This is a podcast interview with Allan Frater, UKCP accredited psychotherapist and teacher at the Psychosynthesis Trust in London, in which we discuss waking dreams, imagination (tame and wild), and an image centric way of working in psychotherapy. Allan’s new book Waking Dreams – Imagination in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life is published by Transpersonal Press and can be […]
Misophonia (also known as Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome, or 4S) is a condition when intense anger and disgust is experienced when confronted with sounds and noise coming from other people. Sufferers of this condition are not choosing to feel that way. Misophonia is a conditioned reflex disorder, and whilst not formally recognised yet as a medical
Having low self-esteem can be a common presenting issue that motivates people to seek therapy. Self-esteem is how we value and perceive ourselves. However, in popular self-help literature self-esteem is often viewed as synonymous with self-confidence. I like to think of the distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence as this: you may have the confidence to
Meditation can often be unfairly associated with new age spiritualists, or oddballs, or indeed the pious, but actually meditation should be a practice for everyone. Meditation can also be seen as being the remit of those who are more somatic in nature and who operate in a felt sense manner in how they relate to others. But
It is common to have anxieties about returning to an office location following a period of extended homeworking, whether that is a hybrid approach or a full time return to a physical location. Lockdown will have affected us all in very different ways. It is very common to have worries about ongoing safety and protection
Sometimes there are buzzwords in the self-help field, some that come and go and some that stick around. When the late John Bradshaw was around, everybody seemingly needed to refer to their ‘family of origin’ issues and specifically to address their ‘inner child’ in order to self actualise. Therapy became ‘inner child’ centred in many
Do you struggle with sibling rivalry and wonder whether your early life holds pointers to understanding your current relationship dynamics? Children often feel that they are in receipt of unequal amounts of parental attention, discipline, and responsiveness. Some studies have shown that sibling abuse is more common that parental-child abuse. Adult siblings more commonly re-enact
In this podcast interview I chat with Andrew Thomas about his work in developing the Rainbow Map. You will resonate with this material if you are interested in Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory, Dan Seigel’s Window of Tolerance, the late Francine Shapiro’s work on developing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), Pat Ogden’s work on Sensorimotor
I have always been intrigued with the meaning of the word ‘treatment’ in the context of counselling and psychotherapy. People seeking help will often ask what the sessions will comprise of and how long the work will last. Indeed they might also ask, even in the first session, whether or not the work has actually
Do you find yourself over-focused on caring for another, such as fixing, controlling, pleasing, and/or conflict-avoiding in your relationships? Are you struggling to leave an abusive relationship? Are you too afraid to make necessary changes in your relationship in spite of being unhappy? If the answer is yes to these aforementioned questions then you may
