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What is Belonging and Why does it Matter?

I was recently invited onto the Podcast ‘Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri’ to talk about the topic of ‘Belonging’.

The discussion centred around our mutual experience of growing up in cultures that were not of our families of origin. Annalisa is technically a ‘second culture kid’, and I am a ‘third culture kid’ – the latter meaning I spent my formative years in a country other that that of my parents or where I was born.

The focus of our conversation was on belonging and whilst a rich discussion, we were limited by time and the need to keep the discussion relevant to a broad audience.

In this blog I am going to (briefly) explain why I believe how ‘belonging’ is absolutely essential to not only our emotional and psychological health, but beyond that, critical to our very existence. And how it is under threat.

I have in previous blogs written about primary belonging which we refer to as attachment, and so I am now primarily approaching the topic from a more anthropological perspective.

My premise is that if we do not have a strong sense of belonging then there is an inverse correlation with the amount of (death) anxiety we are exposed to. At the extreme, this anxiety is unbearable and is the primary source of neurosis (and psychosis).

What is belonging?

Our first sense of belonging is derived from our family of origin. Belonging and attachment are inextricably linked for children and the main role of belonging in our family is, beyond immediate safety, as a means of deriving self-esteem.

As children we want to please our parents. We learn ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ and bit-by-bit form an understanding of the culture of the family – the rules and ways of being in that family. Through satisfying those rules, we derive self-esteem. So what is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is a combination of feelings whereby we feel valued and appreciated alongside feeling a sense of belonging. It is linked to meaning in that if we are embedded in a culture (a family) and are able to fulfil the expectations of that family – the cultural expectations – then we derive a sense of meaning from the process.

However, self esteem does not only come from ‘fitting in’. Healthy and psychologically robust children grow up in environments where the culture both supports them to derive self esteem from meeting expectations but also from forging their own path – expressing who they are.

As humans we are all somehow trying to find our personal balance between ‘standing out’ and ‘fitting in’, whether that be in the culture of our family of origin or later, in society.

What is Culture?

When I use the term Culture, I am referring to it on a macro level – in the context of society. If society is made up of the people with whom we share commonality, then culture is an expression of the values of that society.

Culture has two functions – it enables people to find mechanisms for generating self esteem (work, social groups, interests etc.) and secondly, and this part is entirely unconscious, it has an enormous symbolic function in assuaging death anxiety. Every culture on the planet provides its constituents with answers to cosmological questions, the four primary being:

Where do we come from (the story of our origin);
How to behave whilst we are alive (and derive self esteem);
What happens when we die (funeral rites etc.);
A myth of some sort of afterlife.

Culture is therefore in essence religious, and so are all human beings. However, as powerful as culture is, it remains symbolic and therefore cannot compete with the realities of death and so there remains residual death anxiety that we contend with. This in part gets expressed by an intolerance towards others who have a different culture as when we encounter difference it unconsciously increases our own anxiety as our cultural values are undermined and thus death anxiety encroaches upon us.

A currently example of the above is the war in Ukraine. The West thinks it can win on firepower – which it can technically – but what they fail to realise is that Putin is fighting a religious war – a war to restore the ‘myth’ – the culture – of Russia. Ergo, the war is unwinnable.

The role of myth

When we hear the word ‘myth’ many of us think of stories of old, perhaps extending back to the Ancient Greeks who had many a myth to tell. The truth, however, is that all cultures are comprised of myths. The answers to the aforementioned cosmological questions that each and every culture answers for its constituents are in essence myths. They are myths because they are stories rather than empirically provable.

Myths are stories that are held by the collective – by all, or at least most, constituents of a culture.

They may just be stories, but they are stories that hold great power in anchoring us to an identity and providing us with a sense of belonging.

Technology and the loss of myth

Joseph Campbell, the American writer and mythologist suggested that the world is changing too fast for us to cultivate and sustain myth. This matters significantly as, if myth forms the basis of culture, and culture functions as both a vehicle of deriving self esteem and in assuaging death anxiety, then the loss of myth renders us more anxious and less able to derive self esteem from our culture.

The deconstruction of Western Culture

We are living through a period of mass social change, much of which has been brought on my technology and some brought on by unexpected, but seismic events, such as The Pandemic.

In The West we are seeing long-standing cultural institutions and social structures being torn down at an alarming rate. The issue is not a moral one – some of these institutions and structures represent oppression and inequality and need to be challenged. However, we are at the stage of challenging virtually every construct that defines us right down to sex and gender. And yet have nothing collectively held to replace it with. There is nothing left to collectively believe in.

If all systemic meaning is removed and annihilated we will be left with nothing from which to derive our identity, sense of meaning and self-esteem. Perhaps this is already afoot as traditional ‘pillars’ of meaning collapse and people have little to replace them with, and certainly little of symbolic (religious) value, death anxiety comes rushing forward and manifests as both intolerance towards others (increasing culture wars), tribalism and ‘mental health problems’.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

Can chatbot companions relieve our loneliness?

What are feelings anyway?

Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?

The psychological impact of the recession

Why do people watch horror movies?

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Can Chatbot Companions Relieve our Loneliness?

In recent weeks I have seen various articles espousing the virtues of having an ‘AI companion’ or chatbot friend.  Apparently these are particularly popular with the younger demographic. One of these is ‘Replika’ – a prophetic name if there ever was one.

Chatbot ‘friends’ are touted as being helpful in alleviating loneliness through to functioning as some sort of antidote to mild mental health problems. Reading through the ‘testimonial’s’ on Replika’s website the interaction is linguistically framed as a relationship, with reference to the duration the AI avatar and human have ‘been together’ and, based on the published testimonials alone (which are undoubtably biased), some people seem to get something from this encounter.

As a psychotherapist it is not my role dismantle another person’s way of being in the world. This would be arrogant at best and dangerous at worst. However, psychotherapy, at least in the way I practice it, is all about relationship and one of the foundational belies is that what has gone wrong in relationship can only be healed through relationship. This is because human beings, like all mammals, are relational but we are the most relational of all if relational refers to our psychological, emotional and cognitive development being contingent on the consistency of a caregiver. Other mammals, once weaned, can fend for themselves. Humans remain dependent for longer than any other mammal.

We are shaped and defined by the relationship with our primary caregivers and, with the risk of providing an opening for the historical and clichéd attacks on psychoanalysis, we are most shaped by the relationship with our primary carer, who is our mother. 

