, the UK, Germany and Norway. He is survived by his partner Yvonne, his son Jan, daughter in law Annette, and grandchildren Josephine, Maya and Olivia.
tomorrow three personal tributes to Peter
[i] https://spartacus-educational.com/GERlevine.htm
[ii] https://www.truenorththerapy.co.uk/home/the-covid-months-simultaneous-translation-memories-of-group-therapy-in-russia-by-peter-levine-certified-transactional-analyst
THE COVID MONTHS | HARTRIGG OAKS - A PARTNERSHIP
Sarah Clarke has set up an exciting new placement partnership for students.
When the old ghosts come back
To feed on everywhere you felt sure,
Do not strengthen their hunger
By choosing fear;
Rather, decide to call on your heart
That it may grow clear and free
To welcome home your emptiness
An excerpt from "For Loneliness", by John O'Donohue. I find the lonely parts of me are often drawn to the lonely parts in others. I am fascinated by loneliness; of people’s reluctance to name it, to talk about it, to admit to it.
In July of last year Christine Lister-Ford wrote STAY ALERT – CONTROL THE VIRUS – SAVE LIVES in her ‘True North Therapy’ blog; a piece about how we have perhaps failed at Northern Guild, to develop therapy placements where those in their later years have parity of access to counselling and psychotherapy with adults in other age groups. and I was both moved and inspired by what I heard as her call to arms - This is a group for whom we must rethink what we are doing and find ways to do much, much better. We cannot go on letting this be a marginalised group with poor access to our therapists.
This coincided with a blog written by Sue Hogston who had recently taken over as Head of Residential and Nursing Care at Hartrigg Oaks, a residential community for older people in New Earswick, York where my parents live. In it, Sue described how she and her team had been working around the clock to keep residents in touch with friends, family and each other, knowing the value of connection and the corrosive nature of loneliness in an already vulnerable neighbourhood.
The connection seemed obvious to me – here we were; a team of skilful, experienced therapists, looking to reach out to older clients, and there they were; a community of over 60s, suddenly cut off, isolated and in need of support.
I emailed Sue to suggest a partnership and she grabbed the idea with both hands. We spoke on the phone, each heartened by a glimmer of possibility and that warm fuzzy feeling that we were both doing something good in a bleak and difficult time.
The summer holidays came and went, and autumn saw us each caught up with our own family circumstances and the challenges of juggling those with navigating new ways of working, whilst both still reeling from the wrecking balls of our own bereavements.
The partnership fell into the shadows of winter and became something we both put onto one of those interminable To Do Lists that only ever grew longer as Christmas and a second lockdown drove the country into unparalleled despair.
But just as spring gives birth to new possibility and potential, my own sap began rising in March and prompted me to reconnect with Sue to see if we could resurrect the idea. She was grateful for my perseverance and we each committed to seeing it through this year. Recognising my own need for support with the venture this time around I recruited Simon Gowland, a Year 3 trainee, dual-registered on both the child and adult courses who lived and worked in York and whose infectious energy and enthusiasm I remembered from when I taught him in Year 1.
Simon and I met with Sue and her team over Zoom and then had the real treat of an In-Person meeting together with some of the residents at Hartrigg who acted as our pilot study. Together we drafted a piece for the community Newsletter and then sat back to see the response. Sue was nervous that the demand would outweigh supply, I was worried it would all fall flat, and that shame, hopelessness and fear would silence those most in need and prevent them from coming forward.
In a further Zoom Q&A which included residents and the wider management team of Hartrigg Oaks, we were asked what our “success criteria” looked like. I remember looking at Simon nervously, it was a question we hadn’t prepared for, but then the answer came to me - we were not some corporate business touting for clients to improve a profit and loss account, we were therapists, offering a helping hand, and if one person could be supported through our partnership, that would constitute a ‘success’ for me.
Last week I introduced the partnership to the Tutors in a Training Team Meeting and was heartened by the response. Not one, but two self-referrals have already come through from residents and been allocated to Lesley Calvert and Pen Jacques, supported by Kerry Rundle and Georgia Giannopoulou. I am so grateful for the positivity and enthusiasm with which they, and others, have jumped to support this venture.
I have learned many valuable lessons over the course of the year; the most important feels as though it is to listen to the call of my heart and to be tenacious as it guides me to grow clear and free, acknowledging and accepting my own ghosts by supporting others to sit with theirs.
THE COVID MONTHS | MANDALA
Julie Harding the Curator of Northern Guild proudly showcases the Mandala Project co-ordinated by Anna-Lou Lambie.
The response to Anna-Lou Mandala Project has been warming and so interesting to collate. I would like to thank her and all the students who took part for their generosity and patience in working with the project. I sent everyone an e-mail asking them for a few words to explain their Mandala. This is what they say.
Anna-Lou
I Listened
‘Getting an idea for a project, letting it go out into public and then bringing it back into my personal work is always an interesting process. I had to get into the moment and really let go of the bigger project picture which was actually easy for me because I love Mandalas! There is something so utterly supportive of a circle that means, for me, I can fully let go and express my feeling in that moment and have it held completely on the page.
