#Best Gestalt Therapist

[thephonemenarentreal]

FINALIZED CONCEPT ART FOR MEDIC/VIOLET <3

NAME: EMC-499 NICKNAMES: Violet, Medic, Pest (By Paralipsis), Kid (By Civic) ALLIANCE CLASS: Cameraman Faction WORK CLASS: Emergency Medical Cameraman Division (EMCs) GENDER: She/Her

CLASSIFICATION: Artificial Mind (non-human origin)

RANK: Chief Medical Officer and Head Therapist of Psychological Affairs of Outpost 51

EMC-499, known as Violet or Medic to those who know her best, is a spunky camerawoman who graduated the E.M.C Training Regiment at the top of her class. She knows her stuff when it comes to best medical practices and like all E.M.Cs, also trained to handle mental health.

Friendly, outgoing, and absolutely fearless when it comes to her job (not so much social situations), Violet is the "unsinkable" camerawoman, who refuses to let anything get to her and to help her friends whenever she can.

(more details under the cut!)

EMC-499 was brought online as an artificial mind which is to say, her mind and personality did not come from a human host, but developed organically through interactions with her online cohort. Eventually, one of the older cameramen, known by the nickname Gestalt, would adopt her and show her the ropes.

Eventually EMC-499 would endeavor to join the Emergency Medical Cameraman Division, inspired by their work of helping others during and after battles, risking life and limb to save their comrades. Such bravery appealed more to her and Gestalt was happy with that...mostly as he saw it as a way to keep the rather diminutive EMC-499 away from actual combat as much as possible.

EMC-499 did not know of these plans, throwing herself into her studies and coming out at the top of her class. Among her training cohort, she gained the name "Violet" in reference to Violet Jessop, as a tongue and cheek joke of her being "unsinkable" in her endeavors to become the top E.M.C responder.

Once graduated, Violet was more than eager to get into the fight and put her training to use on the front lines and not just patching up alliance in the medical bay. Instead, she was sent to Outpost 51 to handle the most "difficult mental health cases" in the Alliance, keeping her far from the front and relatively out of sight. Violet was disappointed, incredibly so, but a job is a job and she has thrown herself into helping the residents of Outpost 51 on her case load.

The title of Chief Medical Officer is not too glorious, given she is the only E.M.C on duty at said outpost. Still, she hopes by doing a good job she can prove she's ready for the frontline or even to get promoted to the E.M.C Titan Division. Most of her friends and charges call her "Medic" as a result, which she doesn't mind. THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL CAMERAMAN (ramblings here just because Violet/Medic would ramble on about her beloved E.M.C hehe!) A relatively new division that grew out of the growing need for medical professionals as the causalities mounted and concerns about mental health became more prominent.

The E.M.C are trained to get alliance off the field and provide life-saving treatment with a variety of tools taken into the field. They also though perform crucial screenings for mental health to ensure alliance going into battle are of a sound mind and are cleared for combat. Not to be confused with engineers, the E.M.C are focused on physical and mental well-being, not on upgrade research , rebuilding of bodies and lost limbs, or mind recovery and transfer operations. A small, elite division of the E.M.C, called the Titan Division, are assigned to assess mental states of the Titans to ensure that the mighty backbones of the alliance are given the proper attention to all points of their health.

The E.M.C is currently assisting with the training of the new E.M.S (emergency medical speakermen) division to help expand their roster. Currently an E.M.T division has yet to be established, the TV Men preferring to use the E.M.C services due to their smaller numbers in general within the greater alliance.

[seraphasia]

i'm really happy for you! can i ask what kind of therapy you had? it's never seemed to help me much so i'm curious!

Thank you!!♥︎ My therapist used a blend of different counseling theories with me, but primarily cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy techniques, as well as hypnosis for some very specific issues. The behavioral therapies are fairly common, so I wouldn't be surprised if you have tried those and they weren't helpful - they tend to be best for very specific concrete behavioral changes, but aren't always the best for exploring deeply rooted issues. Obviously, I don't know your specific situation, but there are a whole range of other therapeutic theories and techniques that are somewhat less common but may be more helpful if CBT and/or DBT haven't worked for you. Psychodynamic therapy tends to explore your past, early attachments, and current relationships to unpack how your subconscious experience is impacting your conscious experience. Existential therapy techniques are helpful for handling things like existential crises, grief, and death (edit: I originally wrote Gestalt where I meant existential). If you're struggling with dealing with stressors related to being a woman, a minority, or otherwise oppressed group, then you might benefit more from a therapist who has a focus in feminist therapy. Acceptance and commitment therapy can be very helpful if your issues tend to be treatment resistant - it focuses on being able to engage in positive behaviors even when your moods and thoughts are extremely negative. There's a range of options, and each can help you differently.

I also specifically sought out counselors who focused more on accountability than validation. Your therapist shouldn't tear you down, but they also shouldn't constantly validate your behaviors and emotions either. I was a relatively uncooperative patient, so having a therapist who would hold me to my word was an important factor for me. If you're having a hard time opening up to a counselor, it may be an issue of personal compatibility. It's not always the techniques but the counselor themself - sometimes because they're not good at what they do, sometimes because their personality is one that you have a hard time opening up to. Don't be afraid to window shop when it comes to therapists. I always recommend going to 3 sessions before deciding to stick with them or try someone new. The first session is almost always entirely intake, so you won't get a good idea there, but if you can't stand, don't like, or simply don't want to work with the therapist by the end of the 3rd session, leave. You are not obligated to them, and counselors are rarely cheap.

One big caveat to all this is that if you know the coping mechanisms and the strategies for dealing with mental health issues you have, but none of it is effective, you should at least explore the idea of medication. It was a problem for me where I knew the coping mechanisms that I needed to use, knew how to use them, but my emotions were so off the charts strong that I didn't have the capacity to use them properly. Most people have a threshold of emotion at which most healthy coping mechanisms are ineffective, but if you're in that state most or all of the time, it's worth looking into psychiatric medication. Psychiatrists can be a major pain in the ass in terms of finding a good one, but once you have a good one, they can change your life.

[solhwellness]

Different Types of Psychotherapies: Exploring Your Options | Solh Wellness

Several psychological therapies provide useful strategies for overcoming life's problems when it comes to improving your mental health. These treatments, often known as talk therapies or psychotherapies, offer a framework for comprehending and controlling your ideas, feelings, and behaviors.

Let's look at the various forms of psychological therapy available:

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

A well-known treatment method called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) aims to recognize and alter unfavorable thought patterns. By recognizing and addressing these ideas, people can manage disorders like anxiety, melancholy, and stress efficiently. Through CBT, you acquire practical abilities to change your negative thinking.

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) 

DBT combines techniques that encourage mindfulness with cognitive behavioral treatment. Those who struggle with strong emotions, risky behavior, and interpersonal problems benefit the most from it. DBT teaches individuals how to control their feelings, strengthen interpersonal bonds, and encourage self-acceptance.