These early relationships are what help us to understand our emotions and grow a mind. If satisfactory enough, we learn that whilst others can and will disappoint us, we need relationships with others throughout our lives. It is true that some people have more need for contact with others, but contact is needed nonetheless.

In my clinical practice I am always thinking about whom my patient is having a relationship with – even if they are single and isolated, in fact especially so in such cases. As children we internalise important relationships with others, starting with our mothers and then broadening out as we grow older. In the British school of psychoanalysis we refer to such internalised relationships as ‘object relations’. Therefore, when I am thinking about whom someone is having a relationship with, I am referring to their object relations – whom have they internalised and therefore whom are they projecting onto other relationships?

If we have ‘good enough’ parenting, we are likely to feel fairly secure in relationships and are able to operate in a world populated by others. These others have minds that are different to our own and by extension are having different experiences moment to moment. We have internalised a ‘good object’ (good parent) and can tolerate frustrations and difference in others without becoming unduly affected.

An indication of someone who has healthy relational dynamics is someone who is able to tolerate difference in others and hold onto the good of what the relationship offers. One of the (many) frustrations about being a grown up, or rather having a psychologically mature mind, is that we learn that relationships with others are inherently frustrating alongside being rewarding. 

Returning to Replika and systems like it, I can well see why, by applying enough denial to the encounter, it can, on the surface, seem satisfying as despite the illusion, we are not having to content with thew mind of another and thus the difference of another. The system ‘pretends’ to be different but in fact mirrors back to us what we want to see and hear. 

Narcissism by another name

In the myth of Narcissus and Echo, Narcissus is a young man who finds relationships with others confronting. Through happenstance, or what we might call fate, Narcissus finds himself isolated in the woods and discovers the most beautiful ‘Other’ he has ever seen in a still pool of water. This is of course his own reflection and yet Narcissus falls hopelessly in love and even when part of him knows that he is deluding himself, he cannot bear to tear himself away from this ‘perfect Other’. The story of Narcissus is ultimately a tragic one as he wastes his life away yearning for something he cannot have – the perfect relationship.

A character whom is rarely referenced in relation to Narcissus is Echo, the river nymph who loves Narcissus and has been condemned by a Goddess to only be able to repeat the last words anyone says. In other words, she is an echo. She too sacrifices her life waiting for Narcissus to notice her but, of course, as she is ‘different’ he cannot allow himself to notice her other than to drive her away.

I see the rise of these artificial ‘friends’ and the ‘relationships’ that ensue to be modern versions of the myth of Narcissus and Echo. ‘Replika’, or replica, when spelled correctly, quite literally means ‘clone’ or ‘copy’ but one can just as easily translate this to ‘reflection’. Chatbots reflect back to the user what they want to see and hear – from literally dictating how the AI avatar looks, through to receiving the expected responses. The user is turned into Narcissus and an echo is all they receive in return. Of course since Echo in this modern myth is but a machine, ‘she’ will never die.

We all secretly, or not so secretly, hold fantasies of the perfect Other. This fantasy forms the basis of all modern romcoms all the way back through our collective history. It is epitomised in the idea of a ‘soulmate’ and fuels our drive for the perfect partner – something that in itself is driven through technology in the shape of dating apps; we have the illusion of infinite choice but choose nobody as once we do, they become real and thus disappoint.

Growing up psychologically, maturing and individuating, means letting go of fantasies. It means recognising that relationships are essential to us and that in order to have something real and fulfilling, we must tolerate the frustration and sense of difference. 

Rather than difference needing to be threatening, as it increasingly seems to have become in modern society, difference between people is evidence of reality – the very fact that we are encountering a different mind.

Real relationships are about expressing our thoughts and feelings – our experience of the world – and knowing that someone is there to receive them and us, irrespective of whether they ‘mirror’ those exact thoughts and feelings. It is through and via this process that we get a sense of ourselves in the world and with others.

Narcissus was in a clinical sense deluded and descended into psychosis, withering away on the bank of that fateful pool. Chatbot friends encourage this same delusion. I am not suggesting it will lead to psychosis, but reality it is not. There is no relationship to be had and there is no thinking mind alongside you. You are just as alone as Narcissus and cannot grow from a reflection – for that a real relationship is required. 

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer –

What are feelings anyway?

Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?

The psychological impact of the recession

Why do people watch horror movies?

How to minimise Christmas stress if you are hosting

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You’re not watching me, Mummy!

Is it ever too late in life to change? Despite many decades of accomplished professional practice and conspicuous recognition for his achievements, the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was stunned to discover he still had personal work to do.

In his memoir, Becoming Myself , he recalls attending an academic event where he realises (1) he is to be the target of gentle but sustained mockery from his Stanford University colleagues. That night he has a powerful dream from which he wakes to conclude, ‘I am still looking for validation, but not from my wife, my children, my friends, colleagues, students or patients, but from my mother!’

Although Yalom’s real mother was long dead at the time of his unsettling dream, his self-discovery revealed that her frequent harshly critical judgements of him as a child had become part of his lifelong personality, rising suddenly within him at times of stress, such as when he became the particular focus of others’ attention. In his dream, isolated and scared, he plaintively cries out, ‘How did I do, Momma? How did I do?’.

We might pause to consider how it could possibly be that a richly experienced practitioner, one expert in helping others to understand themselves better, could be so suddenly blindsided by such a self-revelation. On the other hand, what Yalom is disclosing about his experience here might be seen as one of the most fundamental of human realities.

In psychotherapy we speak of the developmental process of ‘introjection’, whereby we unconsciously adopt the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of significant others, particularly the most powerful others in our early lives. In the modality of Transactional Analysis we call this part of us our Parent ‘ego state’. This proposes that during the
development of our ‘self’ we naturally take into our own way of being key aspects of the others we depend on, how they think, feel and behave: we thereby install their potency into our developing personality.

This is a natural survival strategy and serves us well when it provides us with valuable parental impulses that guide us to operate safely in the world and help us to nurture ourselves when under stress. The downside of this strategy is that, depending on the quality of the care we received and how we responded to it, the Parent ego state we carry
forward can contain persecutory impulses, parental fears and smothering tendencies combining in us to create significant inner conflict in our adult life.

Engaging in psychotherapy can be effective in helping us to explore those aspects of ourselves that seem to echo the powerful personalities of our past lives. Careful exploration with a curious and empathic therapist can help us to surface parental messages we may be carrying that contribute to previously unexamined self beliefs. In uncovering these ‘introjects’ we can more clearly see how what we chose to take on from others in the days when we first learnt to be ourselves might be limiting us now in living more freely and spontaneously in the world.