Working through this mandala and reflecting on the pandemic was an interesting moment. I felt layers that had to be seen and had to interact with each other. In working with a large amount of water I had to let go of how the final piece would turn out which reflected the situation perfectly. Will the colours be as dense? Will they fade? Will they change? I had no control nor idea. Interestingly the piece named itself ‘I LISTENED’. The name reflects for me the part of the pandemic which was purely about sitting and observing. Letting in what has happened and sensing into how that interacts with me internally. I feel that this piece reflects how I felt in that moment. I feel that I listened.
Stuart and his Partner Mirren
Stuart
‘I love creative stuff but rarely have the time to sit down and dedicate myself to something like this, but I'm on the course and this is right up my alley so it was lush to do, especially the two of us together.
I sat down with our big box of art and crafts stuff along with special items that popped up whilst I was looking round the house. It was really beautiful to just allow creativity to flow and see what emerged- it skirts the edge between fear and excitement perfectly. I feel the vibrant colors represent boldness and there is a lot of order, albeit in a kaleidoscopic way. I feel hypnotic when I look at it, almost as if it's one of those moving optical illusions, but then I focus on the little Hindu God in the Centre and feel very still and at peace.
Mirren
‘I drew from the soul with intention to feel. It represents my core value of embracing imperfection as its own authentic beauty standard opposed to symmetry. I used candles given by a close friend for the hexagon shapes, a stone Mayan calendar to complete the outline of the mandala, a tree of life earring for the top and bottom chain and some lighter wood for the outline. It all came naturally
when looking at the objects I had chosen, where to place them, as they chose me. Reflecting on the year, I feel the mandala represents the vortex from my inner and outer world. Myperceived need for containment as a form of security. But I can appreciate the beauty of the chaosand unknown, feeling slightly saddened I felt the need to contain the mandala within a rigid border!The spirals are something I usually draw along with the figure of eight which fill the spaces between.Overall a brilliant exercise which I got a lot out of.
Matt
‘My mandala was not much more than a doodle really but I like doodling like this - in a semi-structured way - as so often they seem to give an insight into whatever unconscious processes are going on.
I'd got some biscuit cutting rings from the baking drawer and the sizes of the two circles I used just felt right, giving a narrow band and then lots of room in the middle. The outside being graphic in black and white while the inside was full of colour felt inevitable. When I was little we used to use a compass to draw curves within a circle which if done correctly would give a symmetrical flower like shape and I did something similar, using one of the cutters to make the curves instead of a compass. That it didn't become a perfect symmetrical shape felt fine - it felt abstract and more interesting. Using the colours like I did, almost randomly filling each section, is something I've found myself doing a bit of recently and it reminds me of stained glass.
So there is a real contrast between the two areas. The outer monochrome, ordered, controlled, while the inner is colourful, fragmented and free. I’ll leave you to read your own meanings into it. But I do find it interesting that the black and white triangular shapes seem to be pointing towards the centre. Maybe there's a connection with me choosing to send you my mandala?’
Nic
‘Throughout this last year, many of us have been looking for those rays of hope that seem to have been gently stretching their way onto our morning windows. As the summer sun starts to work its way closer to us, we start to say goodbye to the spring of 2021 and the last fifteen months of disruption, uncertainty, and confusion. Managing the ups and downs has been difficult and for many of us will still continue to be part of our lives as it ever was. I can recall difficult times at work, with family, trying to find the time for my own needs, and balancing my own happiness and struggling with disruption, uncertainty, and confusion in all of that.
I sit down to create this mandala, thinking of the last fifteen months and all the people that have been part of this time in my life, pre and post Covid. I think of all the children I have adventured with and adults that have journeyed bravely into their own past, present, and exploring their futures. I feel content to take this time to think of them and the impact they have also had on me. I take my time to run through the process shown by Anna-Lou remembering to breathe with my thoughts. I take my time to collect objects around me taking in the experience of reflecting on this global experience effecting all of us.
I can feel the sun shining down and decide to add the yellow sun into the background of my picture. I noticed there were blue items all around me in the objects I had collected, each small and delicate. I began drawing my circle and patterns started to emerge. My phone pings loudly in this silent process. My friend had text a picture. It was an unexpected black and white picture. It disturbed the work I was doing which left me uncertain and confused as to what it was. I put down my drawing and took a closer look. It was a sonogram, she was having a baby.
Joy filled my heart for her and the life she was sharing with me. What adventures awaited this child? What would I learn from them and them me? What a powerful sense of hope I suddenly felt rush through me for the future. I looked over at my mandala and could see this was almost at a close yet something was missing. It was missing the something in the middle the heart of the picture. I decided to add my friend`s baby feet to the centre. The child who was coming into the world during disruption, uncertainty, and confusion.
