Questionable Qualifications
I stumbled across an interesting video on the BBC website this morning which asked the question ‘Can anyone call themselves a therapist or counsellor’. The common sense answer to this is ‘no’, obviously someone must be properly qualified, accredited and accountable to a bona fide governing body to be able to sit down with someone and talk to them about their deepest and most vulnerable thoughts and feelings. Well, common sense be damned because the reality is that, as things currently stand, anyone can do six or twelve week course with the ‘Online University of Cleverness and Counselling – … Read more
Gender and the Therapeutic Experience
This blog is on a subject I have deliberately avoided in the past. The main reason for that when this subject has been discussed by me, in groups or with another therapist, I often end … Read more
Off-Rolled by the NHS
An excellent piece in the Guardian again today on one of the most insidious practices common in most NHS regions. Patient’s mental health status being manipulated so that a manager sat in an office, likely … Read more
Jeremy Kyle
So. It has finally happened. Someone who has appeared on Jeremy Kyle’s show has died, apparently as a direct result of being on the show and what happened to them whilst there. The only surprise … Read more
‘Judge not, that you be not judged.’
I do not ascribe one particular form of morality or goodness to any one form of religion or belief, but there are certain phrases and stories that I was told as a child in assemblies … Read more
Cannabis – ‘THC or not THC!’
Cannabis. Friend or foe? This is another one of those questions that provokes very polarised views amongst health professional and general public alike. Some view cannabis as essentially harmless, a ‘social drug’ with few side … Read more
What a Difference a Day Makes
Once again the Guardian inspires me! This time it is an article around mental health provision for young people and their experience once they reach the age of eighteen. It is well worth a read … Read more
Anxiety, Social Anxiety or Introversion?
Another blog! The Guardian website has a lot to answer for!! I read with interest yesterday an article on introversion by a writer who only recognised that they were themselves introverted after many years of … Read more
Depression and Drugs
Well. I am more surprised than anyone to be writing on here again so soon. My inspiration for todays ‘blog’ is again something that occurred whilst I was lying in bed this morning, minus the … Read more
‘Interesting Times’
In 1966, the year the English football team lifted proudly the FIFA world cup aloft as they skipped around the Wembley pitch, the American Robert.F.Kennedy (not the ex-president, John, this was his brother who was … Read more