Yalom’s insight, late into his own life, was to see that the way he had incorporated his mother’s harshness into his own process was preventing him from being able to truly recognise and celebrate his own worth.

His particular way of dealing with this was to look for the compassion in himself for ‘that mother that I disliked so thoroughly.’ He writes of achieving a different perspective on her through his later realisation she had a deeply conflictual relationship with her own mother, always remaining desperate for a recognition from her that never came.

Coming to understand the possible motivations behind his mother’s persecutory behaviour, Yalom found a way in which he could simultaneously diminish the power of the fierce inner critic that he had made of her. Like many of his patients, he discovered it was never too late to become himself.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Chris Horton, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Chris Horton is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and a psychotherapeutic counsellor with experience in a diverse range of occupational settings. He works with individuals (young people/adults) in private practice.  He is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Chris Horton –

I’m the problem – It’s me!

Making sense of our multiple selves

Let’s not go round again – how we repeat ourselves!

How are you?

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

 

Resources –

(1) Yalom, I (2017). Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir. Piatkus 1

 

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Defining Happiness

Happiness is linked to a sense of joy, ease, and gratitude. It is also linked with a general positive evaluation of one’s life, past and present, which usually contributes to positive expectations or and looking forward to the future.

An ability to sustain a state of happiness depends on many factors, including how a person deals with stress and adversity. There is strong evidence that early attachments are a crucial determining factor in a child’s brain development, and consequently the formation of their world view and perspective in life. For example, a child who grows up with ongoing exposure to stress and trauma, and few or no positive early relationships is likely to feel preoccupied, anxious, and even depressed rather than happy and at ease. In turn, a child who grows up feeling emotionally and physically safe, though positive early relationships with others and therefore themselves, will very likely continue to cultivate these qualities throughout life.

Happiness can also be seen as a temporary emotional state, which comes and goes. Life satisfaction and mental wellness are qualities which can be cultivated and even created through conscious life choices in areas such as relationships, nutrition, exercise, work and spirituality.

What is the link between social connections and happiness? What aspects of having strong family ties and good friendships promote happiness?

Good relationships are a vital component in living a satisfying and fulfilling life. Human beings are relational beings. From day one we depend on our carers to survive and thrive in life. A sense of belonging, meaning, purpose and acceptance comes from relationships that are healthy, dependable, and enduring. Through others we feel seen, heard, and validated.

In turn, giving to others brings us a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, and makes us happy as well. We don’t choose the families we are born into; therefore, good family ties aren’t a given for everyone. Those who are fortunate enough to have strong family ties and good relationships with their families are lucky. However, building strong friendships and relationships are also a way of creating a ‘family of choice’ with those we value and with whom we have things in common. Without good relationships we invariably feel lonely and isolated, which leads to poor mental health.

What is the link between happiness and self-compassion and gratitude?

Self-compassion and gratitude are ways of cultivating a positive view of self, others and the world around us. The way we think has a direct impact on how we feel about ourselves and others. This differs from positive thinking or being out of touch with reality. Our negative bias can lead us to developing self-defeating thoughts and a bleak view of the world. This then becomes our reality as we constantly search for things to confirm this view. Things are mostly neither always good nor always bad. The ability to hold a balanced perspective on life and hold both positions at the same time is what defines a healthy mind. Therefore, cultivating a positive thinking loop, rather than a negative one will impact our ability to feel happy.

Is happiness a choice? 

Increasing our capacity to feel a full range of emotions such as sadness, anger, love, etc will also increase the likelihood of experiencing happiness. To feel happy, we need to get better at feeling in general. This means appropriate emotional responses to different situations. There are different ways of developing emotional literacy, psychotherapy being just one example. Therefore, we could say that there is a choice in improving one’s ability to feel happiness, as well as others feelings too.

 

On our website you can find more information about our counselling and psychotherapy services and how to contact our team.

Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Superviser and Executive Coach. She works with individuals and couples in Hove and Lewes.

 

Further reading –

What are the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy?

Why is mental health important?

What makes us choose our career paths?

Antidotes to coercive, controlling and narcissistic behaviour

An in-depth approach to leadership coaching

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Five Top Tips for Surviving Christmas Day

Christmas can be an emotionally challenging and difficult time for many of us. There is such expectation on how Christmas ‘should’ be. Yet like the weather fails to deliver on the ‘winter wonderland’ scenes on the TV adverts, for many of us, our family experience often falls far short of the loving idyllic family reunions depicted in those same snowy adverts.

What makes Christmas particularly difficult?

Aside from the expectations we put upon ourselves, it has all the classic ingredients of being either an explosive disappointment or a damp squib.

Family of choice versus family of origin

Christmas is often a time when we get together with family members we would only ever see on other festive days or, as the saying goes, weddings and funerals. Often, we have little close relationship with these family members. Yet somehow we expect to feel a close bond with them on this day in particular.

Many families are now what is referred to as blended families.  Nowadays, it is normal to grow up with step-parents, step-siblings and half-brothers and sisters. While this does not necessarily lead to conflict, it can make the delicate balance of Christmas Day complicated and fractious. Compromise is often the order of the day.

Christmas is often a difficult time thanks to the ghost of Christmas past. Many relationships break down over Christmas and can leave us with tainted childhood memories of parental feuds and the accompanying grief.  This then plays out in the present, potentially contributing to conflict with family members – the trauma repeats.

And then there is the one extra ingredient that can make things seem so much worse than they are; the explosive charge in many Christmases – alcohol. Consuming alcohol in and around Christmas is normalised and we can often feel under pressure to ‘join in’. Many of us also use alcohol as a way of coping with the day, the family members who descend upon us, the expectations, unhealed rifts and so on. However, when it comes to managing emotions and conflict, alcohol has never been a solution.

Five top tips to surviving Christmas Day

  • Support through relationship

If you are in a relationship, talk to your partner.  Explain to them that you may find the day hard and agree how you will ask for support when needed, or how you will support each other. Examples may be anything from starting the day together and connecting through to holding each other in mind. You can demonstrate this through small reassuring gestures such as visually checking in with one another.

  • Reality Testing

Christmas is only a day. The expectations we feel in relation to it are largely in our own head.  By pausing and accepting that there is no such thing as a ‘fairy-tale Christmas’ (except perhaps for some fortunate children) we can gain a little space to see it for what it is.