Nothing felt confusing about this child. I had yet to meet them yet I felt a certainty that I would protect them. A clarity that I felt love for them and their mother. I felt a sense of calm in embracing them into this art work rather than feeling disrupted by their presence. In this moment of calm, reflective peace, mother and baby had inadvertently shown me that while the world is constantly changing, it’s the changes that make it so beautiful, exciting, and worth exploring. This mandala gave me the opportunity to explore my own inner peace. It was always there. I had been disrupting it with my own uncertainties and causing myself confusion in the process. My moments slowed with the creation of this mandala so I could recognise that these moments we share together are worth slowing down for.
Shonadh
‘The definition of Nodus Tollens is the realisation that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore. This was how I arrived into lockdown having been training at the Guild for 5 years.
Lockdown gave me space, permissions, freedom, time to breathe, and the silence I needed to make changes. It had taken the world being in crisis for me to give myself the permission and to recognise the feeling of Monachopsis which is defined as the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach—lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, unable to recognise the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.
I have changed everything. My Nurturing Parent has ridden in on a white horse with crowds cheering and rescued my Free Child, I celebrate how differently I think, I've allowed myself to be clever, to stand up for myself and to be seen.
I am filled with enouement: the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self. But I am a time traveller and I know that my twenty three year old self would have felt this energy from future me and hung on for her beautiful life.
Anyone know the word which defines the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’re fluidly, brilliantly effortlessly at home? That’s where I’m headed.
Julie
‘I made my Mandala/ medicine wheel as a form of meditation to help me release new intentions into the world, to soothe calm and heal myself and those others who need it also.
I came across this quote while I was reading and want to share it with you all.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”
Walter Sullivan, “The Einstein Papers: A Man of Many Parts,” The New York Times, March 29,1972
‘I would like to Thank Anna-Lou for this creative and inspiring idea and her work designing the exercise. And a massive thank you to all of the participants who took part and shared their creativite visisons.
Please take a few moments to share your own feelings and thoughts in the comments box below. We would love to hear from you.
THE COVID MONTHS | BOOM BOOM BOOM
Phil Smith remembers the call of the drum in the middle of the night.
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
My fingers gently twitched, my brow furrowed just a little…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
Sharp intake of breath followed by long exhale…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
I burrowed my face into the damp pillow it had been resting on for the past five hours… ‘What was this which was calling me back from the deep?
I opened my eyes and turned to the ceiling. The night wore on, heavy with humidity and the smell of my own perspiration. I turned towards the dim glow of my digital watch…3.47am. I searched for my sandals in the darkness, brushing my arm against the cool mud and wattle walls of this hut in which I lived. No bed to climb out of, only a rug to crawl off. They had laughed when I produced my travel pillow…’funny English man’. In the pitch of this night I was hot, thirsty, groggy…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
I knew that sound, the resonant boom of goat skin pulled tightly over a hollow wooden cone. I knew the drummer also, my friend Isaac the parish priest. I pulled on some dirty jeans, a soiled t-shirt took a swig of warm water and stepped out into the night.
On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.
All around me was silent. The doors were closed, the little cooking fires which only hours ago were aflame, were cold. I love those fires, sitting outside my hut each evening watching as families and households sat around them boiling rice. The smell of wood smoke on the breeze…beacons of light signalling that someone was home. Not now. I was alone.
In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide,
save that which burned in my heart.
The ‘boom’ was coming from the church, sat on the edge of the village, some fifteen-minute walk from my home. I left the enclave of huts and took to the road. The going was rough, red stone and dust littered my way. I reached down to pick up some of these stones, remembering the young boy who had taught me weeks ago to arm myself at night against the wild dogs that roamed.
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
The sound became louder as I drew closer. And then I heard a new theme wound up with the rhythmic booming of Isaac’s drum. Voices, wailing voices, singing voices…boom…boom…boom.
On the hill ahead of me I saw a small flicker of light through the window of St Luke’s church. As I came closer still I saw shadows flickering against the wall inside. A long wattle and mud construction, the tiny windows kept the searing heat of rural Ethiopia out and the cool shade in.
I reached the portal to the church, an arched entrance with no door. I swallowed loudly, adjusted my glasses and entered the gloam.
In the middle of the structure a body lay still, dressed in bright yellow garments, lying on green branches. In the corner I saw the familiar face of Isaac lit by a single candle. My friend, with whom I had eaten, laughed, sung, debated, argued, travelled and cried with in the two months that I had known him. I saw him in the shadows, his face like the thunder which bellowed from his drum. Around the motionless body in the centre of the church, fifteen, maybe twenty people stood or kneeled singing, wailing, crying…boom, boom, boom. I was gently pushed out of the way as another mourner walked through the portal and took his place amongst the gathering crowd.
Unsure, I followed him and kneeled down beside him aware of the rough ground beneath grinding against my kneecaps. The arms of the woman to my left brushed against my own. The boom of the drum shook my rib cage. The smell of the night and the drenched bodies around me filled my head. I trembled, the hair on my neck stood up on end; ‘I know that face’.
