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Corona Virus …… is in my garden!

Early in lockdown I turned  to my garden for the first time in a long time and my thoughts took an interesting turn which I wanted to share with you.

I spotted the jasmine shrub which had overgrown and was ‘invading’ my garden!  It had put deep star shaped roots all over the garden which were impossible to pull out. It was a ‘threat’, ‘invasive’, ‘runaway’, ‘contagious’.

I felt a mixture of feelings as I contemplated the consequences of my gardening neglect…..

….. overwhelm –it’s everywhere,

….. I’m not strong enough to beat it,

….. It’s spreading to my neighbours,

….. It will overpower and kill everything………maybe it will kill me…….

Kneeling on the infected earth,   demoralised, defeated and sweaty,  I  reflected awhile.

My garden had become a metaphor for the Coronavirus.

I wondered how I could make use of this metaphor to help me to come to terms with this unprecedented shocking world situation which was turning mine and others’ lives upside down and inside out.

I realised that although I couldn’t personally make any inroads into conquering the Corona virus, my humble garden would be a  much smaller and more manageable project.

Renewed hope reconnected me to resilience and perseverance. I hacked and chopped, I cut and cleared,  I dug and dug with a fervour ignited by my hatred of this virus, this ‘C ‘ word.

I cleared, I sorted, I ordered.  I took a longer view.  I wouldn’t manage to clear this weed today but if I kept at it I might succeed. Onward.

And magically as my garden was transforming, becoming clear and free from jasmine chaos, so my mind was becoming  clear and free.  Clear spaces of rich brown fertile earth reappeared in my mind.

And in this clear space Creativity bloomed.  I began to imagine possibilities for planting, for creating a lush healthy future for my garden.  My garden became a visible and experiential  dis-confirmation of the prevailing world crisis. Where the news was predicting death doom and disaster, my garden foretold of  renewal, regeneration and growth.

My garden remains undeterred by Covid-19 and lockdown.  Ever since March 23rd it  has behaved exactly the same as it always has. Spring arrived as usual, the leaves unfurling from trees and shrubs, new life shooting up from the ground apparently back from the dead.  This absolute predictability, regularity, repetition, this infinite miracle of nature has offered comfort and connection for me in this time of isolation and powerlessness.

As a Dramatherapist I seek  to work with Metaphor, Symbol, Image as a way of re-presenting reality.  I seek to connect, those things which are held inside of us with those things which are on the outside.

 

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and  groups. Magdalena is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Magdalena Whitehouse –

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Anxiety, Fear states, Trauma

Why do we get anxious and fearful?

The anxiety /fear response is the brain’s way of trying to keep us safe and healthy. Anxiety serves as a faithful reminder of things which the brain assesses need to be avoided, based on past experience. Most of this experience is past or learned experience. This is important in understanding the role of anxiety and fear states.

Firstly anxiety and fear are natural emotions which are built into our biochemistry in order to ensure survival. The fright flight fight response takes place in the lower ‘old brain’ and is vital to promote survival. This is the area of the brain which we probably all have had some experience of in recent days and weeks with the Corona virus pandemic. This response is what we are seeing with a frightened population stockpiling food and resources and even fighting over supplies.

Secondly alongside the biochemical response of the old brain, we each have individual mental and emotional responses which are very variable

Understanding that the brain is a pattern seeking machine is really helpful here in understanding these variable responses. The brain simply reproduces a response based on past similar experience.

In order to treat anxiety we need to look at these patterns.

Different schools of therapy  have different approaches.

Behavioural  therapy looks at how thinking influences feelings and how to interrupt that pattern.

Psychodynamic therapy seeks to understand and connect past experience (which may be outside of our awareness) with the current response. A therapist can help the client to decontaminate, to understand, and process those experiences which may be outside of our awareness.

Creative psychotherapies such as Dramatherapy, Art Therapy and Music Therapy specialise in helping the client to access, process and release, out of awareness experience in very safe non directive ways. These therapies are especially indicated where there is trauma, neglect and attachment issues which are causing or contributing to anxiety and fear states.

Mindfulness therapy is very beneficial for anxiety,  fear states and panic attacks. It works by showing the client how to learn to place awareness in the body, the feelings, sensations- to  notice the thinking and then to return to body awareness. It becomes possible to observe thoughts passing as if watching a video, and then to return to the calm still space within the body.

Over time in mindfulness therapy, a new awareness begins to develop which interrupts the fear response. The mind develops an ability to dis -identify with the thinking, the feelings and the sensations which create and support the anxiety fear response. The ability to return to the still quiet space within is a skill that can be developed with practice both within and outside of sessions.

 

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and  groups. Magdalena is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Magdalena Whitehouse –

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Why do I do that? A Dramatherapist looks beneath the surface

I am a dramatherapist and I am talking today about one of my favourite subjects. I am going to explain the benefits of working with creativity in the therapy room.

When we are being creative we are using a part of our brain which does not relate to logic or linear time. This part of the brain thinks in pictures, metaphor and symbols. It is representational rather than objective. It endows personal subjectivity to our experience. It is what makes us human and unique. It records and remembers everything that has ever happened to us, every thought, every sensation, every feeling, every hope, every dream. What a storehouse of information waiting to be revealed!

But here’s the thing. Whereas we can easily access the logical part of our brain, so we know to carry an umbrella when it’s raining. We have learned this, it’s logical. Our creative brain thinks in pictures, sensations and emotions. Experiences and memories are recorded and stored in a different way which means they’re not always readily available for us as information because they reside outside of our awareness.