Psychodynamic Therapy 

This therapy focuses mostly on the unsolved problems and unconscious mechanisms that influence your ideas and behaviour. To uncover ingrained patterns and advance consciousness and personal development, psychodynamic therapy digs into past interactions and experiences.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)   

ACT places a strong focus on accepting one's ideas and feelings as opposed to trying to repress them. It helps people define their values and make a commitment to upholding them. This therapy effectively treats anxiety while enhancing general wellbeing.

Mindfulness-Based Therapies  

Self-awareness and present-moment awareness are encouraged in therapies that place a strong emphasis on mindfulness. These therapies include:

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR):Through the practice of moderate yoga and mindfulness meditation, MBSR aims to reduce stress and promote emotional control.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT): Since the MBCT program combines cognitive therapy techniques with mindfulness training, it can benefit people who have recurrent depression.

Humanistic Therapies  

The goals of humanistic therapies are the pursuit of self-actualization, self-growth, and self-discovery. These consist of:

Person-Centred Therapy: In the encouraging, nonjudgmental environment of this treatment, people can examine their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Gestalt Therapy: The value of fully experiencing the present moment is emphasized by gestalt therapy. It promotes self-awareness and accountability.

Family Systems Therapy

Understanding how a person's ties with their family impact their mental health is the aim of family systems therapy. It tries to promote harmony within the family and communication.

Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)  

In IPT, emphasis is placed on interpersonal and communication skills. Both treating depression and resolving interpersonal conflicts can be done using it.

Narrative Therapy  

Examining the narratives we tell about our lives is an essential component of narrative therapy. Retelling and recreating these tales can offer people fresh perspective and a sense of empowerment.

Behavioural Therapy  

Behavioral therapy seeks to alter a behavior by identifying the reinforcers of that behavior. For phobias, OCD, and other conditions, there are two methods of treatment: behavior modification and exposure therapy.

Last but not least, each therapy has its unique technique and benefits. A licensed therapist can help you discuss your options and help you discover the option that best suits your needs. Remember that choosing the ideal approach could need some trial and error because therapy is a collaborative process. By incorporating psychological treatment into your regular routine for maintaining your mental health, you may offer yourself the resources you require to live a more balanced and fulfilling life.

At Solh Wellness, we take great care to fully understand the range of mental health issues and offer treatment that is uniquely tailored to each potential client. Our therapists are skilled at adapting the course of treatment to meet the demands of the patients. In order to assist you practice mindfulness and self-care, we also provide resources and techniques.

[nooradeservedbetter]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let's spread the self-love 💞

Anonymous asked: Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💙

Thank you, both of you! Let me make that list :D

Men of Steel, Men of Power (Larry, ~59k)

My last work and the one I'm so proud of lately. Political omegaverse fic, responds to the question how do you kickstart a communist revolution? What can I say lmao.

See the Light (Larry, ~6k)

This is literally just puppy play smut and I'm very happy that I could write something this filthy. Was about to post it anon, but then I went fuck it.

The Gestalt of a Person (Ziall, ~2k)

Proud of this small lil fic because it talks about things close to my heart. It's about islam and being gay, and I think I did a fair enough job.

Falling Faster and Faster (Noorevilde, ~13k)

This is an older one but I'm still so proud of it. It's a trip through Vilde's self-discovery, it was supposed to be a f/f/f pwp and then it grew legs and it's just one of my best femslash works now.

Gone Daddy Gone (Gen, ~4k)

This one is very close to my heart, and it's a SKAM OG telling of Noora post-abuse. I can't really talk about it a lot, but I showed it to my therapist lmao.

[nursingwriter]