I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
I don’t know how long I knelt there for. When I stood up the sun had risen and the shadows of the night were dispelled. My legs ached. Dust clung to my face mingled with sweat and tears. I turned to see Isaac sat on his stool, now at rest. The crowd had dispersed and on the warm wind I could once again smell the small fires kindled. The cooking pots had re-emerged. I was exhausted.
Afterward
The Nuer people live in southern Ethiopia as refugees, originating from southern Sudan. I had visited southern Sudan with Isaac once, illegally crossing the boarder in a wild and remote patch of desert in order to visit Isaac’s brother. For almost five months I lived among the Nuer in the Gamebela region of southern Ethiopia, a hot, humid and beautiful land.
This past year in the UK we have had reported to us on a daily bases the savage death toll of the Covid-19 Pandemic. There are so many death tolls in this world, hidden to most but those whose lives which are directly impacted by the loss. At times I have struggled to hear the daily statistics as I stand in my far-off kitchen; sometimes turning the radio off, sometimes arguing with the reporter or the statistician who collated the numbers. ‘What do you want me to do with this information?’ I ask.
I have worked with children, young people and adults who have lost to death people they love. And I have sat with people from all walks of life struggling to allow themselves to grieve, sometimes years after the death itself. Once, as I accompanied an elderly woman into her own death, her final moments were taken with grief for herself as she mourned her own loss for this world that she loved.
I worked recently with a year group reflecting on rituals and practices from around the world to provide people with a means to mourn, to express their grief. We asked ourselves how can therapy mirror such creative rituals so as to support clients to find outlets for grief and healing? How do I, how do you, how do ‘we’ live with death?
As I struggle with the loss of people I do not know, and live with my own grief for those who I love and have lost in my lifetime, I find myself back in Gamebela, wailing and beating my own drum.
Poetic Quotes taken from The Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross
Gembela’s Church
THE COVID MONTHS | THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS
RED KITE Photograph by Simon Zippi
Christine looks back over the last year.
To prepare for the March Team Meeting I did what I always do and opened up last year’s agenda to cut and paste into. And there it was, the skeleton of our last face to face time together. All it took was to open up an old word document and like a swimmer caught in a cross current I started to sink under the waves of shock, sadness and disbelief. Was it really a whole year since we had been together? It felt both longer and shorter all at the same time. Images of our last time together flashed in front of me. The horrible, dark, windowless room in the Holiday Inn that we were trying out to see if it worked better for our now large team. (It definitely didn’t.) Some people sat as far as possible from others because we had all just heard that things were now so bad that there was probably going to be something called a ‘Lockdown’ very, very soon. Some of the team were visibly upset whilst others were quieter than normal and seemed lost inside their own worlds. High voltage currents of tension zigzagged backwards and forwards round our circle. I felt I was trying to do the impossible, to run a meeting that had really important points we needed to discuss and simultaneously try my best not to seem completely oblivious to the herd of elephants stampeding around the room charging at us and screaming ‘ COVID-19’. The stampeding elephants won when a message came to say that one of the students on that night’s evening course might be nursing covid symptoms and so couldn’t come in. It stopped us all in our tracks. I wanted to shout at fate and tell her that she had got her timing completely wrong. Didn’t she remember? Our Zoom induction training was in the afternoon and this was still well before twelve, her news had come too soon, far too soon. The tension in our group ratcheted up a notch, the elephants had us now and we were helpless. Then Marjorie (the tutor for that evening) and Sarah T announced that they were going off to sort out Zoom for the night’s class, Sarah already knew a lot about it and she would help Marjorie get set up with the students. Yes! 15 All. Northern Guild was fighting back against the Elephants. Sarah and Marjorie strode from the room to attend to their mission, our Titans whose knowledge and power would steer us through this first turn of the new and very bumpy road ahead. I don’t remember if we actually clapped them but in my head that is how I recall it. If I had known how soon hugging was to become banned I would have leapt out of my chair and given them both a huge hug.