  • The past is not the present

Memories of past Christmases, while present, need not dominate our experience in the here and now. Accept that it is a difficult time for you, know that it is for many others, be compassionate with the feelings that the season evokes and remember it is only a day.  Sometimes we feel strong emotions on particular days that are simply reminders of the past – echoes – and we have the power to create something different.

  • Alcohol makes things worse

Nobody is telling you not to drink on Christmas Day. However, if it is a day that evokes sadness or anxiety, alcohol will not improve these feelings for long. Once it wears off, they will be back with a vengeance and accompanied by a hangover. The opposite of using alcohol to self-soothe is to soothe through relationship. Even if you are not in a relationship with another, you are in a relationship with yourself and can hold yourself in mind.

  • Hold Yourself in Mind

One of the traps people often fall into is that they imagine that they have no choices on the day; they simply have to do what is expected. Doing what is expected is a choice in itself!  Even if you do feel that there is little on offer for you during the day, a change of perspective and holding in mind why you are choosing to make these choices can be helpful. For example, rather than framing it as “I have to go see X person, or Y will be disappointed”, you can rethink it as “I choose to see X person as I want to give that as a gift to Y’.

Even if the day feels full and focused on others, it is always possible to take a few minutes out to calm yourself. You can breathe, come back to the here and now and remind yourself –  Christmas is only a day. See my blog on avoiding panic attacks for a simple but effective practice to calm yourself and return to the here and now.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex. He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

 

Further reading

Can couples counselling fix a relationship?

How to get a mental health diagnosis

What is psychotherapy?

How to improve mental health

How do I find the right psychotherapist?

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When do you need Couples Counselling?

It is not so long ago that couples would have needed to be on the point of permanent separation before they would consider any type of counselling for themselves. If they did decide to embark on such a course, it might well be done as a last-ditch attempt to save things, often within the context of one or other of the couple having already made up their mind as to the outcome they wanted.

A dearth of couples counsellors working in private practice was another issue, with couples often turning to church members and leaders to find help. Although, much excellent and wise counsel could be found through this route, it was not always perceived as a non-judgemental space, particularly when one of the pair was not committed to the church in the same way as the other.

This picture, a common one until relatively recently, might help to explain the reluctance of people to seek help with matters they feel (and those around them feel) they should be able manage themselves. It also reflects the general stigma associated with any thought of ‘not be able to cope.’

These social, systemic difficulties, which can prevent people seeking help, are often exacerbated by other less-conscious forces within the people themselves. People may be carrying feelings of shame, guilt or anger. Perhaps they have hurt each other; perhaps they feel their (or their partner’s) behaviour has let them or their family down. Whatever the difficulties, it would seem at times that they would lose the whole relationship rather than face the pain of working through whatever their issue might be.

Changing Attitudes

Over the last ten years, there has been a steady change in attitudes to mental health generally. This has been led by the young – often millennials – who have grown up in a society where it is becoming easier to discuss their inner world as a matter of course.

Schools are becoming much more mental-health savvy, with many staff trained in mental-health support.  Consequently, the stigma associated with seeking help is beginning to dissipate. It is no longer necessary to put a brave face on what is troubling us – either in our individual lives or in our relationships.

Learning from our children

I am not sure Wordsworth had matters of our mental wellbeing in mind when he wrote that ‘the child is father of the man’, but his sentiment, that we could learn much more from our young than we might first think, is a wise one. In the matters of relationship support, it is surprising how many middle-aged couples are seeking therapy prompted by their children.

Not only do those children suggest support, but they also model a non-judgemental approach to difficulties within the scope of wellbeing.

Changing patterns

What is noticeable in the therapy room is that there is a growing number of younger couples seeking counselling. Many of them are not seeking help with a relationship that is on the brink of catastrophe, but instead are looking for a space to better understand each other and, crucially, to learn how to communicate effectively. As one of my clients put it to me, they wanted to ‘future-proof’ their relationship, hoping to head off difficulties long before any crisis is reached, or defensive behaviours become so established that clear and effective communication becomes difficult.

Back to the question

When do you need couples counselling? It could be any time and it could be at different times for different purposes. If you feel there is a problem preventing you from communicating effectively, why not address it? If there is something driving angry or resentful feelings, why not talk it through with someone who will not judge but may well
help you to understand what is the root of the difficulty that feels so overwhelming. It may take a few sessions, or it may need longer. Of course, for some couples, the visit may be one of last resort – but it does not have to be.

 

Kevin Collins is a UKCP registered Psychotherapeutic Counsellor with an academic background in the field of literature and linguistics. He worked for many years in education – in schools and university. Kevin is available at our Lewes Practice.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Kevin, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Blogs by Kevin Collins –

Facing the Green-Eyed Monster

When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

 

Further reading by Kevin Collins –

Facing the Green-Eyed Monster

When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

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The First 5 Years

One of the most profound experiences we can have is to become a parent. If you had a good experience of growing up in a happy home where your needs were considered important, you felt secure, this is the best preparation for becoming a parent yourself.  

However, life is not quite as easy as that and many of us will encounter disruptions to our wellbeing because of parental illness, a lack of resources, social isolation, or neglect.  Trauma is used here to describe not necessarily an event but the often small every day psychological injuries inflicted on us whilst growing up in a dysfunctional family.  When we enter therapy, we are often unaware of the events and hidden daily routine attacks on our ego that happen in families.  How do we find a way of developing a mentally healthy approach to our role as parents, during the first 5 years of our children’s lives?

What is it about these first five years that are so important?

Both parents and caregivers need to recognize the importance of creating a safe and happy space for children to grow up in.  There is an equal need for parental closeness and nurturing of the infant regardless whether a male or a female partner.  Both parents in the household are equally important in the maturing process. Fathers can feel they have little to offer during the early weeks, months and years of a child’s life, however, it is clear fathers have an essential role during this period. 

  1. Neurobiological development – the development of the brain depends on a secure and safe space where the child can explore the environment for development and learning to take place. This lays down the neurological potential for later life and mental health.  If the family is dysfunctional whereby the parents are unable to regulate their emotional state or act out with physical or emotional abuse towards the child or partner, then the child will internalize these experiences, which come to the fore later in life.  Or if parents are not emotionally present and sibling rivalry is not contained, a child is bullied or goaded by other children. 
  2. Attachment and separation – from the moment of our birth we begin the process of separation from our mother learning and adjusting to the world around us.  We enter a world that will influence us on a personal, social and cultural level that will take us a lifetime to understand.  As a newborn we are completely dependent on those around us to keep us safe and secure. This is a demanding period for parents who have to sacrifice time and energy to looking after our needs.  It can be a difficult period of adjustment for parents as their role as parents will be unfamiliar.
  3. Language acquisition – language is not something we learn in a “book learning way” but we acquire it through interaction with our families and those around us.  Children in families where more than one language is spoken have increased number of neurons in the brain.  

