Blog

As therapists, we are used to working with a degree of ambivalence about being ‘seen’. But what about those clients, including individuals with body dysmorphic disorder, for whom the experience of being looked at can feel unbearable? How might we work in face-to-face therapy when our own gaze causes intense anguish? Psychotherapist Dr Nicole Schnackenberg, a specialist in BDD, discusses helpful conceptualisations, adjustments and meeting points when we’re in the room with body-focused shame.

The wisdom of the body is now widely accepted in mainstream therapies. Yet this is often to the exclusion of the menstrual cycle, despite its powerful connection for many of us with changes in energy, mood, emotion and somatic sensitivity. In the first of two blog posts, embodied psychotherapist Kate Merrick encourages therapists to speak into this cultural silence – and suggests how we might help clients to learn about and connect with a vital self-care system.

Shame is an exceedingly vulnerable state that calls for great tenderness and delicacy on the part of the therapist – as Susan Warren Warshow learned through trial and error. Here, the author of The Therapist’s Handbook to Dissolve Shame and Defense and her upcoming The Practice of DEFT: A Shame Sensitive Workbook reflects on the process of developing her shame sensitivity – including requesting feedback, reframing interventions and communicating compassion for internal conflict.

When a client feels stuck, bringing attention to their movements can help to mobilise imagination. Inspired by a recent walk with her nephews, embodied movement psychotherapist sissy lykou considers the role of movement in communicating patterns, expanding process and allowing the unconscious to lead the way – and shares how two clients reached breakthroughs by developing their movement awareness.

What is it like for a parent when a child starts attending therapy? How can we better support guardians through this experience, and thus also improve the therapeutic process for our young clients? Suzanne Alderson, mother, author and founder of the charity Parenting Mental Health, offers a window into the thoughts, fears and un-voiced needs that may be racing through parents’ minds as they sit nervously in our waiting rooms.

Interest in ADHD is rising, in both the wider culture and among therapy clients. Yet many therapists know little about the real nature of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and many people with undiagnosed ADHD do not realise it is a central part of their problems. In the second of two posts, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and ADHD specialist Phil Mollon sets out four key tasks for therapy when a client is struggling with this brain-based condition, suggests how we might spot its presence early in the therapeutic encounter, and draws our empathic attention to the central and ever-spiralling experience of shame.

Interest in ADHD is rising, in both the wider culture and among therapy clients – with increasing numbers wishing to pursue, or to understand, a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet many therapists know very little about this brain-based condition, which also suffers from misleading publicity and a mis-directive name. In the first of two posts, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and ADHD specialist Phil Mollon outlines its core features, explaining how ADHD can lead to anxiety, procrastination, impulsiveness and emotional overwhelm, and cause much relational difficulty and suffering.

Icy paths, driving rain, burning cheeks and rustling nylon hoods… For the increasing number of clinicians who offer walking therapy, winter weather can bring additional challenges and distractions. But most can be navigated with careful planning and contracting – and a ready supply of cocoa butter and cup-a-soup. Claire Goodey, an integrative psychotherapist working outdoors in Nottingham, shares how she adapts her walking therapy practice in the winter months.

Courage, hope, determination, even aggression – such traits drive us forward, and are allied to the fight rather than the flight, freeze or flop responses. Yet they have also been cut out of many contemporary rewards. Drawing on his recent work around ‘resparking’, Graham Music considers the role of the dopaminergic system, the nature of the ‘internal lifegiver’ and the centrality of risk in therapy as he stands up for the often misunderstood or miscategorised fight response.