Tony Monaghan

A conversation with Tony Monaghan

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  How people function has been a lifelong curiosity. I started in Youth Work, but wanted to see how the 'other half' lived. I went corporate for 20+ years, and have gradually swung back to this work, with an ability to identify with the wider community.
  After years of training, where you're not in contact to see long term change, I chose to see how personal change worked from the start of the process to the end.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  After many years with a Christian faith, and after three significant grief experiences, I now subscribe to personal accountability and resourcefulness to deal with whatever faces me.
  I don't outsource my resilience to god anymore, and still have empathy for those who use their faith for support.
  I'm committed to helping people in the ways they ask for, without imposing my agendas.
  We never stop learning or evolving.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

  The way in which sub-conscious beliefs shape our view of the world and of ourselves. These beliefs tend to be a back-seat driver, shaping our decisions, outside of our awareness.
  Some of these beliefs, that we would never wish on others, can remain deeply embedded within ourselves - I'm not enough, my needs don't matter, love always leaves, nobody does the right thing.
  We learned them so young, we've almost forgotten... but there are clues, and we can do something about it...

• What methods do you use?

  Most often I use The Richards Trauma Process (TRTP) to help with trauma.
  The first few sessions try to define the problem clearly, (not "just symptoms") verify what approach we should take, which technique...
  CBT and ACT are useful in the right proportion.
  TRTP is the most direct, deep technique that I know of, and has revolutionised how I work.
  Psychedelic-assisted therapies are emerging - so watch this space...

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  While CBT can usefully create progress - it is evidence-based - but I think the evidence points to slow and incremental change.
  TRTP makes immediate progress.
  If we identify the root causes clearly, we can take a big step up, onto a new level.
  From a new type of altitude, what used to bother people can suddenly feel irrelevant, and then the decisions you want to make come much more easily.
  

• How has therapy made a difference in your life?

  Humans need connection - safe families, friends, workplaces.
  Therapy has helped me resolve grief that ran through generations of my family, and to let go weight that didn't start with me, that wasn't mine.
  Therapists get drawn to this work, partly from our own interest and need. Its natural enough then to want to share it...

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

  Seeing people change in front of my eyes....

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

  Of course. But they don't stop me.

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

  One of them is how social media competes for our attention constantly, and can rob us of our solitude and ability to reflect, to think deeply, and feel whats happening around us.
  Another is how mental health remains poorly understood, and poorly catered for in mainstream media.
  Too much emphasise sits with the discomfort with and removal of symptoms, and not enough with root causes, and long-term growth.

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

  For one side of my nature, The Princess Bride, Matrix trilogy, Lord of the Rings and flights of imagination.
  On another, its Silence of the Lambs, and the Dune series.
  Authors include John Le Carre, Ian McEwan, Neville Shute.
  Music think Neil Young, Gillian Welch, Taaaaylor Swiiiift (I know), Mark Knopfler.