The Reward is the Journey

Anxiety is on the up.  It makes appearances ever more regularly amongst my clients/patients.*  It comes in different guises:  sometimes attaching itself to certain triggers, at other times preferring to float more freely. Anxiety is troublesome.  It demands attention yet does not like to be examined.  Anxiety does not always make sense.  There is often little value in seeking to ascertain its aetiology as, regularly, there will not be an obvious cause-and-effect in action. First things first.  Anxiety needs to be put in its place.  Therapy can be extremely helpful in right-sizing panic when anxiety has become unmanageable.   As a therapist supporting those for whom anxiety has got out of control, it is useful for me to understand what seems to be triggering anxious symptoms and how the individual experiences these.  No two anxiety presentations are identical, but there are patterns and traits I have become all...

The real privilege of any working week is to find 'flow'.  Flow does not, I think, lend itself to easy description; rather, it has a quality that you can feel, and I am delighted to say that I experience this most pleasant feeling at fairly regular intervals.  A facet of the flow I seek to describe is that sense that you are just exactly where you are meant to be...   On retraining to become a therapist, I'm not sure I was able to imagine what it might feel like to practise as one.  I had, of course, spent a fair bit of time 'in the other chair' (the chair closest to the tissues) but this was to be just the beginning of this wondrous journey.    Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,  but anyone can start today and make a new ending   ~ Maria Robinson In so much of my work I feel connected to my purpose.  I have the luxury of doing work I love.  My work and the way I work are much more than my job.  S...

I find Attachment Theory a helpful lens through which to look.  This is, after all, where we begin and the point from which our stories are developed.   Attachment comes first.  As human beings, it is our primary instinct:  we prioritise it over everything else.  And this is where Bowlby disagreed with Freud... I am, today, less concerned with the intellectual rift between these two mighty influential thinkers and far more interested in thinking with my clients about their attachment styles and how these play out in each and every one of their relationships.    Evolution has not reduced the power of the attachment instinct.  It is hard wired.   An infant has an innate capacity to engage his or her caregivers through a range of behaviours designed to attract and elicit their vital attention.  This is how we boost our chances of survival.   Attachment Theory provides a very comprehensive framework thro...