 

How do you prepare for becoming parents?

If we are not to pass on to our children unwanted patterns or similar patterns of relating to our own children that we experienced; particularly if we have been exposed to trauma during our childhood, then we need to firstly look inwards at our experience of family life.

  1. Make a connection to your experience as a child.  What was the atmosphere like at home was it a calm happy place or full of energy and busy. What was your role in the family? What was the general atmosphere like at home? Did you feel recognized? Where do you come in the family are you the eldest child, the middle child or the youngest.
  2. Connect to your family history: Was it a safe and stable environment or were there lots of moves during your first 5 years. 
  3. What do you know of your parent’s childhood?
  4. Were there any problems of addictions in the family?
  5.  Were there any major events, loss of family members, new siblings in the family, catastrophic events, which put the family at risk?
  6. How did people respond to feelings? Was anger suppressed or expressed and understood? 

If at the end of reading this you realize there were family matters that need to be explored, thought about and processed, before the new baby arrives. Find a counsellor, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst who can help you and your partner understand how you might mitigate the impact of your dysfunctional family experience.  This might break a cycle of suffering, for you and allow you to improve your mental health whilst become a good parent to your children.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech –

How do I know if I am ready to become a parent?

Our emotions are shaped by our relationships?

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late to start therapy

The Unconscious Mind

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What to expect from couples counselling

Starting couple counselling can feel both daunting and anxiety provoking, especially if it something you have not previously undertaken.  Knowing up-front what to expect can reduce some of the anxiety and enable you to focus on what you actually want to get from your sessions.

Your counsellor or psychotherapist should be suitably qualified

You are taking an emotional risk inviting a third party into your relationship and thus it is imperative that they are well trained in working with couples as well as suitably supervised and have membership of either the BACP (in the case of counsellors) or the UKCP (in the case of psychotherapists).

You have the right to enquire about a clinician’s training and experience and you also have the right to make the decision that you do not wish to work with a particular person if you do not feel comfortable enough in their presence.

Your counsellor is not invested in the outcome of your work

Whilst it may sound counter-intuitive, couple counselling or psychotherapy is not about ensuring that a couple stay together. A good therapist will work with you to establish what it is that you as individuals wish to get from the process and then how best to support you and work with you as a couple.

A successful piece of work from the perspective of a couple counsellor or psychotherapist is where a couple are able to, with support, navigate difficult conversations together and reach an outcome where both parties can consider the other’s feelings and experience.

Where children are involved and a couple make the decision to end their relationship (whether driven by one or both member of the couple), the therapist will be considering the needs of the children throughout the process and working with the couple to ensure that the separation is as kind as possible to all concerned.

Impartiality

You can expect your couple counsellor or psychotherapist to be impartial – indeed, this is essential to the work. Your therapist is not there to take sides and their role is to ‘hold’ the couple as an entity, rather than focus on one individual’s needs at the expense of the others.

Session regularity

If you and your counsellor contract to work together then it is likely that this will be weekly initially, possibly moving to fortnightly over time. The process can take time.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

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How do I know if I am ready to become a parent?

No, I am not addressing this to women caught in the age old story of young women fearing the passing of time and the urgency of finding a partner to start a family, although this is an important fact of life.  I am thinking of what questions we might need to ask ourselves before we even begin our search for the right partner. 

Questions such as:

  • Am I sure that I am psychologically ready to take on the task?
  • Are there aspects of my psychological self that I am unsure of that need attention before I make such a life changing commitment? 
  • Have I discussed this fully with my partner or am I happy to be a single parent?
  • What was my own childhood like and how would I like to be a different parent to my own? 

Understanding what being a parent means

For us to make these choices we need to be conscious of the demands on us as new parents. The need to understand, to discover for ourselves, our childhood experiences and the patterns we have inherited along the way that will support us or hinder us in our role as parents.  Some will be good, others need working through before entering into this new phase of life. 

A lot of what we bring to our parental role will be hidden deep in our unconscious mind only emerging once we are faced with the situation of being a parent. What is unknown before having a baby is now ‘out of the blue’ post birth, confronting us with what can be difficult emotional feelings.  

For example, I may feel jealous of the baby taking my partner away from me by demanding a lot of him or her time.  These may not be the feelings we were prepared for, would it not be better to have spent sometime reflecting on this before entering into parenthood?

Parental choices

We live in an open and free society where we have choices in the matter of whether to be parents or not. And we have the choice of when to have children.  The LGBT community has influenced the narrative towards a child-centered and mindful approach to becoming a parent; the process by its very nature has to be a conscious act on the part of the couple.

Too often parents enter into parenthood without thinking about whether it is what they really want and in failing to consider how equipped they are to parent – especially where they have been failed by their own parents.

I am suggesting that approaching life with an open and inquisitive mind is preferable to allow events to overtake you and this is where psychotherapy and your psychotherapist as an ally can be extremely helpful.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech – 

Our emotions are shaped by our relationships?

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late to start therapy

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

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When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

What a job it is to raise a child! So full of difficulty, so many moving parts in the process, so much resourcefulness and energy required. Then, just when the parent takes breath to admire their creation, off goes the young adult – at times with barely a backward glance. The parents are left behind wondering where those years have gone and trying desperately to remember what life was like before children.

But what about the process of raising a child? The very fact that there are piles of self-help books on an entirely natural process – after all, our species have been doing it for millennia – is enough in itself to make us pause and reflect. How has parenting just got so complicated and how can thinking about builders and gardeners make us reflect on our parenting style?

One of the factors that makes parenting so difficult is the way parents see themselves in the role. As society puts increasing value on the care and wellbeing of children, so the pressure is on parents to do a better job in raising them – to be accountable. Of course, much of this will be driven by the interests of the child – but there is also self interest involved. After all, that child will be a part of the parent, representing what the parent represents. Homer Simpson captured this idea of children replicating the values system of their parents in his usual comic fashion when he said that what he really liked about having children is ‘you can make them grow up to hate all the things you hate!’ Homer saw his children as extensions of himself, carrying within him some model of what he thought his grown-up child should look like – and seeing his job as making sure the way they see the world corresponds with the way he sees it. We might class his parenting style as project based – like a builder, following a set of plans to some fixed outcome.