¶ … Therapy and Personhood It is impossible to develop a theory of therapy without first developing a theory of personhood. For therapy is a practice designed (so I believe) to help clients come as close as possible to a fully realized life. But this can become simply tautological if we see therapy as the return to full functionality and full functionality as the position or state to which a therapist hopes to return a client. For therapy to be effective, the therapist has to begin with an independent and established sense of what mental health is, and this in turn depends on the therapist's having a well-developed (but not finalized and static) sense of human nature. In this paper I will examine my concepts of both therapy and human nature and discuss how the two of these are related. I believe that therapists are drawn to certain models of therapy and certain clinical techniques because they mesh with the therapist's understanding of the human condition. This is certainly true for myself. To some extent I am adopting an eclectic approach in this paper (and in the journey that I am beginning to become a clinician) because I believe that all of the major therapeutic traditions have important ideas to add to the tool kit that a skilled clinician needs to have at hand. Thus in this paper and with clients I weave a number of traditions and perspectives into my view of human nature and how the therapist can best serve a client. Another way of parsing this is to say that I use as many perspectives as possible to the question of what it means to be a person, what I means to be a therapist, and what it means to be healed. However, I am focusing on three theoretical models of treatment, each of which has implications for the therapist-client relationship. These are cognitive behavioral therapy, Gestalt theory, and person-centered psychology. Gestalt Therapy I begin with a description of my understanding of these three modalities before I describe the way in which I integrate the three in my own work as a clinician and my overall understanding of what it means to be a therapist. Gestalt therapy can be viewed as an existential therapy in that it is a perspective that guides a client into focussing on the moment, on being present-oriented. One of its greatest strengths is that while some forms of present-centered approaches or perspectives can lead to solipsism, Gestalt therapy provides constant reminders of the complex and over-lapping social contexts in which all human thought and behavior takes place. Gestalt therapy thus avoids what is often seen as a significant limitation of classical psychoanalysis, a form of looking too long and too deeply into a mirror that blinds one to the interactions of the moment that the social self (should be) engages in. In a session guided by a therapist informed by Gestalt therapy principles, the client is encouraged to engage in stock-taking about her relationship with every aspect of the current moment, including the relationship between the client and the therapist. In Gestalt therapy (which arose during World War II and the years following it and so may reflect the historical verities that none of us is able to escape historical verities), the therapist helps the client become more aware of the way in which she, or he, constantly makes adjustments to her or his own behavior because of the constant feedback that each individual receives from the totality of the world around her. No one in Gestalt therapy, in other words, is an island, however much one might want to be. Gestalt therapy can be seen as one type of field theory in that within Gestalt therapy practice the self only exists as a partner to the other. Without an "other," there can be no "self." It should be clear from this stepping-off point that such a concept of self cannot be static, for each person's concept of the other changes as her environment changes. (Beisser, 1970, pp. 67-8). (To extend the metaphor begun above, Gestalt therapy might be seen as a kind of hand mirror held up not to the client's face but a panoramic lens that takes in the entire circle of activity around the client. Gestalt therapy insists that if one's concept of self hinges on an assessment and incorporation of the world around one, then one's sense of self is never complete. "Self" for the Gestalt therapist (and client, of course) is not something intrinsic or inherent within the client; it is not properly located within the individual psyche at all in fact but exists in what might be viewed as a sort of existential space that lies between the individual and each external aspect of her life. As we learn to negotiate the relationships between ourselves and a world of "others," we (according to Gestalt therapy) create a continuity of self that allows us both to constantly regulate our relationship with the ever-mutating world and maintain a sense of continuity. The Self at the Center For the Gestalt therapist, a self that is dysfunctional may be too weak (or too discontinuous) to allow an individual to engage in meaningful relationships either with others or with oneself. Alternately, a dysfunctional self may be overly connected to established relationships to allow the individual to engage in anything spontaneous. A healthy self lies between these two, with authentic but flexible commitments to other people, to work and other meaningful commitments, and to society as a whole. The primary role (and goal) of the Gestalt therapist is not that of someone who in any way fixes (or even truly directs) the healing that the client engages in. Rather, the therapist-client dyad is a partnership, albeit one in which the client takes the leading edge as the therapist and client work together to (co)-create an authentic, flexible, connected self. The present that matters most in the course of Gestalt therapy is the present-ness of the therapeutic hour. The focus on the dynamics of the therapeutic moment does not mean that either therapist or client believe that there is an automatic (or easy) transfer of these dynamics into other arenas of the client's life. (This is, of course, true of other therapeutic modalities as well.) However, the Gestalt therapist works from the position that any problems that the client may have in establishing a strong-but-flexible self vis-a-vis the therapist will be mirrored or re-enacted in other relationships and so progress that the client makes in establishing a healthy relationship with the therapist will provide what might be seen as practice for other relationships. One of the most important functions of the Gestalt therapist is that she can derive very important information about the client's experiences with other people (in situations outside of the consulting room) through her own experience of the client. By examining how she perceives and experiences the client, the therapist can gain an accurate sense of how the client is perceived by other people. This insight on the part of the therapist can then be used to help provide the client with an understanding of how the client is viewed by others. With this information the client can re-think and re-make her connections with other people. It should be clear by this point that it is essential that the Gestalt therapist have no specific idea about how the client "should" change throughout the course of therapy since this mode of therapy does not presuppose any specific sense of self. It might even be argued that a major goal of Gestalt therapy is to help the client create a more unpredictable sense of self (but one that is paradoxically stronger than the a more rigid version). Gestalt therapists are deeply concerned with change but -- in another paradox within this modality -- see change as arising from a complete acceptance of what one is in the present. For the Gestalt therapist, it is only when the client (or the therapist, for that matter) accepts who she is that she is able to begin to shift things within herself and begin to make fundamental changes. This aspect of Gestalt therapy has a certain zen koan element to it: Change is only truly possible when one is no longer actively seeking to change. Put another way, change must be based on stability. The Therapist as the Authentic "Other" Gestalt therapy has some important connections to the Socratic method in that it is based on the practice of dialogue. Much of what the Gestalt therapist does is attempt to create as many opportunities as possible for authentic dialogue to occur. Dialogue requires both participants to be present, to be fully engaged in the moment and to be fully engaged in a relationship with an "other." In service of creating moments in which authentic dialogue can occur, the therapist is careful to be authentic herself, presenting herself to the client as she feels herself to be in the moment rather than hiding from the client behind any sort of false self. The following describes the process of Gestalt therapy: Gestalt therapy is a phenomenological-existential therapy founded by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s. It teaches therapists and patients the phenomenological method of awareness, in which perceiving, feeling, and acting are distinguished from interpreting and reshuffling preexisting attitudes. Explanations and interpretations are considered less reliable than what is directly perceived and felt. Patients and therapists in Gestalt therapy dialogue, that is, communicate their phenomenological perspectives. Differences in perspectives become the focus of experimentation and continued dialogue. The goal is for clients to become aware of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how they can change themselves, and at the same time, to learn to accept and value themselves (Gestalt Therapy, In this way the therapist models to the client what it is like to be fully present in the moment, demonstrating not only that such "presence" is possible but also that far from being threatening (or self-annihilating), a commitment to being fully oneself in the present leads to a life that is more satisfying, more pleasurable and less stressful because less internally discordant. This triad can be seen as a description of overall mental health. Other factors can be added, for health is a complex concept, but these three factors I believe summarize the key indices of mental health. Gestalt therapy is based on the assumption that human nature is flexible and adaptive and that by bringing together an authentic other and a troubled self, that self may through interactions begin to heal. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy As I begin to describe cognitive behavioral therapy I would like to note briefly (I will discuss this more below) that it is connected both to Gestalt therapy and to my overall understanding of human nature through its focus on the here-and-now. Cognitive behavioral therapy and Gestalt therapy are both based on the idea that people can change (an essential part of my understanding of human nature, and indeed -- I would think -- an underpinning of all therapeutic approaches). Both modes of therapy also posit the idea that clients gather the strength and power to undergo important changes by focusing on the present in the presence of a caring, attentive, and authentic therapist. The following provides an overview of cognitive behavioral therapy: CBT is based on the Cognitive Model of Emotional Response. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts-cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change. (National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, In this way, both of these modes of therapy break dramatically from classical psychoanalytic therapy, which can be seen as an excavation into the past. Freud (for example) felt that the farther and more meticulously the therapist and client could travel together into the past, the closer the two (but especially the therapist) would come to the truth. Gestalt therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy begin with the moment that the client is in as the springboard for change. Rather than an attempt to negotiate the past like a mountain climber carefully feeling her way down a sheer face by moving from one embedded spike to another, Gestalt and cognitive behavioral therapy are more like rappelling -- a temporary but repeated letting go of security as the client swings clear of old restraints to find new footholds, secure in her belief that should she slip the therapist will be there to lend a steadying hand until the client feels safe enough to let go (Crocker, 1999, p. 37). Throughout this paper (and as a part of my current ongoing process of coming to understand the kind of therapist that I want to be), I argue that it is impossible to believe in authentic change for the client unless one focusses on the present, for it is only in the moment that change is possible. A too-great connection to either the past or the future precludes change. Problem-Solving as a Part of Healing Cognitive behavioral therapy has as its main goal problem-solving for the client that is based on a systematic (and systemic) strategy to correct misguided behaviors and dysfunctional thinking and emotions. By helping the client develop a more reality-based way of being in the world, the cognitive behavioral therapist draws on research in both behavioral and cognitive therapy to help the client come into a more stable and satisfying relationship with self, with others, and with the world as a whole. As its name suggests, cognitive behavioral therapy derives from two different therapeutic approaches. Behavioral therapy is based on a model that essentially ignores internal states and focusses only on behavior. (We can see here the hand of Skinner, of course.) This approach (if taken by itself) would be (I believe) be a very poor form of therapy. To focus on behavior alone can be helpful in some very limited contexts (perhaps in some aspects of working with a client who wishes to stop using drugs, since this is a very behavior-oriented problem). But my understanding of both therapy and human nature demands that internal states be given at least as much importance and focus as behavior (Asay & Lambert, 1999, p. 34). A pure behaviorist would argue that all we can measure or know about is behavior and therefore if we wish to change an individual (or help an individual change) then we must create conditions int which learning can occur that will reinforce new behaviors. It should be clear why this practice is not something that I could embrace as such. Rather than honoring subjective understanding and reality, behavioral therapy seeks to control behavior in what could well be argued to be a rigid model of human nature. The Cognitive Side of CBT What attracts me to cognitive behavioral therapy, then, is less the behavioral part than the cognitive part, although (of course) the two are not separable from each other within this approach. Cognitive therapy (as outlined by pioneers in this approach such as Beck and Ellis) centers on the idea that a client's well-being is based in very large measure on the way in which she perceives and interprets her own life. In other words, well-being (and healing) is based on how a person attributes meaning to her daily life. Misperceptions in these attributions of meaning can lead to serious mental disorders, especially mood disorders. The perceptions that cognitive therapists are most concerned with are not the superficial ones that frequent one's daily life (although these are important too) but rather what Beck called the "schema" of people's lives. These schema might also be called paradigms: They are the over-arching concepts that each person uses to understand the world. (One example of such a schema might be the idea that the world is a just place in which people get what they deserve.) Cognitive behavioral therapy centers on the cognitive therapeutic concept of the centrality of meaning-making as being at the core of human experience. But it blends this with the behaviorist's insistence on looking both at the practical elements of examining and changing behavior as well as the behaviorist's focus on the present. (Nothing is more present-centered and present-centering than behavior: Looking at what one is literally doing in the moment helps to banish past and future.) This provides a good overview of cognitive behavioral therapy: Cognitive-behavioral therapy does not tell people how they should feel. However, most people seeking therapy do not want to feel they way they have-been feeling. The approaches that emphasize stoicism teach the benefits of-feeling, at worst, calm when confronted with undesirable situations. They also emphasize the fact that we have our undesirable situations whether we are-upset about them or not. If we are upset about our problems, we have two-problems -- the problem, and our upset about it. Most people want to have the fewest number of problems possible. So when we learn how to more calmly-accept a personal problem, not only do we feel better, but we usually put-ourselves in a better position to make use of our intelligence, knowledge, energy, and resources to resolve the problem (National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, http://www.nacbt.org/whatiscbt.htm) Cognitive behavioral therapy also borrows from behavioral therapy a certain standardization of treatment. A cognitive behavioral therapist believes that behavior and the understanding of it can be modulated in to carefully calibrated ways. This focus on such calibration (although, of course, the skilled cognitive behavioral therapist understands that there is always some latitude in all therapy and change) I believe balances what I see as a certain looseness (or creativity) in Gestalt therapy. I believe that Gestalt therapy on its own may leave some clients feeling too unsupported, too much on their own to make the kinds of changes that they want to make. This is turn might make a client too dependent on the therapist, which would defeat a central goal of Gestalt therapy, pushing the client into a too-rigid relationship with both "other" (in terms of the therapist) and the self. Cognitive behavioral therapy is actually a collection of possible techniques rather than a single specific technique. However a therapist combine the possible techniques, it is a rather technical approach to what I believe should be an essentially humanistic enterprise. This is why I believe it is important to combine Gestalt therapy with cognitive behavioral therapy. A Gestalt therapist does not use techniques; he applies himself in and to a situation with whatever professional skill and life experience he has accumulated and integrated. There are as many styles as there are therapists and clients who discover themselves and each other and together they invent their relationship. (Clarkson, 1992, p. 57) Likewise, Gestalt therapy adds to cognitive behavioral therapy a relaxed-ness and creativity that I believe are necessary. While cognitive behavioral therapy is certainly more flexible (and more focused on a person's internal state) than behavioral therapy, it is still based in a view of human nature that is overly mechanistic. Taken together, the two modalities of therapy balance each other, with strength adding to strength and weakness subtracting from weakness. Carl Rogers's Person-Centered Therapy I now turn to the third of the three therapeutic modalities that I am focusing on and that I intend to incorporate within my own practice as a clinician. Read the full article

