I got a message last night from David Rawson. I worked under David for many years at Connect Therapeutic Community in Moseley. It was my first job in the mental health field and it without doubt changed the course of my life.
David informed me that Jenny Robinson, one of the people who founded Connect had died and that there will be a memorial for her in the near future. Even though I only worked with Jenny for around eighteen months before she retired, the news has had a profound impact on me.
Some of my earliest memories of Connect are of or involving Jenny. On my first official morning as a support worker was given a welcome pack and part of that pack was an article that Jenny had written ‘Groups and Group Dynamics in a Therapeutic Community’, I read it carefully, word for word and though I didn’t fully understand all of it, I was struck by the intellect and obvious passion of the person writing it. The Transactional Analysis theories that she wrote about in the paper leapt off the page and embedded themselves in my heart and mind where they have lived and grown every day since. I knew at that moment I wanted to be a therapist and that nothing else would give me the emotional and intellectual drive and stimulation I needed in my life.
When I found Jenny and Connect I was lost, I had been depressed for years and going through regular cycles of trying to drink myself to death followed by sterile sober periods where I would be more focused and functional, but just dry drunk, still depressed, still lost and just waiting for the next trigger to send me back to the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
When I saw the Transactional Analysis egogram for the first time it was like a dusty old light bulb suddenly illuminated in my psyche and something profoundly shifted in me forever. For the first time I had a sliver of insight and understanding into myself and more important than anything, I had hope for the first time since I was a child.
I always experienced Jenny and being so calm, compassionate, thoughtful and just so, so kind. I can remember sitting in my first ‘supervison’ with her. I had no clue what a supervision was or what I was supposed to do in it, so being insecure and scared of getting sacked I verbally vomited a load of strange word salad for a few moments and then panicked gently waiting for Jenny to respond. She did as she always did, with a slight pause for thought and then speaking gently to reassure me at first and then to inform me about what supervision was, what it wasn’t and how it might be useful for me in my role at Connect.
I always loved spending time with Jenny after that. I loved watching her with the residents, seeing her sat in the office or at the dining table as I went to the kitchen to help make lunch (I am a feeder, I spent a lot of time in that kitchen cooking as a way of finding my place in the community) always filling me with joy and a peace as well as I knew that if any of the residents were struggling or acting out, Jenny would know what to do. I only saw her really angry with anyone once and it was around the dining table. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I remember her face changing into a pattern I had not seen before and the tone of her voice also altered slightly, but she showed me that day that anger doesn’t have to be big and dramatic, things don’t have to be thrown, hurtful words don’t have to be used, threats are not always partnered with anger and most importantly anger does not always come with an emotional or physical threat. It was a revelation to me to see anger from a Parent being used in these ways, and I was even more amazed to see the positive effect it had on the resident.
That memory sticks out for me in particular, because seeing someone use anger positively to challenge someone’s negative behaviours and words was not something I had much experience of up to that point.
Through their work with Jenny the residents of Connect healed, understood themselves and grew, but the same can be said of the people that worked alongside her. Every member of staff learned, healed, grew and understood themselves better because she was in their lives.
When I think about my practice now, it is still heavily influenced by the values that Jenny instilled into Connect. I hold compassion for all my clients. I am always curious, keen to learn more, but respectful of boundaries and the clients process. I notice when a client is discounting themselves often before they have finished a sentence and when appropriate, I challenge that discount with gentleness, humour, kindness, anger, frustration or whichever emotion is congruent to the client and their individual wounds and needs. I treat everyone as an individual and I try and make my therapy space and warm and comforting as Jennys fluffy cardigans always looked to me.
Words cannot express how grateful I am to Jenny for being who she was and for building something a unique and wonderful as Connect Therapeutic Community. What I learned from her and Connect I have been able to pass onto all of the clients I have worked with in the last twenty-two years. Most importantly I have been able to be a decent husband, stepdad, brother, son, uncle and friend in a way I would not have been able to had I not found my way to Connect and to cross paths with Jenny and the other wonderful souls who worked and resided there.
As I wrote this this morning, I realised something. When I am sat with a client and they are disclosing or talking about something very difficult, I have a certain energy, my body changes, I feel differently and I have calm coupled with a profound empathy that will sit between me and my client. When I thought about Jenny this morning, I realised that is what Jenny did. My nurturing Parent has been internalised and modelled on Jenny. I have known for years that my energy when challenging a client who is discounting is largely modelled on David, but it is lovely to now realise that I also have Jenny there with me every day in my life and therapy room. So much of my practice as a therapist and how I am now able to be in myself and my life are because of Connect Therapeutic Community, Jenny, David and all the other wonderful residents and therapists I worked with there. They helped me find myself again after many years of being lost, lonely and angry and it gives me the most profound satisfaction to know I am now able to be myself with my family, friends, peers and clients. I have worked hard to achieve this over the last twenty-two years, but I am sure I would not have been able to do without them being part of my life.
Irvin Yalom in his book ‘Staring at the Sun’ writes about ‘rippling’, the idea that all of us creates circles of influence around us that move out into the world like ripples on a flat body of water, as Yalom puts it:
‘…each of us creates… concentric circles of influence that may affect others for years, even for generations.’
Jenny will have influenced many thousands of people’s lives through the work that she did with her clients and the residents of Connect. But she will also have influenced many thousands of other people through the many therapists she supervised and taught over the years. Every one of the ripples I have seen move out into the world through my clients and even my famnily and friends, will have Jenny in them. I learned so much from her directly, but also from the people she had taught and influenced before I even know what psychotherapy or transactional analysis even was. That is such an amazing legacy to leave the world, so much good will have been done because of Jenny and her amazing approach to life, the world and her work.
Another Yalom quote from ‘Staring at the Sun’ that I love is:
‘Rippling tempers the pain of transiency by reminding us that something of each of us persists, even though it may be unkown or imperceptable to us.’
I owe Connect, Jenny and also David so much and I am grateful for them every day. Jenny’s ripples with be slowly moving outward for generations to come I am sure.
I can remember hugging her at one event, I believe it was a celebration for a resident who had left Connect and gone on to train as a Transactional Analysist. In my memory now it was likely one of the last times I saw her. She was not a tall person, she was petite and looked frail to those who didn’t know her, but she hugged like a mama bear, firm, warm and safe. I am grateful to have known her and her hugs. She was an immense human being and though I hadn’t seen her in a long time, I will miss her so much more intensely now she has gone.
Thank you Jenny.
https://platform.itaaworld.com/news/remembering-jenny-robinson-a-gentle-soul-with-fierce-resolve
https://platform.itaaworld.com/news/jenny-robinson-leaves-legacy-of-safe-therapeutic-communities