Zoom has become a fact of our lives. Now when we ‘zoom’ it means we log on to a video platform where we can both see one another and talk together. It no longer means what it once did - to enlarge something. Or rather we have forgotten that is how we used to use the word. Nowadays Zoom is a proper noun with its own popular verb. A reminder of the organic and evolving nature of language. This time last year students were writing in to share how distressed they felt about the hatchet job Zoom had done. On the one hand people were generally appreciative of all that had been done to make it possible for their training to continue (many other organisations actually paused their trainings for many many months) but they felt keenly the loss of being together. We had requests to reschedule workshops to September when it was felt things would likely be back to normal and we could all be together again with in-person teaching. So we rescheduled hoping it would be true. But many of us on the team felt it was probably unlikely. We were uncomfortable saying it to each other so we tended to come at it obliquely. Another elephant to try and ignore. But as we now know all too well, Autumn saw things start to get worse again. How did that happen? In July things had seemed so much better. We had had our very own Independence Day on 4 July 2020. It was intoxicating. We Ate Out To Help Out, neglected hairstyles were spruced up and we jetted off to warmer shores in search of the healing summer sun. But slowly with the return of autumn we realised we were paying an unimaginable price for those heady summer months. Hopes of a return to normal life faded with the summer’s warmth and we steeled ourselves for more social distance. Northern Guild made history by starting all teaching on line in Autumn 2020. There was a resigned acceptance amongst both tutors and students that there was no point making a fuss because it was the best we could hope for. Zoom was beginning to feel more user friendly and less intimidating and we all got on with making the best of things. Technical glitches happened less frequently, Zoom had upped its game and so had we. Now when something went wrong we knew what to do and had good contingency plans. My brother told me about a tricky moment he had had with whiteboard. He volunteers to help train motor bike riders, and during a session on the highway code an abundance of Free Child expression from the participants exploded to the screen in glorious Anglo Saxon expletives. His story made me laugh. At least this was one piece of disinhibition we were unlikely to encounter in the digital zones of Northern Guild. But, oh, what fun it would have been to see someone else deal with it!
September brought two unexpected personal losses. First Jennie’s much loved oldest sister Kath who had been like a second mother to her. We found out first hand what it is to lose someone in Covid times when Kath became unwell. There was no possibility of visiting her. As her condition deteriorated, we got more and more frantic about seeing her. But the Covid straightjacket didn’t budge an inch and her last breath was in hospital with only the comfort of strangers. We were miles away in another town. An inner primal scream took hold raging in every fibre against the craziness of rules that kept families apart and smashed the bonds of connectedness with a ruthless cold, clinical detachment.
Kath had been a true matriarch full of life and energy. When Jennie and I became a couple she was horrified. She made her disapproval palpable. It mainly took the form of an icy coldness towards me at the annual family events which I attended reluctantly. Eventually, it culminated on the day of Jennie’s mother’s funeral, in a nuclear battle of words between Kath and Jennie by the black car that was to take the family to the crematorium. The row centred on whether or not I was entitled to ride with the family in the big black car. I tried to speak up for taking my own car (I longed to) but nobody heard me. The battle raged in the hitherto quiet suburban cul-de-sac, voices at screaming point, neighbours’ curtains twitching and Jennie’s mother waiting patiently in her own car for her final journey. In the end, backed by her other sister, Judith, Jennie won and I climbed in. Seven minutes later we drew up at the crematorium. It was the longest car journey of my life.
In time Kath overcame her initial hostility and I could only feel huge admiration and respect for someone who had shown such willingness to overcome her old values and doubts and embrace change in all its prickly discomfort. We all had some wonderful times together culminating a couple of years ago in a cruise to the Baltic. Kath relished every minute and was up for anything including a fair amount of flirting. Her holiday tipple was a late night whisky and lemonade which she took to her cabin. For some reason she decided it was my job to order it and bring it down each night. More than once I was dispatched back to the bar to return the said drink as having been mixed in the wrong proportions. I took comfort in the five hundred or so extra steps these forays racked up on my device, opting for virtue over irritation.
Then my precious little Maisie died unexpectedly (The Covid Months | Paw Prints 19 October 2020). Life felt bleak. The next few months passed in a bit of a blur. The dark nights brought with them another layer of constriction and confinement. And then Christmas was on the horizon twinkling and glittering with yet more promises of a return to normality. I didn’t buy it. It sounded like more crackpot hyperbole and downright stupidity. I took to following a few people I thought talked scientific and medical sense Devi Sridar, Neil Ferguson and Richard Cree (There Are No More Surgeons www.nomoresurgeons.com) amongst them. I thought there was no option but to wait for Spring and hope for vaccines.
Healthy Meal Kits hit our kitchen at the start of 2021. The lead up was exciting. Choosing from all those mouth-watering descriptions with their accompanying photographs was fun. Almost like going to a restaurant only better because you were heroically putting in the effort yourself and eating food that was healthy to boot. Could it get any better? It turned out that it could. The instructions were convoluted and took real concentration. We tend to eat supper about eight as part of winding down and coming together. I like a bit of culinary prep. – steaming some veg, cooking fish or chicken en papillote – but meal kits were a whole different ball park. I shouted at the instruction booklet so much that Jennie pleaded to take over. One meal came topped with an egg. A single egg in its own blue, gift box carton was part of the kit. I mindfully opened it declaiming to Bertie (Scottish Terrier) who is a bit deaf and doesn’t really care what I say, that this was probably the future of egg merchandising to come. We could expect to say goodbye to half a dozen eggs in a box and hello to single eggs in their own carton at hugely inflated prices. Opening the box and consciously, attentively and thoughtfully taking out the egg was the only piece of instruction I was ever able to follow from beginning to end.