Others might be comfortable in their role as parent without such a plan, perhaps allowing the child more freedom to find their own way. Rather than building, they might see their job as nurturing and hence we might class their parenting style as gardening. Whilst most of us will fall somewhere on a continuum between the extremes of these two approaches, thinking about them offers us the chance to re-assess what is going on for us, and for our children, in the process.

Builders

Parents who think in ‘building’ terms, might also be seen as project-focussed parents. They will often carry in their heads some template or plan as to what their child is to become. Self-help guides might be more like manuals in their minds. They will busy themselves with gathering the resources to realise that project. Ballet lessons, music lessons, sports sessions – all might be part of that plan. Of course, education will be crucial: the right school, the right approach and right attitude to progress. The aim will be to achieve the right outcome.

It can be extremely frustrating for these project-focussed parents when things do not go according to the plan. It is not unusual for there to be an amount of conflict, either with the child or with the support around them. Talk to any school head and they will have countless stories of this sort of difficulty.

The intention is a good one: to give the child the very best chance to achieve a particular – often aspirational – goal. The difficulty is that the model of the child-as-adult that is carried in the head of the parent may not be the one that the child carries for themself. It is a situation that can lead to anxiety in both camps. For the parents, they have to come to terms with the reality that they may not be able to determine outcome, and they may have to deal with disappointment and a sense of loss, as their children follow a path that was never in their (the parents’) plan. For the child, whom at some stage at least will have wanted to please their parents, they, too, will have to deal with difficult emotions that may involve a sense of having failed in some way. Not surprisingly, low mood and anxiety can be the result.

Gardeners

It would be unfair to say that gardener-parents have no plans for their children, but it is not quite as prescribed as it is in the case of builder-parents. Rather than a fixed plan and a fixed route to a clear end goal, gardeners look to provide the right context or culture for the child to develop – just as a literal gardener would provide the right soil for their plants. The parent sees their role as nurturer – providing the care that is required for their offspring to grow. There may still be ballet lessons, music lessons and extra sports classes, but these are not so much to build towards a pre-conceived plan – more to encourage and find the ‘soil’ that is going to best suit the child, whom, the parents hope, will learn to put down their own roots and gradually begin to nourish themselves.

The neuroscience of nurture and independence

If we consider our species, we will understand the need for parents to want the best for their child – if they did not, there would be many more neglected children and infant mortality would put at risk the propagation of the species. Likewise, it makes considerable evolutionary sense for children to want to please their parents – the people who are going to nourish them through to the point where they can provide for themselves and, once again, continue to propagate the species. These two neurobiological drives can often work in harmony for the infant years of the child, but the onset of adolescence is likely to cause some disruption. The child now is looking to become independent, whereas the parents might still be wanting (or needing) to follow the plan.

Difficult Feelings

Wherever we sit on this spectrum of parental styles, we are unlikely to escape having to deal with difficult moments in the raising of our children. What can sometimes help us is to recognise and separate what belongs to us and what belongs to the child. When we feel disappointed because our child does not seem to be matching the plans for them that we have in our own mind as parents, then the difficult feelings that arise within us will constitute a real challenge. Our own fantasies – ideas we carry about what might and might not be – can sometimes leave us bereft and never more so than in dealings with our children. We need to keep those feelings with us and avoid any temptation to visit them on our children. It is hardly their fault that they do not always carry the same fantasies as we do. We want our children to be independent, but sometimes that can be a very difficult place to get to unless we let go, not just of the child, but of all the plans we carry for them. Then, despite the very difficult feelings of loss, our children’s leaving us with barely a backward glance might just be a mark of a job well done.

 

Kevin Collins is a UKCP registered Psychotherapeutic Counsellor with an academic background in the field of literature and linguistics. He worked for many years in education – in schools and university. Kevin is available at our Lewes Practice.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Kevin, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Further reading by Kevin Collins –

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

Why is it hard to make decisions?

Communication, communication, communication

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Parental Alienation and the impact on children

Separation or divorce are painful, difficult and time consuming processes and more so where children are involved. Few couples manage to amicably separate and sadly, this applies to couples who have a child or children together too.

Although it may seem obvious, my experience is that couples who are separating and have children often fail to recognise that they in fact will always have a relationship with each other as parents of the same children. Whether this is openly and maturely acknowledged as in the case of couples who co-parent, or not, as in the extreme case of parental alienation, there remains, nonetheless a relationship.

What is Parental Alienation?

Broadly, parental alienation occurs when a child becomes hostile, fearful and generally unwilling to engage with one parent as a result of the either the psychological manipulation of one parent or, more often, the toxic relationship between both parents. It is extremely damaging to children and can lead to mental health issues including self harm and suicidal ideation.

Parental alienation is on a scale from a parent making negative remarks about the other parent, or one parent ‘forgetting’ their responsibilities on relation to their child (an agreement to pick them up etc.) through to psychological manipulation and control.

The child as centre stage

Whilst the process of separating can be extremely painful and difficult, it is critical that parents find a way to establish a working relationship in co-parenting their child. This starts from the point of agreeing together the narrative they are going to tell their child about the separation through to long-term parenting commitments.

The role of psychotherapy

Experienced couple’s psychotherapists are able to work with a couple to move beyond their
grievances and establish a framework within which they will work together to fulfil the same job: raise their child and create emotional stability for them.

The impact of divorce on children

Society and parents tend to enormously underestimate the impact that separation and divorce can have on a child. For children, their entire stability is predicated on the stability of the parental unit and when this gets rocked or shaken to its foundations, the impact on a child can be enormous.

Studies have been undertaken measuring the impact of divorce on children and in many cases the psychological impact can be greater than losing a parent through death. The reason is because, generally, when a child is bereaved, the other parent (along with the broader family and society) enables the child to grieve a very tangible loss. With divorce, and especially where the split is contentious, children often feel they need to ‘pick a side’ and are unable to grieve the loss of the parental unit.

Top tips to focus on when separating and a child or children are involved –

  • Separate out grievances towards each other about the end of the relationship and your job as parents;
  • Agree a narrative that is age appropriate to tell your child about what is happening;
  • Reassure your child that you continue to both be there for them;
  • Avoid displays of conflict in front of your child;
  • Recognise that you NEED to put your child first and that all children want two parents and would prefer their parents to stay together;
  • Allow and facilitate the grieving process for your child.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Mark Vahrmeyer, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

Space: The Final Frontier of Manic Defence

Do Psychotherapists Need to Love Their Clients?