[denimbex1986]

'...there’s a similar sense of ensemble in the stunning one-man production “Vanya,” directed by Sam Yates and adapted by Simon Stephens from the Chekhov play, now being performed by the quicksilver Irish actor Andrew Scott downtown at the Lortel. For almost two hours, Scott—the “hot priest” from “Fleabag,” and the magnetic Adam in Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers”—takes on all the parts in Chekhov’s heartbreak-in-the-country plot. Never changing out of a grotto-green silk shirt and khaki trousers, he larks about as the melancholy jokester Vanya; lowers his voice to a baritone to become Vanya’s friend, the depressed environmentalist doctor Michael; and fiddles nervously with a gold chain to play the married Helena, who’s drawn to Michael. He plays Helena’s pompous husband, Alexander, too, flinging a scarf around his neck for a tour-de-force performance of fatuous self-regard.

But, then, it’s all tour-de-force performance. Here is the ideal of a Chekhov company, in which even the tiniest part is being played by the best actor onstage. Scott may well be the finest actor of his generation; he’s certainly the finest Sonia—Vanya’s niece, who absorbs her own terrible romantic disappointments with an everyday saintliness—that I’ve seen in twenty years. Scott’s musicality is so precise that I cannot describe it without thinking of a singer’s phrasing, or of a violinist’s bowing. He controls not only vocal timbre but also other subharmonics, creating an incredible tension in the room. You know how sometimes, as a violinist plays, you sense the rosin against the strings? It’s like that.

In a night full of tearful pauses, Yates and the designer Rosanna Vize, one of the show’s four creators, also find several ways to produce a sense of farce. (Characters are constantly stumbling through a freestanding door into awkward situations.) The show’s own concept is gently laughed at, too. At one point, Scott acts out holding back an eager dog that wants to get to its bowl. “Where’ve you been?” he asks the dog he’s just made up through mime.

Everything, even the Chaplinesque way Scott dances between acts, operates in service of Chekhov’s core wisdom—that grief does not end, but we can wear it lightly. In Stephens’s cleverest touch, he shifts our understanding of where Vanya’s sorrow lies, situating it not in his adoration of the unavailable Helena but in the loss of his sister, Sonia’s late mother, represented by a player piano onstage. A Gestalt therapist would tell us that in our dreams all the figures are really aspects of ourselves. This “Vanya” is that kind of dream, and so we see Scott, playing a brief duet with no one, in mourning for his sister’s life and his own—and, really, every life there is.'

[twistednuns]

October 2024

Kissing.

Meeting Sri in Würzburg. A calm train ride and ancient trams. Working in harmony. Learning. Accepting that our exercises won't be perfect but they'll be good enough.

Reading so much. I just finished Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic series.

C. went to the bakery to buy dessert and asked me what I was in the mood for (creamy and fruity). No special occasion. Such a treat.

Visiting the garden exhibition with Tine. Overseeing Lian's playground time, giving him little challenges. Walking back after sunset with a cup of warm Chai Masala in my hands. Staged photographs.

Feeling very patient and calm. Taking the time to explain something thoroughly, playing a 4 hour board game; enough energy to manage my emotions and even go grocery shopping.

Heart-shaped pink Begonia blossoms.

Marjolien and Tobi visiting us for dinner. I made a yummy pasta bake. And pumpkin quiche the next day.

Quality time with Findus, the cutest of the cuties. He's so gentle and playful.

Fast-acting nasal spray.

My cozy, autumnal mood. The light just after dawn - foggy and high-contrast. Taking an additional soft blanket to bed. Pumpkin Spice porridge with apple slices.

Realising that I need stillness to get in touch with what I need and come back to myself. I even drew two matching OSHO Zen cards: Patience and Success.

A full day of consistent energy.

I went to Schauburg theatre with Becky to see Die kleine Hexe and loved the play. The witches' costumes, dances and the eerie music were perfect and the guy who spoke everyone's lines was so funny. And time with Becky is always so nice. She really is one of the best friends I have.

