Love is love – familial, romantic, fleeting or friendship. And love can be a bugger.

Across ten years of listening to clients, I’ve heard many speak at length about their friendships. One of the first things I ask suicidal clients is “are there are any friends in your orbit?”. This is because friendships are pivotal to our sense of community and belonging in the world. Put another way, ‘friendship is vital to human wellbeing because this form of human love gets under our skin quite as much as any other’ (Vernon 2012). Continue reading “Love is love: on friendship”

Just a wee reminder to you and me that not saying or doing something, not making a choice, is indeed doing too. It is an action with attendant responsibility. Silence is a powerful stance; those on the receiving end could be significantly impacted. Continue reading “Silence is a responsibility”

I hope – and don’t think I am – evangelical about ‘the talking cure’. Keeping shtum I’ve found vitally protective at times. For example, when I’ve tried talking and that has been damaging, having not been ‘received’ in that communication. Continue reading “Could NOT talking be the key?”

The artistic giant Anni Albers (1899 – 1994) turned to textile art as her second choice of career; options were especially limited as a woman. I was gorgeously stirred by an exhibition of her work at the Tate Modern in London, not least because her approach has kinship to the therapy world. Continue reading “What Anni Albers taught this therapist”

You may not be prime minister, but having power at all is a tricky business. I know that therapy and supervsion certainly support me to act with integrity and rigour given that I have some power from my role alone. Although the following article relates to having vast power within politics, I suspect we could all learn from this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/12/prime-minister-therapy

If you need permission to do or to be just as you are – or less – today, here’s your ticket. I love this poem – ‘Today’ by Jean Little. 

TODAY I will not live up to my potential.
TODAY I will not relate well to my peer group.
TODAY I will not contribute in class.
I will not volunteer one thing.
TODAY I will not strive to do better.
TODAY I will not achieve or adjust or grow enriched
or get involved.
I will not put up my hand even if the teacher is wrong
and I can prove it.

TODAY I might eat the eraser off my pencil.
I’ll look at the clouds.
I’ll be late.
I don’t think I’ll wash.

I NEED A REST.

Yesss, I think we need a ‘return to curiosity’ as suggested in this excellent article. Not least because it may take the pressure off knowing everything in this age of information. https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2019/mar/21/we-need-a-return-to-curiosity

These are tricky times, I think we may all agree that. The deeply uncertain political backdrop to our lives is having an unsettling effect. Add to that the inescapable force and pace of social media, and what this psychotherapist sees is anxiety aplenty. Continue reading “A dollop of self-care, please and thank you”

This morning I flicked open ‘The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats’ – a gift from some lovely friends – and stumbled upon this beauty. It speaks to me and I hope it will you too.

Sweetheart, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.

All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other’s,
We were so much at one.

But O, in a minute she changed – 
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.