Blog

BLOG POST Winter 2017

DANGER – ‘THERAPISTS AT WORK!’

For lots of people, feelings and sentiments are messy, embarrassing, and best avoided. When emotions are running high then it’s usually easier to send for the ‘ologists’ than to deal with the sufferers at first hand. That’s why the general public relies on therapists to mop up all that emotional ‘goo’. As a result, modern day counsellors and psychotherapists are all too often used as society’s emotional refuse collectors. (more…)

BLOG POST Nov/Dec 2016

THE SEASON TO BE MERRY?

According to the TV, the newspapers, and the displays in the shops, it’s the party season. Halloween, Fireworks Night, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Xmas, New Year, it’s all ‘fun, fun, fun’. Everybody’s cheery, everybody’s having a great time. Friends are gathering. Families are merrily reuniting. Peace and joy abounds. Well, that’s the theory anyway. The reality, however, is often quite a different matter. (more…)

BLOG POST Autumn 2016

THE ‘NO MEDICATION’ MYTH

 

Back in the day, when I first started practicing psychotherapy, most psychological therapists considered psychoactive medication to be a ‘no-no’. That’s why, back then, most of us usually tried to persuade our clients not to take psychotropic drugs. However, that was never an easy thing to do. That’s because in those days it was popularly believed that there was a ‘pill for every ill’. (more…)

BLOG POST July/Aug 2016

MINDFULNESS – ANOTHER ‘FLAVOUR OF THE MONTH’?

 

Nowadays, you are a therapeutic nobody if you are not into ‘Mindfulness’. It is psychotherapy’s latest ‘miracle cure’. However, before you get too carried away, don’t forget that just like any other human enterprise, psychotherapy too is subject to the whims of fashion. Up until recently Cognitive Behavioural Therapy was the flavour of the month – now it’s so ‘last year’. These days, Mindfulness is the latest ‘must have’ therapy. Didn’t you know?  Are you ‘behind the curve’? Has Mindfulness passed you by? Don’t worry – in a year or two, therapy’s Fashionistas will all be into something else. You can catch up then. (more…)

BLOG POST May/June 2016

GETTING YOUR LIFE IN BALANCE

 

A very important psychologist called Albert Ellis, once noted how lots of people get themselves into quite a tizzy, indeed often into quite a panic, as they try to get all their jobs properly completed, all of their challenges resolved, all of their objectives reached. And that’s just in the immediate, in the here-and-now. In the long-term, such restless people find themselves so continuously driven by life’s demands that they can never be still, never at rest, never take a real break. (more…)

BLOG POST – March/April 2016

COUNSELLING – PROFESSIONALS vs CHARLATANS:

Can the public easily tell who are properly qualified counsellors and psychotherapists and who are charlatans? Sadly, the answer is a resounding ‘No’. Unfortunately, the Government has refused to do anything that might help weed out the fake practitioners. It seems that the government’s ‘anti-red tape’ policies are all about pruning the official rule books. They want fewer regulatory bodies; they certainly don’t want to create any new ones. That’s why there isn’t an official Therapists Registration Agency and why there isn’t any way of keeping out the quacks. There is no such thing as a properly vetted list of genuinely qualified counsellors and psychotherapists. Buyer beware! (more…)

BLOG POST – Winter 2016

COUNSELLORS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS – PROFESSIONALS OR MAGICIANS?

Whenever we contact a professional we usually have a fair idea about what we are likely to get. Doctors doctor, teachers teach, priests preach, and so on. They, and all the other professionals know what they are supposed to do and the public knows what to expect. This is because every profession, every trade, every calling, has its own accepted area of expertise. Lawyers know the law; surveyors know buildings; bankers know finance. They and all the other professional experts know what they are supposed to know. Equally importantly they know what they don’t know. Furthermore, the established professions all require new entrants to be properly trained and to have reached a basic minimum standard before they can start practicing. Can counsellors and psychotherapists say the same? Are they all properly trained, educated, and qualified? Do their customers know what to expect from them. (more…)

BLOG POST – Nov/Dec 2015

IT’S HARD TO ASK FOR HELP

Most of us get depressed from time to time or we might get a bit stressed or anxious. However, sometimes these sorts of feelings can all seem a bit too much. Put simply, we might be finding that our worries are getting on top of us. We have got a problem; possibly one of the common, low-level, mental health issues that life occasionally throws up. It can happen to any of us. However, all too often, people are reluctant to admit that have a mental health problem or ask for some professional help. Somehow, seeing a counsellor or a psychotherapist is something to be ashamed of. It is a ‘bit of a stigma’. (more…)

BLOG POST – Sept/Oct 2015

HOW CBT WORKS

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, (CBT), is based on a very simple concept. It is this – Cognitive-Behavioural therapists believe that how we think, (COGNITION) affects how we act, (BEHAVIOUR), and conversely, how we BEHAVE, (actions), affects how we THINK, (cognition). In other words, they claim that it is our individual ways of thinking and behaving that makes each of us who we are and what creates our individual ways of being. (more…)

BLOG POST – July/Aug 2015

CBT – IS IT FOR YOU?   

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, (commonly just called CBT), has been very much the ‘flavour of the month’ in the NHS for some time now. These days, NHS patients with mild to moderate psychological problems are usually referred to a CBT service. This is particularly so in cases of depression or of one of the anxiety conditions. There are two simple reasons why this is so. Firstly, CBT appears to be as effective, (or not), as most of the other types of psychotherapy. Secondly, (and this is the biggie), it is cheap! CBT is cheap to deliver and its practitioners are cheap to train. So, it looks like a win-win situation all round. Well it does until we look a bit closer. (more…)