Support from a few people in my Gestalt therapy group after I shared the news about my current situation. Talking to Markus who's been through the same shit as me. Feeling hopeful.

A blind intuitive touch exercise with Friederike. I felt very comfortable with her, especially when she put pressure on me and held me.

I found a postcard with a beautiful text from a local Gestalt therapist: Lass es sein.

A moment when I realised that my was body annoying me - which meant that I was actually IN my body at the time! And it was so much easier to be present and look at people!

More self-diagnosis: I'm a Highly Sensitive Person and a High Sensation Seeker, possible also highly intelligent. Which explains my contradictory nature. I need to rest AND I'm easily bored. Understimulation is just as stressful to me as overstimulation. Which probably means that what I've experienced at work is a qualitative bore-out, not a burn-out. I need more excitement and challenges in my life! I want to learn and apply my creativity. I want to stop all the hesitation and avoidance to find the courage to create the circumstances I need to thrive!

I took the same road to my seminar on Saturday and Sunday and on both days a kitty was waiting in the same spot. It talked to me and allowed me to pet it. A blessing for the day!

Doing improv comedy. I completely over-acted like the little drama queen that I am and made people laugh. I was surprised by how much fun I had!

Noticing that my jungly, artsy apartment is so me. I feel quite at home here.

Roasted cauliflower with lemon, garlic mayo and feta. A clementine and a crisp apple with tahini for dessert.

Writing a letter about fall vibes, sending witchy novels to a friend.

Going to the supermarket for some fruit and milk just to find my favorite snack of all time on the shelf: Smash. Highly addictive. So tasty.

Painting at C.'s kitchen table while waiting for him. Listening to podcasts. Switching to illustration when abstract painting felt a little frustrating.

The moment when all that talk about problems and negativity switched to playfulness and we started laughing, teasing each other, interacting freely and joyfully.

Cuddles from Andrea after a boring choir meeting.

All the yellow flowers I keep seeing at the moment. Whole fields of late-blooming canola and sunflowers.

Revisiting an old favourite after lunch with Frank at Café Beethoven: hot chocolate with whipped cream and sea salt.

An extra blanket in bed.

Journalling.

Crisp, tart apples.

Fall colours. Leaves in all shades of yellow, orange and red. Muted greens and browns.

Driving towards the bright full moon illuminating my path.

Double trouble with the kitten bois trying to "help" me with the laundry.

A weekend with Christian and his housemates. Cooking together, long walks in the mountains and along a lake, playing games and getting to know each other a little better. Feeling really happy even though it wasn't always easy. Perhaps living in community really has its benefits.

Consoling C.'s son, making him laugh.

Squeezing into a small hostel bed together. Occasional touches, smiles and winks.

Austrian supermarkets.

C. remembered my story about chest pockets and surprised me with a little heart doodle in his shirt pocket. He also left a lovely note for me on his kitchen table in the morning.

Feeling euphoric. Loved. Cared for. When he massaged me. Told me to take it slow. Pinched me. Kissed me. I told him it was the best sex I'd ever had and meant it.

Walking through the forest looking for mushrooms. Stepping on huge puffballs, also finding several edible ones. Spooking a few kittens. The late afternoon light coming in through the trees. Eye contact with a horse.

All three kitten bois asking for attention at the same time.

Hugging my Gestalt therapist.

Stumbling upon Wood Soup Girl's ASMR videos.

Snake-like movements in yoga class. So good for my spine.

Celia reaching out to me with her vision of a collaboration. I have so many thoughts about community, working with purpose, helping yourself and others. Is this the time to start something big?

Painting on a stone. Just because.

Making coconut sticky rice with frozen mango cubes.

A relaxed vision after yoga class: imagining spending some time with my mum in the forest. Hugging, feeling and smelling each other. Encouragement and smiles. Wrapping our arms around a tree.

Talking to Miri and Lucie about late career changes, crisis, and accepting help.

Waking up with the impulse to do weight training. So I did. I even practiced with my FeetUp trainer and went for a long walk through the forest. An old man greeted me and made me smile. A magic moment: I thought about a cat I'd sometimes met on the street I was on and right that second a beautiful red cat came out of a driveway. Kitty manifestation.

Coming home. Taking a shower. Lying down. Feeling the warm, soft blankets. Relaxing.

Hanging out at Frank's place like in the good old times with Fabi, Marie and Christian.

Planting 22 fruit trees with Christian's neighbors and two cats. It was hard work I'm not used to but I had fun nevertheless!

Doing breathwork together. We both had a beautiful journey! I drew a mandala card before and after: gratitude - follow your bliss.

Enjoying each other's presence. Cuddles, fantasies, fun, lots of healing touch. Our last weekend together before my month in the clinic. At one point he picked me up from the bathroom door singing Heal the World, dragging me along into a little dance.

Meeting beautiful Celia. Walking over to Westpark together. Talking about our lessons, difficulties, visions. Making plans. Mercury in Gemini team!

A little test from the Universe demonstrating that I'm not as well as I thought I was. One little problem and I'm nervous, afraid, helpless. However, I managed the crisis and was rewarded with a graceful solution.

Doodling faces. Using my sketchbook. It felt nice.

Smelling the cat's earthy toe beans. Cute aggression is real.

Holding hands with L. when he came into our bed in the morning. Getting up with him. Starting to build a marble run out of cardboard.

My huge room at the clinic. The fantastic food. Good company.

Showing my vulnerability openly by asking for help with something as simple as the candy in my mini bar.

Realizing that other people don't perceive me as awkward and incompetent. Quite the opposite actually. It's all in my head.

[sage-sips]

(via The Deeper The Authenticity, The Better The Tarot)

We are having a blissfully rainy day here in the 'burgh. The energy this week has been kinda chaotic and funky. Weird even. The energy right now is the reset we need to shake off the funky mojo and get back to the normal squirrel rave of life.

If you are working this weekend - thank you. Stay chill, hang in there until your next time off. If you have this weekend off, stay chill, do what needs done and relax when you can.

I do weird things on the weekend like think about reverse engineering. Reverse engineering Tarot to be exact.

It is an interesting exercise at any skill level of Tarot reading to take an idea, anything, and try to find a Tarot card that best exemplifies that concept. Instead of going from a random card to its keywords, go from a random idea to its key card.

It doesn't always work. Sometimes it takes a few cards to capture the essence of the idea, but I would guess that is why card layouts were invented. We'll get back to talking about layouts another day. For today, I've been thinking about which one of the 78 cards best communicates the idea of authenticity.

Authenticity is a big, stage of life, personal growth, life-lesson kind of concept so my first instinct is to look toward the major arcana. Of those, my attention is drawn to the World card.

In my opinion,  this card are best summed up by not just "the World" but by "Cosmos" and "Gestalt." Together, it gives the feeling of the biggest of big pictures and everything in it.

Everything in the world includes the masks we wear AND the beauty behind them. Everything, the Gestalt, the cosmos includes truth, lies and everything in between. That includes the authentic self of each and every human being. Whoever you are, whoever you want to be, however you want to be perceived - every facet of your true self - is included, accepted and connected with the grand everything that The World card symbolizes.

