Stimmung Therapy Services

17/06/2026

Bit of a personal one….

School reunions bring up such an array of emotions for people. Friends that I’ve made in my adult life seem to love their reunions. When I have found out about a reunion at my school, it has never interested me. I was one of three siblings whose father was the founding Headmaster of the only Catholic school in town built in the middle of a large council estate in the mid 1970s. We three took to our destiny in our different ways: one kept their head down and was mildly embarrassed; another acted out and rebelled, then became super depressed. I basked in the reflected authority, having teachers around for dinner, knowing all their first names and who their husbands and wives were, being driven into school by Dad, and I strode about like a stuck-up p**g. It was all compensation for a pretty low self esteem. But I became a natural, taking to it immediately.

To be honest with you, I was so self-important at school that most kids didn’t like me. Except the older ones who lobbied and voted for me to become Head Girl, and succeeded. Now I had good reason to be superior. I didn’t care for most of my peers. When they teased me for being stuck up I insulted them condescendingly with a withering stare, calling them “inverted snobs”. I learnt that from Dad.

When I think of my school days self, with my inflated sense of importance and overly serious attitude to discipline and good behaviour (also learnt from Dad), I see a risible caricature.

So when I got notice of a 50 years celebration reunion, I wondered if this was the time to go. As I approach my 60th birthday, I wonder if I might rock up with my Bishop Challoner School Blue hair (for which any pupil sporting such in 1976 would duly be suspended) and, not recognising anyone, readily explain that I’m not a pratt any more, still prone to a superiority complex however (or am I just more confident🤔), but am warmer now and lot more humble. Not as spiky, and have found my sense of humour. Maybe I’ll have to endure being scorned, and once again leave the grounds feeling aloof and superior.

Or maybe we’re all kinder now.

Still in two minds…

12/06/2026

11/06/2026

Existential Isolation is the subjective sense that you are alone in your experience and that others are unable to understand your perspective. It occurs when you believe that you have a unique worldview unshared by others.

Individualist cultures, as opposed to collective cultures, will impact Existential Isolation: you’re more likely to experience life as meaningless, dissatisfying and lacking in purpose.

Solitude doesn’t necessarily equate to this, but l think loneliness does and you’re more likely to feel anxious and depressed when lonely.

05/06/2026

There’s always a reason to lie. Labelling someone as a “pathological” “liar” and then ceasing to listen to them will prevent you from hearing the truth.

My thoughts are that self focus is a precursor to lying, and primary emotions that likely accompany lying are shame, regret, disappointment, with fear being the secondary, but most alive emotion.

When my client lies, if I know them well enough, I can tease them that my b.s. detector has gone off. If I know them really well, and lying is a reflex for them, I’ll mimic being surprised by a sudden alarm going off, and ask if they hear it too. We have a laugh, and then allow the truth to emerge.

If you have a loved one who often lies, be exasperated for a little while, but then get over it, because they are telling you something else to which you probably need to give attention.

****it

03/06/2026

In my experience of working with clients who are neurodivergent a recurrent theme is Identity: being unsure of who they are and how they “should” be in the world. I notice that after a client has had a diagnosis confirming their neurodiversity and an effective medication is prescribed, the client starts to assert their opinions and desires more articulately. They start to know who they are becoming, and they recognise a prior dependency on their partner to reassure them how they were to feel and what they needed to bring to the relationship.

As the client becomes less reliant on the other for how they “should” respond to things, and more confident in who they are becoming, they can reject their partner. “I’ve realised that I want to be them, but I don’t want to be with them,” one client has said. I have witnessed this then leading to irreparable marriage or relationship break ups.

Also, clients of newly diagnosed neurodivergent partners report a change in their partners’ personalities.

I would be really interested to know of other neurodivergent people’s interpersonal experiences post diagnosis and on meds, and also of other therapists’ experiences of changes observed in newly diagnosed divergent adults’ relationship dynamics.

One client of a late diagnosed partner felt umbrage toward the partner’s psychiatrist who, when later asked, “can the meds change someone’s personality?” the psychiatrist answered in the affirmative.

30/05/2026

An existential perspective is always moving, always evolving, never static, continuously becoming.

28/05/2026

The trouble with having a habitual negative outlook is it comes with a lot of longing for what was before, a huge amount of regret and a colossal amount of loss. It becomes very hard to look forward. I know somebody that when he was asked, “Are you a glass half full person or a glass half empty person?” without missing a beat he answered, “Oh, I’m just happy to have the glass!”

He’s the same person to say, “This is not the final chapter; this is a transition.”

I’m trying to take a leaf out of his book. This is not the final chapter. This is the prologue to a new story.

21/05/2026

A recurring theme with my music-making, acting, dancing, composing, writing, performing, entrepreneurial clients is what I call the “false wisdom” of conflating creativity with productivity.

Creativity inevitably involves experimenting, trying out ideas, researching, musing, experimenting, starting or continuing something that feels as if it’s never going to end, scrapping ideas, and so often feels like a waste of time.

Yet, out of non-productivity can come the most meaningful and arresting and resonating of creations.

19/05/2026

If there’s one characteristic that I believe is essential to being a decent therapist, it’s the ability to signal humility.

There have been a few times in the past 18 years as a therapist when I’ve realised that my own expectations, or maybe even my own values have prompted a response resulting in a change of energy between me and my client, maybe even causing a rupture. Only a few. Honest.😬

Let me say more…

and I’m sticking my neck out here…

If a well-intentioned response, comment or question of mine is surprisingly (to me) rejected or criticised by a client, sometimes my immediate thoughts are, ‘that was out of the blue… what’s going on…blame the client’.

But when THAT happens, I know I need to self enquire as to how I’ve contributed to a falling out here. Almost immediately, I’m able to see that I was communicating from my own view of how the world should operate, not necessarily my client’s - which turns out to be different from mine! (How about that?🙄)

I then take that back to them, and awkward, embarrassing as it may be do tell them this, immediately, I’m metaphorically back side by side them, and even feeling a little closer to them after this repair. When this has happened, feedback from clients is that the therapeutic bond is stronger.

I’ve experienced some real strengthening of the relationship whenever I’ve decided to share my fallabilities with my clients.

Will I regret outing myself about this here, I wonder…?😬

15/05/2026

I’ve yet to crystallise my thoughts on Uta Frith’s concern and confusion about the use of her autistic spectrum and her proposed dismantling of it.

What is crystal clear to me is this: only my clients know what masking costs them.

The quote in my image is from The Neurodivergent Couch on Substack today, written by my respected peer Meirion Todd. I work more and more with neurodivergent clients, and often those who are highly sensitive and late(r) diagnosed AuDHD women.

My colleague, late diagnosed AuDHD psychotherapist specialising in this area, has written an intelligent, comprehensive and passionate article about the nuanced and wider divergent client base.

I wonder what you make of it:

https://open.substack.com/pub/meiriontodd/p/in-defence-of-high-masking-autism?r=4pcp7h&utm_medium=ios