The Colourful Counsellor

26/02/2024

Workshop on Community 🌀

C O M M U N I T R E E S🌳

What qualities make community?

Using the metaphor of a tree ~ how might we reflect on what is needed for a successful community…

💡 Some ideas we had: Shared values, orientation ~ a vision/goal/purpose, acceptance and spaces for all types of folk, sheltering and growing, self responsibility and collective actions, openness and space for new ideas, boundaries, structure, old & new life cycles, creativity, social justice, equality. Branching out, global connectedness, online/ in person. Roots, feeding and being fed. Weathering the storms, being in it together through the struggles. Individuality and a collection identity. 🌀

15/12/2023

In good company. 📚

Therapy is political.

12/11/2023

Playback Theatre Manchester….where do I begin?!?!!! How do I capture the essence of Playback Theatre for those of you who’ve never experienced it…. 🤔

Imagine sitting in a room with a bunch of mostly strangers, a musician, and a company of actors. There will be a performance but what it will contain nobody knows…because it is the audience whose stories and memories are used as the material for the entirety improvised performance.

Last night we heard epic stories of journeys and change, migrating to Serbia on a cattle train which took over 3 weeks in -40 degrees, love affairs that stretched family trees, journeys of divorce and liberation, new beginnings and new not-quite-beginnings. It was beautiful hearing people share their heart stories, feeling connected and together and sharing our values of storytelling, ritual, reciprocity, creativity and community.

I wish everyone got to experience Playback Theatre. It’s cathartic and therapeutic and healing and uniting.

11/11/2023

Nails, book, beret 💚 🌱 🥦🫒🧃🪀🚛

22/09/2023

Hello Counsellors & Therapists 🫶🏼
We’re recruiting for a new counsellor in Oldham. It’s a wonderful place to work, lots of compassion and warmth. This role will combine loss focused work: both bereavement and living loss (dementia, terminal illness, ambiguous loss etc).

If you are interested and want to pay us a visit - we are having a free community art exhibition this Sat + Sun 12-4 🎨 🎧 ☕️ 🖊️ which provides a stellar opportunity to visit, ask questions and scope us out before applying.

This will be one-to-one and group support work, with plenty of opportunities for being creative as well. Thank you and please share😊

Full/part time fixed term/Permanent Contract. We are expanding our home care community service and are looking for some very special people to join our team.

13/09/2023

I’ve recently discovered this podcast, hosted by the excellent and exuberant , which shines a light on the approach .

Attachment, developmental trauma and relational trauma are three of my favourite areas of work, and although right now my client work doesn’t explicitly focus on these areas as the number 1 presenting issue; the way we grieve and relate to loss IS OF COURSE inextricably connected to our attachment patterns, our relationship dynamics with others and our experiencing of relationship with ourselves.

cPTSD is a cruel way to experience the world, the hell of navigating life inside of traumatising relational dynamics can make you feel like you are not in the driving seat of your own life. I’m pleased to have discovered Dr Helller’s work and look forward to diving in to the books I’ve ordered and expanding my skill set in this area further. Have any of my therapist friends come across NARM before?

13/09/2023

Public art that puts a smile on ya face 🦆 ♥️ I love the chorus of birds in this mural. Why not eh?