Authenticity is a part of that everything.

Every part of you is a part of that everything.

That everything-ness of the World card in particular and of Tarot in general gets behind our social masks. It flows both ways. When you allow a reading to touch the real you and not all the "could" "should" and "will" you get a higher, more potent level of guidance and help.

Should you choose to work with a professional reader instead of taking the DIY approach, the reader's level of authenticity also enhances the quality of your reading experience.

No two readers are alike. Some are con artists. Some are artist-artists. Some are voices from a higher realm. Some are practical, grounded, roots as deep as a tree. Some are therapists in artists clothing. Most of us are out here doing our thing just trying to make it through life ourselves and hopefully help some folks along the way.

You'll know the difference when you see it. You'll know when someone genuinely believes in what they are doing, or at least what they think they can do. The trick is finding someone whose authentic self vibes with your authentic self. Unfortunately there is no way for us readers to know when that is the case. It's up to you to listen to your inside authentic self.

Thank you so much for reading today. Next up: You Choose interactive reading. See you at the next sip!

[errantabbot]

On Therapy and Science

Therapy at its best is a purely human endeavor, and not a science in any objective or consistently predictive sense.

Viewing the therapeutic task through a scientifically descriptive lens can be helpful, but scientific prescriptions for the perennial endeavor of being with one another in a profound, intimate, and exemplary sense have proved to be less than consistent or helpful.

So much of what we lust after in modern psychology still wreaks of “physics envy,” and our desire for a stable casting of the human lot in physically reducible terms. This has proved elusive for good reason, namely that the gestalt of being isn’t reducible to a purely predictable physical model.

The variables of the therapeutic relationship are far too many to meaningfully isolate and study in controlled ways, let alone in consideration of their intersections with the idiosyncrasies of the individual lives and experiences of therapist and patient.

The end result of all of this ado has been the suffering of our training models and modes of practice, which really can’t be manual-ized, or forced into short term treatment plans acceptable to the for-profit insurance outfits that practically define health and its attainment for us.

~Sunyananda

[modernmindsaus]

Things a Gestalt Therapist Do to Help You

People are more and more interested in learning how to comprehend and control their emotions, and the study of emotions is a field that is constantly expanding.Modern Minds,180 Albion Rd, Windsor QLD 4030, Australia,hello@modernminds.com.au,+61 7 3517 1589,https://modernminds.com.au/

[not-poignant]

So I've mostly been reading FFS for Dr Gary. Something particularly shitty happened to me a few days ago and I had no one I could talk about it to because no one in my social circles understands abusive parents and I had just... an intense desire for a Dr Gary in my life. (I've tried 4 1/2 therapists whenever I can afford it and been scarred every time)

Forget wish fulfilment doms, you wrote a hell of a wish fulfillment therapist there. Kudos!

I'M GOING TO MISS HIM SO MUCH

Like I know we're going to get him in a new fic BUT I MISS THIS VERSION OF HIM SO MUCH ALREADY

dsalkfjasfsad and like, I know I should probably be all 'serious author who doesn't get attached to their characters' but fuck that I love Dr Gary and I would die for him.

Anyway, I'm really sorry to hear that you went through something shitty anon, especially that you also had no one to talk to about it. If you ever want to come vent in the Fae Tales Discord, you're very welcome, and there will definitely be people there who understand about abusive parents and how difficult it can be. <333 There is a mental illness channel and an angry channel, it's not all Fae Tales discussion, because most of us who love Fae Tales or enjoy my writing have generally been through some shit and are going through some degree of trauma recovery or trauma or mental illness/es, or all of the above.

It can be really hard to find a good therapist too, sometimes it's about knowing the modality that would suit you, so you can search therapist/s by modality (i.e. CBT / DBT / EMDR / expressive / Gestalt / narrative / attachment / STAIR). Like I would actually hate Dr Gary as a personal therapist and would have fired him a long time ago, lol, but I've seen around 20 therapists and it's really only been the last 3 that have been genuinely helpful, because I realised that I did really badly with CBT / EMDR, which are the first-line treatments trotted out for PTSD.

But also, frankly, any therapy when you're still in an abusive situation can't really do much except help you survive what you're already surviving. No one really does their best healing work while they're still in the place that's causing the open wounds, which sucks, honestly. :/ :/ Especially because independence from abusive situations is increasingly hard for people to attain.

Okay okay I didn't mean to ramble so much. I hope you're taking care of yourself anon, especially in light of folks around you not doing it when they should. And yeah Dr Gary is a total wish fulfilment therapist! I had no idea that would be so rewarding to write, but it really has been, and I'm gonna miss the hell out of that guy.

(And am looking forward to his AU reincarnation as an alpha).

[shencomix]

Hey Shen, I was just curious. You seem to have pulled yourself out of a depressive state through your art, and I want to know how you did it. Because I'm stuck in a hole that gets deeper every time I try to crawl out of it and I've lost all motivation to draw and write and play music. How can I use my art as an outlet to get better?

-I think my art is just incidental in all of this. I’m not a therapists or psychiatrist, and have no experience in mental health at all, but just some layman’s advice:

1. Keep in mind that only you can pull yourself out of this state. Seeing a therapist might help, and medications might help, but many of these things aren’t meant to be permanent arrangements. Only you can make significant changes in your life.

2. Take 1 healthy risk per day. Do something a little out of your comfort zone in a healthy way -- initiate a conversation with a stranger, cook a recipe, apply for a job, accept a friend’s invite to go hiking. Do something positive that you’re tempted to say “no” to, overcome that temptation.

3. Do the stuff that you “need” to even if it feels silly, or like there’s no purpose in it. If you’re a student, go to school, do your homework, work on group projects. If you work, go to work, try your best. You can scoff at the pointlessness of it, and feel silly, but still just do it. It’s the type of thing that doesn’t make sense until later.

Again, I have no real experience in mental health, this is just advice that helped me. Grain of salt, etc.

Also a few numbers from the replies, courtesy of @soma-gestalt​

1-855-995-9489 is the number for a mental health hotline for questions. Or for emergencies 1-800-273-8255 or 911.