So for example: you’re normally a reasonably polite friendly person, but behind the wheel of your car you rage at other drivers and you don’t know why you do this. This behaviour stems from something in your psyche that is ‘out of your awareness’. So you can’t stop yourself doing it by simply noticing it and trying to change your behaviour. The interesting thing about this type of ‘out of awareness’ behaviour is that we can’t seem to learn from it no matter how hard we try.
This is where the dramatherapist armed with a creative toolkit can help. We know from research that when the mind is engaged in a creative task, the logical mind takes a back seat. It goes off-line and allows us to tap in to the resources that are held ‘out of awareness ‘ and hidden beneath the surface of our everyday experience.

Here we can see why we behave the way we do and where/ how  it originated. We can explore the triggers. In doing this we can actually heal our past experience and recover form it. And that’s what we want from therapy, right?

One way I get my clients to tap in to their ‘out of awareness’ experience, is to use a method called hot-penning. First of all I prepare my client using relaxation techniques to enable a clear focus on the issue at hand. The client then takes pen and paper and writes whatever comes to mind. The rule book is thrown out and the pen is given free reign. The writing need not be logical or sequential, it may be a stream of words, you’re allowed to swear, it does not have to make sense. After a couple of minutes of loosening up the client will generally begin to write meaningful narrative which can be very revealing. Clients are so frequently surprised by their own articulacy and the wisdom that they express. Quite often there will be the ‘a-ha’ moment.

In my experience when the client has insights unprompted by the therapist they are more motivated towards lasting change.

Dramatherapy as a creative therapy can help the client to begin to live more fully ‘in awareness’ and be less affected by ‘out of awareness’ behaviours which formerly tripped them up.

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and  groups. Magdalena is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Magdalena Whitehouse –

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A Dramatherapist at work in the sand tray

 

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 therapy space when it is used as a way of illustrating the talking which takes place between the client and therapist. This illustration provides another way (a container) for the client to find meaning in their experiences and in their sense of self.

How is this?

Mostly when we seek therapy we expect to be talking. As a dramatherapist I am always alert to opportunities within the talking,  opportunities to explore those things for which there are no words-maybe those things that happened to us before we spoke,  or those painful experiences, things that we want to actively or unconsciously deny, or perhaps a dream, or an illness.  In other words, those things that are not part of our everyday cognitive knowing.

And this is where creativity comes in. When we are creative we are tapping into the right side of our brain which is very different from the left side.  Simply speaking the right brain does not have the same rules of logical thought and sequential time. It receives and processes information and experience very differently. For us to be able to connect and communicate with the rich wisdom of the right brain we need to use a medium that represents (re-presents) our experience to us in a different way.

Sand tray is such a medium that can re-present a situation or experience. The placing of objects in the sand tray is intuitive, there is no right or wrong, only personal and individual interpretation.

In my work with a particular client who suffered from chronic anxiety, we explored her early pre-verbal experience as a way of understanding the roots of the anxiety.  She made sand trays of her early years showing scenes of confinement, of heaviness, weight and pressure. Over the weeks she interpreted her created scenes to me, her witness. Through this witnessed process she was able to articulate her pain for the first time. As her feelings emerged and as she became more emotionally open her anxiety lessened.

In my experience this precious work continues outside of the therapy room, bringing a richness of new experience and self -understanding.  Through this work I see clients growing in self-confidence which I think is born from coming to know the self more fully and profoundly.

If you are interested to know more about dramatherapy and how it may be of help to you, do contact me.

 

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and groups.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

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Demystifying Psychotherapy. An interview with Magdalena Whitehouse – VLOG

Recently Mark Vahrmeyer interviewed psychotherapist and drama therapist Magdalena Whitehouse on the topic of Demystifying Psychotherapy to help viewers understand some of what it means to consider going into therapy, how to choose a psychotherapist and more.  So, please check out the interview and we would welcome any feedback or suggestions for future VLOGS.

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and groups. She works from our Hove and Lewes practices.

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Couples Therapy In Practice

Couples can often get into familiar and fixed patterns of relating which can be deeply unsatisfying to both parties. This style of relating is one which can eventually seriously threaten the health and longevity of a relationship. In this brief blog, I open a window onto a session which explores a particular dynamic which I frequently encounter in couples work.

Take the following anonymised example:

A domestic crisis had arisen. The wife responded in her typical style : hurried, worried and outwardly emotional.

The husband responded in his typical style: slow and detached.

The wife read his response as insensitive and abandoning.

The husband read her response as over-the-top and reactive.

The outcome was that he withdrew from the situation, while his wife became more distressed and demanding. This was an unsatisfactory outcome for both.

Swapping Roles

I asked if they would be willing to replay the event exactly as it happened. Then I suggested that they swap roles and again replay the event.

This is what we discovered together. The wife would typically become highly reactive as a way of getting her husband’s attention, of which she was uncertain. The outcome was exactly opposite to that which she wanted. Her husband would withdraw and she would again experience feeling abandoned by him.

The husband would typically become unreactive as a way of protecting himself from his wife’s emotional expression, which he feared.  The outcome was exactly opposite to that which he wanted. His wife became more emotional resulting in him feeling overwhelmed and needing to withdraw.

I chose this intervention as a way for each of them to experience the trigger point which propelled them into their typical ways of relating to each other when under stress.  In other words they both got to not only see, but to feel the ‘game’ which they typically re-played together.

Therapy and Real Life

Research shows us that what is experienced in the therapy space can become real in our outside lives, (Gersie, A., 1995). My experience of working in this active way with clients is that can bring powerful and surprising insights. These insights into our typical ways of behaving, facilitated by a skilled therapist, can lead couples to experimenting with healthier and therefore more mutually satisfying ways of being in relationship.

If you would like to explore how couples therapy can help your relationship, please contact us.

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and groups.

Further reading

Aims and Goals of Couples Therapy

What is intimacy?

Mutual disappointment – surviving a long-term relationship

The individual in the couple

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