On the 16th February 2021 I got the first stamp on my Get-Out-Of-Jail Card with Pfizer EN1185, followed eight and half weeks later by my second stamp. I’ve had many injections in my life. Generally, I’ve thought of them as something to be done and occasionally I’ve felt a bit of dread about the side effects of things like Yellow Fever which always makes me feel grotty. But never have I counted the days and weeks to an appointment, longed to be asked to go along before the appointed time or felt like hugging the nurse who gave me the jab. Driving back home from my local Primary Care Hospital I was full of tears. Relief, hope, happiness and gratitude flooded my soul. In the weeks that followed I began to dare to re-imagine life in the ways that I had known it and to take small steps back into the world I love and have missed.
And so here we are, about to engage in re-entry. Our journey in space is slowly coming to an end. There have been 569 astronauts from 41 countries who have gone into space so far. 12 have walked on the moon and only 18 have lost their lives. Covid has been much less kind and much more lethal. Re-entry from space into earth’s orbit and then touchdown are some of the trickiest moments. We need to stand together and keep supporting each other through this next phase just as we have through the whole journey. We need to show understanding, feel respected and held with care, love and warmth as we meet again.
BERTIE
THE COVID MONTHS | ONE YEAR ON FOR THE ADMIN TEAM
The Admin Team at Northern Guild have been amazing, adapting to previously unthinkable changes in the way they work, supporting innovation, generating ideas and suggestions to improve the services and training of the organisation and literally saying ‘Yes’ to every request. We could not have functioned in the last year without their enormous energy, and vast reservoirs of goodwill, loyalty and committment.
Julie, Marisa and Sarah have agreed to share a snapshot of what life has been like over the last year.
JULIE BOURNE
At the start, Covid was a very strange and slightly anxious time, but as time wore on I began to quickly accept that life was different and not how is used to be.
I was furloughed for a period of 6 weeks at the very start and after 2 days of doing nothing at home apart from watching TV, I made a decision to do something productive each and every day. My house was deep cleaned from top to bottom, I painted, re-decorated and made an effort to tidy the front and back garden which was interesting to say the least as I’m not a very keen Gardener, everything I try to grow just ends up dying! I also went for a walk every day which was something I began to look forward to. Strangers you met along the way would say hello or good morning/afternoon it was almost like a mutual acknowledgement that they were happy to see another person also.
Coming back to The Guild after six weeks was strange at first after being away for so long. I felt a little out of touch with work office life. The building was still and empty with none of the usual familiar sounds or smells from the café but we were still so busy in the office and it did not take long to slip into a new way of Northern Guild life.
A year on and upon reflection life in general was not too difficult for me, I think the most difficult aspect of Covid for me has not being able to see my granddaughter. I am thankful for ”Facetime” and there have been so many of those calls over the last year with her but I am so looking forward to seeing her in the summer as she is my joy and happiness and I definite feel like I need some of that now.
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MARISA RITSON
I was fairly frighted when the pandemic began. I had planned to visit my family and friends for two weeks in Newcastle, whilst my school in China was closed for their Chinese New Year break. Soon after I arrived home, Covid-19 was all over the mainstream news. The feeling of excitement and happiness to be back with my family and friends after a year was replaced by a huge sense of fear and dread. I was worried about my friends, my students and my colleagues in China. Covid-19 was not yet a concern in the UK, so I felt quite isolated in my anxieties.
Three months on and the UK goes into its first national lockdown. The weekly zoom quizzes, the daily walks, the yoga and the baking (which have all completely stopped now), feel like a bit of distant haze. The thing that stands out the most to me is how important it was, and is, to stay connected with loved ones. The endless video calls, and messages with friends, to check in and have a laugh and a chat, made all the difference.
Fast forward, another two months, to May 2020, public schools in China re-opened. I taught my primary school children virtually, to a Chinese schedule, at the sociable hours of 1:30am – 9:35am UK time! As much as this was challenging, it was so heart-warming to be back, even in a virtual sense, and see my students through to the end of their last semester before they left for summer again.
Such global uncertainty, has encouraged me to practice gratitude more than I have previously. I now perceive home through a lens of positivity, safety and warmth, whereas before I always chased after something more.
As much as I have found the past year deeply saddening, scary, and incredibly testing, I have found so much light, in how this time of crisis has brought people together. Not just within their own circles, but on a global scale, and that strong sense of solidarity and hope is something I will always remember and have found huge comfort in over the past year.
***********
SARAH BELL
The comparative quietness of the last year has certainly provided a valuable opportunity for reflection.
Over the year I have found myself being more introspective, and the time of lesser movement has been quite soothing and settling for me; with fewer distractions a calmness has slowly floated in. Without being able to travel further afield, I’ve found myself with a renewed appreciation for where I am – being in Newcastle, and with a growing affection for the Northumbrian coastline and countryside, which continues to provide local yet exciting adventures and new places to explore. I’m glad that the year has, more generally, brought about awareness and appreciation and for the natural environment, and the joy that it unyieldingly offers.
I’ve been particularly grateful to have a workplace to come to and for colleagues who are a supportive team to work with and to be with. Although the building itself is much quieter, our more recent and careful reopening is bringing welcome energy and smiles that are all the more appreciated. The time between the former normality and now has, I think, brought gratitude to the fore.