[nursingwriter]

Personal Model of Helping Therapists do whatever they can to help their clients overcome a wide range of problems ranging fromdeath of a pet to major life changing crisis, such as sudden loss of vision. However genuine a therapists' desire to help is, they will be limited by the tools he or she uses. It makes sense, then, as a therapist to design and integrate webs of models that have shown to yield efficacy. This new, personally designed model should work to assist and meet the requirement of every client. To embark upon this task of designing a personal model of helping, it is important to be aware of existing theories and models. The first is the humanistic approach based on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow's triangle consists of basics needs at the base followed by needs of safety, love and belonging, achievements and lastly self-actualization at the top. Second, is the cognitive theory, which attempts to change the underlying thought disturbance to correct or reduce cognitive dissonance? Thirdly, the behavioural therapy, which positively reinforces desired behaviours, while, negativelyreinforcing the undesired. The Adlerian theory focuses on overcoming feelings of inferiority, providing the client with a sense of belonging. The psychoanalytic model of helping centres on the dynamics of personality development, making the unconscious mind conscious through association with the therapist's interpretation. Lastly, the feminist theory uses gender differences for its approach, based on the fact, that most clients who choose to seek help are females. Other models of therapy include theories of reality, narrative theory, systemic theory, existential, gestalt and person centred. As one familiarizes oneself to these theories, they will find that most practitioners use techniques and skills from all of these theories since each of them have something useful to offer. For example, it is reasonable to assume that you might use active listening skills from humanistic theory, challenging and disputing from cognitive theory, reframing from solution-focused theory, restoring from narrative theory, interpretation from psychoanalytic theory, realigning coalitions from systemic theory, empowerment from feminist theory, and so on. The wonderful thing about a skills training experience is that you will be exposed to all the most important therapeutic interventions that are accepted as being most useful. After analyzing the different models used by therapists, it is important to magnify and understand the problems of a targeted population, and frame a model of therapy that best fits it. I have chosen the cognitive behavioural technique because it well suits my focused group of school children and teenagers. However, this mode can be liable to change from time to time, or integrated with the psychoanalytic model, when dealing with more problematic situations, for example, drug abuse. The reason being that more serious problems need to be addressed with greater concern and depth. Elaborating on the cognitive behavioural technique; it is based on a psychotherapeutic approach targeting inappropriate emotions and behaviours, through talking and formulating a goal oriented systematic procedure, combining the behaviour and cognitive theory. This theory is based on a few theoretical assumptions; 1- The greater portion of the behavioural repertoire with which individuals are equipped is the product of learning. This vast range of possible responses is acquired through lengthy interaction with an ambivalent physical and social environment. 2- Genetic and other physiological factors also influence behaviour in a more general sense, and there is an interaction between these and environment through inborn influences on intelligence, temperament and personality, and through predispositions to mental disorder. 3- Two broad processes of associative learning account for the acquisition and maintenance of motor, verbal, cognitive and emotional responses. According to Bndura 1977 and Denmet, 1991, vicarious learning or modelling, must be added to these influences, which process contains elements of both classical and operant association. 4- Consciousness, and the ways in which we process information about past, present and predicted future environmentswhich bundles of stimuli, contingencies and imaginings include self-observation and appraisal of our own behaviour, are a deeply mysterious, but not mystical set of phenomena. Thinking, too, follows patterns and is rarely far removed from the effects of external influences. In other words, above the level of simple reflexes, we do not simply respond to stimuli, we interpret them first, but not haphazardly. 5- Behaviours that we judge to be 'maladaptive', abnormal' or 'self-defeating' are learned in exactly the same way as those that we are disposed to call 'adaptive' or 'normal'. Any apparent differences between the two are a property of the attributive and evaluative judgements we make about behaviour, rather than of the properties of the behaviour itself or its origins. 6- The behavioural and cognitive-behavioural therapies owe their existence to learning theory-really a vast body of experimental evidence on how humans adapt themselves to their environments by a process akin to 'behavioural natural selection'-by which strains of action, patterns of thoughts and feelings thrive, perish, or lie dormant according to the effects that they have. Each dimension of learning has given rise to therapeutic approaches logically consistent with the basic research. 7- These therapeutic derivatives are not threatened by a re-emergence of 'symptoms' in some different form Having developed a background on cognitive behavioural therapy, it now becomes important to assess the problems of our targeted population, school children and teenagers, and formulate a device of approach, together with which, will aid in establishing a model of help that effectively deals with issues of this specified group, as this is the period that forms the basis of one's career. To develop this approach, it is necessary to outline the problems of children and teenagers. They are a vulnerable group of the population, making it necessary to address to their special needs. Habits cultivated at this stage determine a major part of their future etiquettes. It is important to assess factors, amongst children that can have a debilitating impact on personality development, for instance, learning difficulties, child abuse, and parental neglect, dealing with parents' divorce, death, lack of necessities, hormonal influences at puberty, peer pressure, and drug abuse. Any odd behaviour needs accurate evaluation, close observation and prompt therapy to prevent its aggravation. The reason I chose children and teenagers is that the habits learned at this age stay with them for a life time and so I feel the need to help them fix any flaw in their personality before it reaches a point beyond which there is no return. Keeping these factors in mind, I have devised a model of help that allows early diagnosis and prompt attention to the above mentioned problems. 1- Make your client comfortable. The environment should be suitable to ensure that the client is at ease. Remember that any help provided should be within the ethical range of the client. For example if he/she strongly believes on a view point, it would be unadvisable to suggest an activity that would go against that point of belief. 2- Establish effective client-therapist relationship. This goal is achieved by maintaining an empathetic tone and facial expression. Notice the general appearance of the client, which includes, the way he/she is dressed, height and body built, hygiene, social and motor behaviour. Appreciate the client's mood, facial expressions and body language. 3- Listening is an integral component of therapy, forming a mental note of the client's tone, frequency of words, flow and content of speech, its coherency and relevance to the questions asked by the therapist. It may be necessary to probe patients from time to time, to help clarify their existing problems and systematically organize narrated events. Assess disturbances of thoughts, namely, preservation, flight of ideas, loosening of association, poverty of thought, pressure of thought or thought blockage. 4- Help clients discover and deal with blind spots that keep them from seeing problems and opportunities clearly and moving on. 5- Addressing to learning difficulties, it is important to assess attention, concentration, orientation, memory, intelligence, judgment and abstract thinking. 6- After developing a thorough evaluation of the client's core problem, it becomes necessary to take a complete and relevant history, which includes: Identification of data:Knowledge on the client's religion, education, occupation, if any. Family history: Mention of immediate family members like parents, siblings, relationship status; attitude of family members towards patient and patient's attitude towards them; overall home atmosphere; details regarding psychiatric illnesses in the family, if any and finally building a family tree. Personal history: Events related to birth (to provide clues to any disability); significant physical illness, trauma, abuse or behaviour problem in the previous years; details regarding milestone achievements in life; any neurotic state, such as, thumb sucking, nail biting, temper tantrums, stammering; sexual orientation (gender identity disorders, misconceptions about normal sexual and anatomy and physiology, heterosexual and homosexual experiences; status of relationship with their other half; any social or financial issues. Premorbid personality: Involves evaluation of a client's predominant mood, character, attitude to religion, reaction to stress and leisure activities. Certain problems need special attention and modified techniques of helping. For example, clients attempting to quit alcohol, smoking or drugs may gain help by talking to people who have already successfully attempted quitting. Clients with depression and anxiety disorders might benefit from talking to people who have similar issues, and how they deal with it. 7- Inviting an open discussion in classrooms, involving appropriate age groups, is helpful in spreading awareness on problems with puberty, sexuality and aggression. 8- Routine evaluation of children can surface learning difficulty problems that they might have and child abuse. Noticing their pattern of drawing and ability to make friends may also be helpful tools. 9- It is important to notice decline of grades, interest in curriculum and extracurricular activities and the different mentality of social groups amongst the targeted population. 10- Making it compulsory for every child to seek help from a school councillor on a monthly basis will not only help build a client -- therapist relationship but will also grant each person the individual attention that they require. 11- Routine clinical examination, with special emphasis on BMI, should be mandatory. Vaccinations must be up-to-date and a proper medical record needs to be kept, analysing any dramatic change. Absence from school must be validated with a justifiable reason. 12- Every child needs to be involved in extracurricular activities, to grant them a focus on life, acknowledge their talents and help them decide what they might want to pursue in the future. The problem of this model is that it only reflects on issues of children and teenagers attending school. Moreover, an integrated effort and cooperation of doctors, teachers, school administrators and therapists needs to be achieved for implementation of the proposed model. Also, children need to be reached out to, as they are unaware of the problems that they might be suffering from and of the help that is out there. Children are easily manipulated by their parents or guardians and it can be hard to surface the truth out of them. Teenagers, also, pose a problem due to their aggressive behaviour, their unwillingness to help themselves and disregard for professional help. Building a friendly relationship with them can be an exhausting task. Dealing with peer pressure is another problem in this age group. It is hard for therapists to convince them to dissociate from their circle of friends that might be the root cause of their problems. Adding on to the already existing concerns, most clients seek professional help at the last moment, which leaves therapists with limited effectiveness in therapy. In my personal experience working with this model I have tried to make my clients comfortable and at ease, after sufficient rapport with the client has been developed, different behavioural problems are focused on. However one major flaw that sometimes occurs stems from a cultural problem -- the inability of the client to admit and accept the help they need. Perhaps the therapy and the techniques used are also partially responsible for this flaw. In a multicultural perspective, this model is widely used throughout the world, and since it includes the Rogerian approach, with an emphasis on the client, it is usually well received. However, my personal experience with this model has been restricted to Pakistani clients, for whom I have slightly deviated from the traditional CBT and other behavioural approaches to accommodate their problems. Ethical considerations must not be ignored, importantly because the therapist's responsibility for the well-being of clients can present to be challenging, at most time. However, following the basic codes of ethics, can simplify this trouble. Maintaining a client's confidentiality by respecting their privacy forms an integral component of therapy. Any bias that may be developed should be effectively deflected as this would hinder proper management.The therapist must be comfortable and should have sound knowledge of the issue being dealt with, for example, insufficientknowledge about the harms of smoking would make it difficult to build sufficient client motivation. Lastly and most importantly, any intervention that the therapist may wish to make must be followed by a clear consent. This model of helping focuses on core issues of school children and teenagers, in a cost effective manner. It includes aspects of prevention of psychological illnesses, such as, depression, anxiety, anorexia and bulimia, which are faced during this age. Furthermore, this does not ignore the curative aspect of early diagnosis and prompt therapy, providing an unbiased approach on proper evaluation of any speech, learning, pathological or metabolic disorders, thereby, identifying it at an early stage. REFERENCES Brew. (2007, Nov 27). Models of Helping. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/18616_chapter3.pdf. Eysenck 1965; Thomas et al. 1968; Heatherington and Parke 1986; Sheldon 1994a Brian Sheldon, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: Research, Practice, and Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1995) iii, Questia, Web, 3 Apr. 2011. Read the full article

