Flourishing mental health and wellbeing

08/06/2024

What enables someone to become mentally well?
I've seen several clients recently who have come to be in high levels of distress. Each has recovered.
Some continue to work with me to learn tools and practices to really thrive.
One has had made a full recovery in only 3 sessions.

How does this happen?
There are 4 components:
1. Having hope, within a relationship that is mutually determined to achieve recovery.
2. Understanding what is happening in the brain, so the client feels calmer, and progressively in control.
3. A client's desire to be well, and a willingness to adopt simple practices that will help to get them there.
4. The 'modality' or way of working. I never start with a set appraoch, but work out what will help THIS client.
Therapists should never be working with a condition, but with a unique individual. For example, for 2 clients with very disturbing OCD, we have recently taken 2 very different approaches. With one, we needed to resolve negative conditioning from childhood, and did this with Guided Imagery. With the 2nd, we used tools from CBT, and art therapy.

14/04/2024

This morning I read an interesting article by Thomas Hodgkinson in the Spectator, entitled 'The Power of Talking as Thinking'.
This is an edited version:

"There’s a school of thought in psychology that believes the distinction between talking and thinking isn’t so clear.

"Talking, it is often assumed, is separate from thinking. First we think, then we speak. But the truth isn’t so simple or straightforward. Rewind to the birth of western philosophy and you find that its midwife, Socrates, preferred speaking to writing as the route to truth. So much so that he never actually wrote a book.
Fast-forward to the birth of modernity and you discover the German playwright Heinrich von Kleist making the argument explicit in a remarkable 1808 essay entitled 'On the gradual formation of thoughts in the process of speech'. Von Kleist argues that if you don’t understand something, one way to solve the problem is to talk. It doesn’t matter all that much who you talk to. Speaking and thinking work together. (….)
If you can’t talk to someone, I recommend the microphone button at the bottom of your phone keypad. Talk into a note and then read it back. This works too. (…)
If you get stuck, take the problem to the blackboard and explain it to a someone. Thanks to the cogitative power of speech, by the time you’ve described the problem, sometimes it isn’t a problem anymore."

Talking out loud - to a person, into a microphone, or even to the dog (!) is a great way to 'externalise' what we are thinking: it lowers our emotional arousal, and allows to hear and clarify our thoughts.
Try it: once we have done this, we have begun to find the solution. In many cases, the problem immediately seems smaller, or we feel more resourceful in addressing it. In some cases, we find that the problem has gone away altogether.

24/08/2023

Much harm was done to children and young people by lockdown, especially the closure of schools, colleges and universities.
An article in the Telegraph, 16th August 2023, by Ellen Townsend, sums this up well:

"No one can deny the negative impacts of interventions such as school closures on young people and adolescents: the global evidence is overwhelming. Experience on the ground in nurseries, schools, colleges and universities reveals that many are struggling, “hollowed out” by the experience.

But what is being done about it? Is there a plan to mitigate against the havoc and chaos wreaked on young lives? It may be possible to reverse some of the negative psychological effects on children if swift mitigatory action is taken.

Currently, in the UK, there is no plan. Sir Kevan Collins, who was appointed as the education catch-up chief, resigned over the dismally inadequate funding pot allocated to support educational recovery, which is just one aspect of the mitigation needed.

The longer we wait, the worse the outcomes will be. We should see the effects of lockdown not as a standstill historical event but as a moving car crash: the window to make a difference, bringing the car to a halt before it disintegrates, is closing.

There are periods of development that are especially sensitive throughout childhood and into our teens. Take brain development. Our brains are not fully grown until we are about 25 years old. During the teenage years the brain re-wires itself through a process called pruning.

This is influenced by what we are exposed to in the environment. Brain structures and pathways that are used are kept and those that are not used are “pruned” away. Thus, our development in this sensitive period is fundamentally shaped by our environment.
(...)"

Some young people have, of course, been more profoundly affected than others. Some have fully 'bounced back'. If you know who hasn't, a useful starting point is CAMHS (the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service).

Or contact Flourishing for advice, guidance or therapy.
www.flourishing.org.uk

10/08/2023

We are back on Facebook!
For what Flourishing can offer, do have a look at the website:
www.flourishing.org.uk
Any requests, suggestions or comments are very welcome here or via the website.

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