“Watch your plants and see what they’re telling you” (Ollie Walker, Hosta grower, Gardeners’ World, BBC2, 14.6.19). Ollie Walker has fallen in love with the diversity of Hostas and delights in watching them grow. This is some dedicated watching: the nursery he works at stock over 800 varieties. Noticing small changes in thousands of plants,…
As much as we might fight it, our own experiences of being parented, create within us blueprints or ‘internal working models’ of what it is to be a parent. These models only become fully activated when we become parents ourselves, and often take us by surprise. For instance, we may find ourselves ‘turning into’ our…
This blog follows on from my previous blog – Existential Therapy. This is how I have interpreted some vital notions connected to existential therapies. Existential therapy is a diverse approach which is used to understand and clarify a client’s problems and possibilities for living their existence. Below are some more of the vital principles (as…
What is the difference between a counsellor and a psychotherapist? The terms counselling and psychotherapy are often used interchangeably and many mental health practitioners use both terms to describe themselves. In this article I explore whether there is a difference between counselling and psychotherapy, what that difference may be and why may matter. In very…
Many people will use the terms ‘fate’ and ‘ interchangeably and it can often not only be difficult to differentiate between the two, but also to understand what is actually meant by them. Both terms essentially refer to predetermined events that lie outside of our control and thus imply some sort of ‘higher power’ rendering…
New, ongoing adult psychotherapy group starting in Autumn 2019 A new, ongoing adult psychotherapy group is due to start in the Autumn – a mixed gender group held at the Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Practice in Hove on Saturday mornings. This group will be guided by group-analytic principles and hold similar aims to psychoanalytic psychotherapy….
Dramatherapy is one of a group of therapies which are called Creative Arts Therapies, along with Music therapy and Art therapy. Today I am going to explore one aspect of Dramatherapy. We usually come to therapy to talk. Dramatherapy has the capacity to go beyond the talking because it is creative. Dramatherapy becomes useful in…
The world today seems smaller than ever before. We think nothing of travelling to once exotic destinations for our annual holiday and more and more of us are choosing to live in countries other than that of our birth. Alongside these effects of globalisation is that of children who are now growing up in cultures…
The phenomenon of parental ‘blocked care’ is a term coined by Clinical Psychologists Dan Hughes and Jonathon Baylin and Psychiatrist Dan Siegal. It represents a central feature of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) approach to treating children and young people with a history of developmental trauma and attachment disruption. Neuroscience research into the areas of…
“Each individual – itself an artificial though plausible abstraction – is basically and centrally determined, inevitably, by the world in which he lives, by the community, the group, of which he forms a part.” Foulkes, S.H. (1948, p 10, Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy, Karnac) The above quote is from Sigmund Foulkes who was the…
Insomnia is defined as being a habitual, or regular, inability to sleep. Whilst it can be linked to medical conditions, the most common causes of insomnia are lifestyle related as well as anxiety, depression and stress related. With regards to anxiety, depression and stress, insomnia is not only caused by these conditions, but it further…
Therapy is often called a ‘talking therapy’ but what is talking exactly? Generally speaking, what someone says is what therapists consider and explore in session. Body psychotherapies are often the exception because language and thought are understood as different aspects of being in and as the body. The rise of mindfulness-based therapies that explore therapeutic…