Unexpressed emotions will never die

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

Why ‘Cancel Culture’ is about the inability to tolerate difference

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Using empathy to re-build connection with children and young people

This last year of global pandemic has been a time of massive disruption to almost everyone. With it has come disconnection in various forms and the challenge of reconnecting at points when restrictions have lifted. Children and young people have faced their own particular challenges with school closures preventing contact with peers and friends, in addition to the stress of uncertainty about exams and other limitations related to online learning. At a time when many teens would normally be exploring social freedoms to the full, those who have kept to the rules have made do with scraps of interaction and often relied heavily on digital forums. Sadly, a considerable number have struggled to hold onto what fragile self-esteem and social confidence they formally knew. Even some of those used to thriving have found their resilience quashed and required additional support to pull through.

We are still in the early days of reconnecting with the world and all the structures of human engagement that we once took for granted and, with time, we will no doubt start to see the fuller picture of how people’s lives have been impacted by COVID and all that has come in its wake. For some, reconnecting is proving to be a battle. There are those for whom the protection of a smaller, quieter world felt safer and some are simply feeling rusty about conversing and interfacing with real live people.

Hardships faced by those whose lives COVID has touched in very tangible ways, have brought forth numerous stories of lived empathy in response to people encountering terrible pain and the loss of health and loved ones, empathy perhaps evoked by the realisation that these losses could become reality for any of us. Likewise, there has been widespread, heartfelt support for the thousands of frontline workers who have sacrificed their own safety for the wellbeing of others and for those who have lost jobs, income and businesses. Many have felt for children deprived of opportunities to learn and play as they usually would and this continues to be a time when the younger generation needs us to recognise and engage with what they are going through.

Children and young people with social and emotional difficulties always require our empathy as part of recovery and perhaps even more so in these times. Empathy is what helps them feel understood, paving the way for self-acceptance, which in turn makes it more possible to seek support from others. Daniel A. Hughes (pioneer of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) places Empathy at the core of the PACE approach, along with Acceptance and Curiosity (see my other blogs on these two subjects). In his book, co-written with John Baylin (The Neurobiology of Attachment-Focused Therapy: Enhancing Connection and Trust) he talks about embracing “the child’s defensiveness, putting connection before correction” and offering “radical acceptance” of the child’s mistrust.

In this context, Hughes and Baylin were referring to the particular struggles faced by traumatised children with attachment difficulties but we could apply the same principle to supporting children and young people who are emotionally and socially adjusting to each “new normal” they are faced with, whether or not they have experienced additional childhood trauma pre-COVID.

Hughes and Baylin recognise that this is no easy task, likening it to “hugging a porcupine”. Social and emotional defences, by their nature, are often difficult to permeate and can repel. A child or young person who repeatedly gives off a vibe of wanting to be left alone can leave the person reaching out feeling confused, rejected, useless and resentful and can lead, understandably, to withdrawal. This makes it even harder for the child or young person to reconnect, risking further disconnection, isolation and all the ill-effects that these states can bring.

If we can catch ourselves withdrawing and find empathy within ourselves for how the child or young person may be feeling in that very moment when they are unable to allow us in, we provide a bridge back into connection. This is so powerful as it communicates that we have not given up and that we see the child or young person as worth sticking with – we still see that part of them which has the potential to be in relationship with others and the world.
Brene Brown, in a Youtube clip based on part of her Tedtalk on Empathy, beautifully describes how “empathy fuels connection”. She refers to Teresa Wiseman’s 4 qualities of empathy: recognising another person’s perspective is their truth, staying out of judgement, recognising emotion in others and then communicating this. This is about “feeling with people” she says. Being with others is so much more effective than trying to fix the situation by saying the right thing: “Rarely can a response make something better, what makes something better is connection.”

In taking an empathic stance, we make an active choice to suspend our own anxiety and impatience about the pace at which a child or young person is re-engaging with life post-lockdown. We accept where things are at and we take time to understand as best we can. We then make what Brene Brown calls a “vulnerable choice”, that is choosing to connect with something in ourselves which knows the feeling we have encountered in another. This vulnerable choice is a risk well worth taking if we are serious about wanting to mitigate against the secondary effects of COVID on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people today.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

References – 

See more from Brene Brown at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz1g1SpD9Zo

Read more from Baylin and Hughes.

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Are our emotions shaped by our relationships?

This particularly influences us during infancy, childhood and adolescence.  These early experiences can be activated if they have led to the development of unhelpful defenses.  The lack of attunement in parental relationships can result in an infant developing an unhealthy attachment style, divorced from reality in the form of fantasy or withdrawal and detachment.  This initially protects the infant from the pain, emotion and feelings.  Later due to the blocking of the ability to connect emotionally the protector becomes the persecutor.

A chaotic attachment experience can impact on vital neurological developmental pathways leading to permanent damage to later functional performance. Hence the recent research on childhood services from pregnancy to five years of age. 

If a “good enough” environment is NOT available for one reason or another during a person’s childhood there will be aspects of this early experience that appear to act at an unconscious level, a shadow of the early object relationship. This can be brought into consciousness and worked with in the therapeutic process.   Forming a trusting relationship with a therapist or a stable relationship within a group to hold and contain feelings and emotions to be internalized, made sense of in order to be restored. However, we must not conflate this process by apportioning blame on the parent but as a means of unfolding the neurological pathways that block the capacity for integration.  This is re-experienced in the therapeutic alliance as an imago of the infant / child with an immature mind as the “unthought known”     

Our brain and therefore our mind can remain adaptable throughout our lives and given the right support can  make a conscious decision with a mature mind not that of the infant /child.  A similar process occurs in trauma.  It can respond making the shifts necessary to live a valued and happy life.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late!

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

Group Psychotherapy in a post ‘Pandemic World’

 

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Is it ever too late to start psychotherapy?

Is it too late to consider going into therapy once we reach a certain age? As I walked through the gardens on an early spring morning, this was the question going through my mind. I intended to get down to writing this blog, an unfamiliar task, when I got back to my office.

We seem to have heard all year about mental and physical decline as we age so it was refreshing to read Levitin (see below) that the brain retains plasticity or the capacity to learn and change through out life. And if we are not taken down by dementia, brain injury or stroke, we can in fact retain a lively and flexible mind throughout life. We have to do the obvious things like follow a balanced diet, exercise, not give up purposeful activity (work) and maintain a good and diverse social network.