Being present at work throughout the last year has renewed my sense of responsibility and steadfastness – the Guild has been something of an anchor in an otherwise uncertain period.
As an admin team, we’ve been able to respond to new and varying issues brought about by the pandemic, and the everchanging circumstances that we all find ourselves in. Now that, more broadly, as we tentatively coming ‘out the other side’, I feel confident in our ability and adaptability as an office team of colleagues and friends.
I look forward now, optimistically, to a summer of opportunities anew, to seeing friends, and sharing spaces with those who have been held at a distance. And likewise, to seeing more faces at the Guild – for the building to be happily and physically filled with the values I so admire in it and in the team.
THE COVID MONTHS |THREE COUNSELLORS WORKING WITH NHS STAFF LOOK BACK ON THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS
SARAH WOODROFF
As we pass the anniversary marking a year since the first lockdown, I have found myself reflecting and reminiscing over the events of the last 12 months. Today, I watched Jason Manford do a routine about feeling nostalgic over lockdown one: how it seemed like a happier, more relaxed time. It made me laugh because I resonated with it so much; I look back and remember the walks in the sun, baking with my children and enjoying having more family time. It is easy to misremember and see it as a long holiday. Then I remember how I felt when I was first asked to work on the NHS scheme that the Northern Guild was running, and I remember the fear that was in the nation, in the world. I was expecting to hear horror stories from doctors, nurses and consultants who were working on the frontline: on covid wards, A&E and intensive care units. I anticipated hearing about ghastly death scenes, about grief and about discomfort from working in sweltering heat whilst wearing PPE. I hit the textbooks and read up on trauma models, revised grounding techniques and signs of being outside the Window of Tolerance; I was expecting to meet people in the depths of trauma. A year later I have found that, so far, these are not the stories that have been brought into our sessions. Instead, I have heard about the human struggles that lockdown and the pandemic have caused throughout society: relationship worries, feeling (and being) stuck, having choice and freedom removed, of being overwhelmed by work and life pressures.
The stories I heard from NHS workers in the first lockdown centred around fear. Fear of catching the virus. Instead of hearing about how uncomfortable the PPE was, I listened to fear that it wasn’t effective enough. There was fear about carrying the virus back into homes and passing it on to loved ones. There was fear over what would happen if they got sick; who would look after their children? How would they cope? The bubble system wasn’t in place then and the fear was exacerbated because they had first-hand experience of how sick this virus made people. Then there were stories of anger. Anger towards the government for not providing enough PPE, anger about the narrative in the media, “we did not sign up to be heroes” is a phrase that I heard over and over again, it was strong and heartfelt. Then there were feelings of uncertainty; not knowing where they were going to be deployed to, and unease about working outside their area of expertise. “Be Perfect” drivers were triggering anxiety as they were being placed onto new wards and required to be an effective part of the team without having up to date knowledge or skills in this area. “Be Strong”, “Don’t Feel” and “Don’t Be Important” are common drivers and injunctions amongst NHS workers and made asking colleagues for help difficult and anxiety worse.
As we moved out of the first lockdown and restrictions began to ease, I noticed that feelings coming into sessions were of overwhelm and exhaustion; people were burned out. Our work centred around permission for self-care, the message being that it is essential and not a luxury. We talked about ways of implementing it into already busy lives. Drivers of “Be Strong” and “Work Hard” and injunctions of “Don’t Feel” were present in the majority of sessions and knowing how much to challenge or raise awareness of them felt like tightrope walking; how much do I focus on what may make them really good at their job but may also be contributing to exhaustion and anxiety? These themes remained present as we entered the second lockdown and now pressures in relationships and families emerged too. I heard about the pressure that came from caring for patients and colleagues at work, and then going home to the demands of family life and relationships; there was little room for their own Inner Child’s needs and expression. It reminded me about a passage in Woollams and Brown’s textbook that talks about when a mother is looking after her new baby,
“For the best parenting to occur, a parent should give priority to taking good care of herself…when a mother’s Child is taken care of, she is in a much better position to care for her infant” (Woollams and Brown, 1979, p.100-101).
When our NHS workers are working in a pandemic, who is looking after their Inner Child? Maybe their spouse, partner, friend, maybe their therapist. Work has been focused on asking for support and on the Drama Triangle. Gently bringing into awareness the Rescuer position and challenging the Frame of Reference that says it is their job to look after everyone at work and at home: perhaps it is ok to ask for help, perhaps other people can do more than you think, perhaps it is ok to ask someone to put the dinner on when you have worked four 13 hour shifts in a row.
