Philosophical Enquiry

What constitutes good therapy for me may well be very different for you. What I can share with you, is my own perspectives as a client, clinician and human on the approaches I believe form the fertile ground for good therapeutic work. My perspective is based on my unique field of experiences and the belief that all of our challenges are relational in nature. ... Read more..

WHAT IS GOOD THERAPY? The most direct questions are often the most challenging! And so it is with this one. I recall the comment (confronting on a first hearing) that you don't go to therapy to feel good. Rather you go to feel at all. Working as I now do in the area of trauma, that adage has new layers of meaning. Accumulated unresolved stress (especially i ... Read more..

Like beauty, good therapy is in the eye of the beholder. What is good depends on what you want, and how you assess it. Despite the fervour for measurement in mental health, it is not a science, or if it is, it is a subjective one that can be asserted but not unequivocally proved. As a psychoanalyst, the notion of good therapy comes with caveats - one being ... Read more..

Part of my work as a psychotherapist is to help clients to locate and strengthen their "inner healer" - the part of themselves that can care for and heal their suffering. We work together to become more aware of present reality and how it is impacted by past psychic wounding. In Jungian terms, awareness of reality involves discovering some ignored parts of o ... Read more..

The concepts of projective identification and countertransference represent a major transition in world views, from the modern towards the post-modern position. The 'modern' world view, to which Klein belongs, holds that therapists are specialists who represent the truth, who have objective knowledge, and a modern mindset to support them. Such therapists be ... Read more..

The intention of all modes of therapy is to develop in consciousness. Traditionally, psychotherapy has focused on the mind, to the exclusion of other aspects of our existence. This emphasis has lead to a generation of partial theories, each one with something to contribute, but none that encompasses the wholeness of our humanity. Integral psychotherapy atte ... Read more..

What is good therapy? Such a beguilingly simple question, yet I find that I can't answer this question without adding two words… "for me". I strongly believe that the personal is the professional, that the personal and the professional are the yin and yang of good practice, and so I want to invite you to accompany me on the journey I have made thus ... Read more..

Good, better, best down to lousy, dangerous and evil. 'Good' and 'is' appears loaded with values and pre-conceptions. Like peanuts, good for one life threatening for another. 'Is' a witch and burnt in one era 'Is' a herbalist and praised in another. Good can conjure up bad with just the flip of a coin: good therapist bad therapist, good therapy bad therapy. ... Read more..

Good therapy is the thing that is already trying to happen. Good therapy is not one technique or approach - it is whatever is called for in the moment for that particular person on that very day! Good therapy does not always make the person feel better. It does not always bring about change or improvement; sometimes only new understanding or a fresh perspe ... Read more..

He was obviously a businessman. Well groomed, in his expensive looking suit, he had an air about him that signified he was used to having his way and to being in charge. I asked him what I could do for him, why he had booked a consultation with me. He said a friend of his had done the Hoffman Quadrinity Process (1) and he wanted to find out what it was all ... Read more..

How do we sit with unresolved conflict when the other party is unwilling to work, or take responsibility? At these times it is useful to shift away from a relationship focus to an inner focus. Working on a stuck conflict on a sentient [1] or inner level is a way to move beyond polarities or (you and me) to a more unifying process in order to create change. ... Read more..

In asking the question "what is good therapy?" we must consider the times in which we live. What is required will then reveal itself. A hunger for the transcendent, for the integration of methods that cross the boundaries that separate, and relationship skills that foster intimacy, are all indicated. A shift from a patriarchal society to greater balance wher ... Read more..

My journey to becoming a therapist began with a desire to develop greater significance in my life and improve the quality of my relationships. Having worked as an organisational psychologist for many years, my work increasingly involved coaching senior managers in the art of managing their organisations. These sessions revealed that, contrary to my expecta ... Read more..

Although I trained as a Gestalt therapist, my professional journey began as an early childhood educator. For 15 years I worked with children from a wide range of physical, intellectual and socio economic backgrounds. Those years helped me to lay the foundations for what would later become my philosophy. Notwithstanding the years of learning theory, and tra ... Read more..