Throughout life, our close friends and family are important to our wellbeing. These relationships take enormous strain in a world where change is the only hope for survival. And they need looking after even if this means we might end a relationship, if we have children developing and sustaining a healthy connection can help our children to adjust to the world with a healthy out look.

Transitional periods, retirement, divorce, bereavement, empty-nest syndrome, can benefit from psychotherapy for one or both partners providing the space for increased awareness of ourselves, an opportunity for gaining insight and change.

Considering the later years are often filled with opportunities for reflection on a life lived there is always plenty material to explore in the therapy room. David Levitin, an American Neuroscientist, sees this period of life as an opportunity to see life afresh. His premise is the brain retains its capacity to change through out life, at its greatest in childhood and old age.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

Group Psychotherapy in a post ‘Pandemic World’

Termination and endings in Psychotherapy

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Executive Function (part 2): Ideas for Supporting Thinking Skills Development in Children

Referring back to my previous blog – Children and young people with Executive Functioning Difficulties need us to:

Accept that they have gaps and delays in these skills.

Learn, by spending time with them and observing, which Executive Function Skills need scaffolding and practice.

Support by being the air-traffic controller when a child can’t do this alone, building in steps like:

  • modify the environment – reduce noise/ remove other distractions, create comfort, provide easy access to resources, use visual aids/ prompts, movement/ sensory breaks.
  • simplify tasks – reduce language and instructions, keep tasks short and achievable.
  • support completion of tasks – help child get started and ensure he/ she understands and can access materials required – check in regularly; if needed, be alongside throughout a short task before child tries a similar one with less support.
  • Use memory cards – if child needs to wait for your support, write it down on a card for each of you – and if possible the approximate time you will return to the task with them.
  • build EF skills development through practice – carefully chosen activities/ games/ projects.

The best way to develop executive function skills is to do meaningful activities which require Executive Function (thinking) skills to be used. To be able to engage in these kinds of activities and draw on thinking skills, children need first to feel safe, regulated and connected – for this they need a regulated, consistent adult to support them. Children also need activities which interest them and which are achievable, matched to their emotional age and ability level or the level they could manage with support. The following ideas for activities and games are just a few of many which might help.

HOME-BASED ACTIVITIES
Many of these activities involve the use of working memory in order to plan, prioritize, and get organised. They may also require self-control to stay focused and flexibility to solve problems:

  • Build a bird box or bug hotel/ grow things/ make a wormery/ catch falling leaves/ watch birds
  • Bake/ plan and cook a meal/ make a rug/ make a puppet/ do a mosaic/ make fimo beads
  • upcycle furniture/ decorate a room/ mend a bike puncture/ junk modelling
  • start a collection/ invent games/ create hunts and trails for each other
  • do a jigsaw/ make lego models – either from the box or made up
  • make music or playlists/ make up dance routines/ do puppet shows/ role-play/ tell stories

MEMORY GAMES

  • Matching pairs (working memory, flexibility, self-control). Adapt this to suit attention span and memory skills by reducing the number of cards. Can be cooperative if you work as a team to see how many turns it takes you to find all the pairs.
  • I went to the shops (working memory). Take turns in a pair or group to add to a shopping list, repeating the full list each time – invent various (I went for a walk and I saw a …… ; I went exploring and I found a ……) – be as flexible as you need to be to keep child engaged – eg. give clues if they struggle to remember a word.

WORD GAMES

  • Word tennis (working memory, task initiation, attention, flexibility). Play cooperatively in pairs or a group. Take turns to pick a topic and see how many things you can name from that topic – pass a ball/ soft toy as you do it. Continue for as long as you can without repeating a word. If you wish, time how long you can all keep going for or count the number of words.
  • Cooperative Bananagrams (planning, prioritising, flexibility). For children not ready for the competitive version of this game, work altogether as a team to use all the letters to make lots of mini crosswords or one giant one. Adapt this for your child’s attention span by choosing how many letters you play with.

PICTURE / MOVEMENT GAMES

  • Jenga (self-control, flexibility, planning) – Adapt this game in any way that suits your child, eg. leave out the requirement to pile bricks on top, use a smaller stack, create a rule that when a brick is taken there are other actions to follow, which might be drawn from a pile of cards. Or, just use the bricks to create mini collaborative challenges. Eg. Let’s see how high we can make a staircase, What’s the tallest tower we can make? Can we make a domino rally in the shape of an S? Are there enough bricks to make an outline of both my arms?
  • Home-made Pictionary/ charades (flexibility, self-control) – Create your own bank of words/ pictures/ phrases to be drawn or acted out for others to guess – or use cards from published games. Avoid time limits if this creates stress. Play in pairs if this helps a child to participate – whisper together about how you’re going to draw or act out the word.
  • Freeze (focus, self control). Play music while everyone dances or moves in any way they want. Freeze when the music stops. Or everyone moves about and one person just shouts “Freeze!” Try holding your poses for a count of 5/10/ longer.
  • Dobble (focus, initiation, self-control) – a matching game done at speed – the twist is that matching pairs of images may be different in size and surprisingly hard to spot! There are different ways to play the game and various themed versions available.

STRATEGY GAMES

  • Forbidden Desert (planning, prioritising). This is designed as a cooperative game where participants work together to escape from a desert by finding pieces of a sun-powered flying-machine, whilst avoiding sandstorms and keeping water supplies topped up.
  • Quirkle (Planning, organisation, flexible thinking). A simple but original game based on matching colours and shapes on wooden painted blocks. Players need to think about where best to place their pieces for the maximum score. Work in teams if this suits your child best. And you could try using the blocks to make patterns – see what your child comes up with.
  • Rush Hour (Focus, flexible thinking, working memory, perseverance). This is the original version of a game which has been replicated on many apps. The real thing is a fun way of moving vehicles to enable an ice-cream van to leave a car park. There are 4 levels so it’s easily adapted.
  • Genius Square (Focus, flexible thinking, perseverance). This game can be played solo or against a partner/ other team. The task is to fit the blocks into the grid around where the dots are placed. There are always lots of possible solutions.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

Further resources and ideas are available at:

HARVARD Centre for the Developing Child website for activity ideas by age group –https://developingchild.harvard.edu/guide/a-guide-to-executive-function/

UNDERSTOOD website for ideas on supporting different areas of executive function.
https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/executive-functioning-issues-strategies-you-can-try-at-home?_ul=1*2sfyod*domain_userid*YW1wLVppUDNOQ3JWZXUwSTIzekQyall5N3c.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

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Hove Clinic
49 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2BE

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