Lockdown 3 seemed to hit people hard. The expectation that things would get better in 2021, the hope of the vaccine, and then being put into the third lockdown during the coldest, darkest and bleakest months has been tough for people. Our contracts have centred around support through the next few weeks, “I can see the finish line in the distance, just help me get through this last bit” is a phrase I have heard, and it conjures up images of runners staggering, swaying and crawling towards the finish line: they need an arm to support them in the last few steps. I remember in our first year of training our tutor told us about the transformative experience a person can have from being truly heard and seen. She said that so many of us have never experienced this before coming to therapy. This stuck with me and it is something I remind myself of when my self-doubt about my abilities as a therapist rise, when I can’t remember the theory or cringe when remembering a failed intervention. This is what I have focused on in these sessions. Six sessions of forty minutes, where all emotions are permitted and I am fully present and actively listening, and I have watched people grow and feel much better. I have seen people achieve their contract after one session. To tell their story, and be heard, is healing.
Now the country and the world are starting to cautiously look, with a glimmer of hope, to returning to a “normal life”. With a timetable in place and a successful vaccination programme running it seems that it is a real possibility. This is bringing different reactions into the sessions. There is anxiety about what the future will be, the anticipation of feeling lonely amongst others, and of not wanting to return to a previous way of life. Now our work is about choice and permission for change.
As I look ahead to the next year, I wonder what the future will bring for the people working in the NHS. What will be brought into our sessions? I still expect trauma to appear. I think that it will come as the storm passes and people have a chance to breathe and reflect. I suspect that it will come as memories of the traumas they have witnessed and lived through start to resurface. I am expecting it and preparing for it; those trauma textbooks remain close to hand! I also feel hopeful that as a nation we have come to appreciate their work and how much we need them. The clap for the NHS was controversial as some people felt that it detracted attention from the lack of funding that they had, but a positive side was that it allowed us to show our appreciation. My hope is that this will continue and that the people working to help us heal when we are sick will not be forgotten and instead will continue to receive our thanks, appreciation and care.
CLAIRE BARRON
It has been a real honour to be working with NHS staff and carers. I have felt in awe of their dedication and selflessness during the pandemic and grateful for all the knowledge that I have gained.
Over the last 12 months we have truly learned about the healers and carers in our society and just how hard they have worked to try and keep our most vulnerable safe, well and comfortable. Not to mention the huge personal impact for them when their knowledge and skills have not been enough to save lives.
I was delighted to be asked to be part of the initiative to offer a free counselling service to those working in the NHS and caring professions. I was a little nervous about what to expect and how I would adapt to the structure of the service - six sessions of forty minutes each.
The clients I spoke to presented with a range of difficulties especially stress, anxiety low mood and depression. People were surprised and relieved at the speed of access to counselling. With our service it generally takes about two days from someone reaching out and making first contact to them being able to sit with a counsellor. Immediate responsiveness is one of the underlying principles of the service and something that far exceeded people’s expectations. It always takes them by surprise.
For me adjusting to slightly shorter sessions of forty minutes was initially a challenge. Holding the boundary of a sessions timing can be a challenge at any time, but I think over the years I have adapted to fifty minutes, and as well as the ever present clock, mentally and physically I know how long fifty minutes is, so I had to really focus on time keeping! I had quite an internal debate about these clients deserving more time not less, which was interesting and challenging for me. But what I did find was that you can really do very good work in forty minutes and in into six sessions. It has given me a much greater appreciation of short- term work and its benefits and effectiveness.
This important service enables me to see more clients than usual and, although hard to put into words, it has freed up my thinking. Focussing on what you can do in six shorter sessions is actually quite empowering. It has taken me back to basics but at a whole new level, deepening my understanding of the therapeutic relationship and my ability to work within it. It is crucial.
My feeling is that we are only at the start of the support that our NHS and caring community will need, and that right now they are very much ‘in it’ and getting things done, putting others first, as ever. If, or optimistically when, we move beyond our current crisis I feel that as counsellors and psychotherapists we will play an important role in supporting these incredible human beings who have put us first at huge personal cost.
I want to appreciate everyone at Northern Guild who has enabled me to take part in this project and especially my supervisor. I look forward to carrying on as one of the team of counsellors working to do what I can to help create a private space where people can reflect, unwind and recharge.
ROBIN COOK
I feel incredibly privileged to have worked on the Northern Guild NHS Counselling Service during the last twelve months. As the first national lockdown began to unfold, I had a real sense that the skills and learning I'd taken from my training could be of use in supporting people who were struggling during the pandemic. Yet, the isolation of lockdown lead to a feeling of helplessness, a sense that it was going to be hard to be useful in an environment where there were no people.
When the opportunity to work on the NHS service arose I felt really lucky. I could make a contribution by offering our NHS workers free access to counselling sessions at a time when their work was at it's most stressful and the nation at its most uncertain. I have been really impacted by the work. It has reaffirmed my belief that every individual should have access to counselling that they can afford, when they need it. I've come to understand that there are a lot of people who have always thought about trying counselling but have felt put off, be it by fees, confusion about what they are signing up for or fear of getting something wrong. Six free sessions has been inviting to a lot of people who may otherwise have not started counselling. I feel really thankful to have been part of this placement and to have met all the people I have worked with.