Author: xbzg
What type of psychotherapy orientation is best for what?
This article is based on the Mick Cooper’s “Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Facts are Friendly” book compiling studies of effectiveness in counselling and psychotherapy. It is a great reference book and I am leaving most data behind (so that you buy the book, which is fantastic). What therapy is most effective for…
An informal study of Psychotherapeutic orientations
I worked with Psychotherapeutic author Mick Cooper to do an informal study of psychotherapeutic orientations in the UK. Psychotherapy is complex. When someone decides that they would like / need some therapy, they may or may not have some ideas of the type of therapist they need. Some people may consider their particular known issue,…
Getting to know silence
in JournalThis is a journal entry, dealing with my own experiences, feelings and thoughts. Click here for psychotherapy theory, or here to find more about me. — To practice silence and be comfortable with it, I need to get to know it. I got interested in silence as a counselling skill. And I quickly realised it’s…
Karen Horney’s theory of personality
The below is taken from Neurosis and Growth (Karen Horney, 1951), as well as summaries and commentaries from here and here and occassionaly my own reflections along the way. – Karen Horney was an amazing woman. She immensely respected Freud but challenged much of psychoanalytical orthodoxy. She provided a theoretical framework of mental illness that…
Guide to counselling skills
Counselling skills are a cluster of learned and practised abilities that therapists use with clients to achieve the goals of therapy. Developing these skills involves a combination of knowledge, practice, reflection and feedback. Listening Listening is a core counselling skill – it’s also frustratingly hard. Growing up we’re told to control the narrative and dominate…
Parenting through trauma I: Neglect
in ParentingRaising your own children after experiencing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is a challenge. Jonice Webb is a psychologist with a PhD and a practice around Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN). The below is adapted from her book “Running on empty no more”, where she documents her work with clients with CEN in their past/present, to help…
The regulation of ego states within ourselves
“Everyone carries their parents inside…also a little boy/girl” Eric Berne Ego states – as conceptualised by Eric Berne – are psychological realities or modes of being that emerge within us, depending on the situation and our own tendencies. In this article, I will discuss intrapsychic processes. For a more detailed overview of ego estates and…
To second life
in JournalThis is a journal entry, dealing with my own experiences, feelings and thoughts. Click here for psychotherapy theory, or here to find more about me. – There is no question I have passed a clearly marked transition to a second stage of adulthood. While women have the universal sign of menopause, men traditionally rely on “exit events”…
The Good Life (according to Carl Rogers)
Ask people what they think makes for a good life and you will find many different answers. Some people will relate to achievements, possessions and other goal-led end-states. Others may become more philosophical: “to be happy”, “to be free of worries”. Very rarely, if ever, the good life will be what it’s happening right now. …
The seven stages of the counselling process according to Rogers
It did not appeal to me to review work we have done in the past. I decided rather to devote a year (…) to understand the process by which personality changes (…) but as the next year approached I realised the ideas I had formed were still unclear, tentative, hardly in the shape of a…