[buzzardonic]

Ood thoughts

It is one o'clock in the morning and I am having thoughts

Ood don't have names. Each individual has their own harmony, a small part of the greater OodSong, which distinguishes them to each other.

The concept of names takes most Ood some time to get used to, and they tend to use common identifiers as names to make it easier for those around them. For humans, this tends to be letters or numbers taken from dead but well-known languages such as ancient greek.

Ood tend to cluster together when at rest, and sleep in large communal piles.

They get along best with Zygons, sharing their strong sense of community and experiences as minority species within the Great and Bountiful Human Empire. It helps that both species have semi-active gestalts connecting the individuals.

There have been several cases of joint ood-zygon gestalts forming, resulting in very tight-knit communities.

When separated from the main Ood Brain, Ood communities will each donate a small amount of grey matter (brain cells) to the formation of a minor Ood Brain which will keep them connected. Minor brains are absorbed into the central brain when the community returns to the OodSphere

The head-brain of an ood handles communication, coordination, bodily functions, and the physical senses. Their external brain primarily handles the extra-sensory elements of their nature, such as speech projection and the connection to the Ood Brain, as well as long-term memory.

Due to a misunderstanding of a human idiom, many Ood refer to this brain as their heart.

Once the Ood became citizens of the Human Empire, a better solution for verbal communication was quickly found to replace the removal and replacement of the heart-brain.

The new solution resembles the speech spheres, though the cable covering the neural cord is far thicker and the heartsphere is featureless and chrome.

When they speak, the psychic flow forms coronas of light that ripple over the sphere. The colour, shape, and frequency of these ripples indicates the emotional state of the speaker, leading to the spheres being nicknamed MoodSpheres.

All living beings have a mind-song, formed from the sum of their thoughts, memories, and emotions. Many Ood enjoy immersing themselves in multi-cultural communities in order to experience the wide variety of melodies, though the sheer volume can sometimes give them a headache.

Ood especially like species with complex minds, as their mind-songs tend to be deeper and more elaborate.

Time Lords are comparable to symphonies, with each incarnation having it's own movement. The Doctor's is unique, and ood that encounter them tend to cluster around in order to experience it

Human beings tend to be a bit like pop-rock, hopeful and energetic

Zygon mind-song tends to reflect the form they have taken, but always has the melancholy bass line of longing for their lost homeworld

The silence of the Cybermen terrifies any Ood that encounters them

The Ood ability to listen to mind-song and their placid, comforting nature makes them very good therapists

A group of Ood is called a chorus

An Ood will die of loneliness if completely starved of community

Snatches of other beings' mind-songs can be heard as subharmonics within Ood mind-song, an act of remembrance for those who mattered. This tends to be confined to a station- or planet-chorus.

The song of the Doctor-Donna echoes through millenia and touches trillions of Ood, long after she herself is deafened to it. They never forget.

[farsouthproject]

Dredging up literary memories

Reading The Cantos: Pound’s Poetry and Fascism.

(Written in response to thoughts that my dear twitter friends @magistrabeck and @messy_tony are about to embark on a reading of The Cantos by Ezra Pound.)

In my teens, one of my closest friends, Christopher O’Neill, was a poetic genius. He regularly used to win the yearly Eisteddfod poetry competition, the Chairing of the Bard: a ceremony complete with wooden throne for the bard, a sword half-drawn from its scabbard by two (or four) sixth formers, and the headmaster shouting the question to the audience, ‘A oes heddwch?’ (Is there peace? Meaning: Does everyone go along with this choice?) The answer yelled back by the audience: ‘Heddwch!’ (Peace!) My own efforts at poetry were nowhere near as good as Chris’s. He introduced me to T.S. Eliot. At the centre of Eliot’s work, The Waste Land was a literary beacon. From the dedication to The Waste Land, I found out that Ezra Pound played a major part in hammering the poem into shape: il miglior fabbro – the best ironsmith. I didn’t search out Pound at that point. I didn’t study English Literature for the state A-Level exams. I studied French Literature so, I got obsessed with the poetry of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé; and the prose of Camus.

With Eliot and then Yeats, I’d been deeply affected by their poetry that pointed to an indefinable creative reality connected with the physical but not limited by it. For Eliot, the High Church Anglicanism provided a framework; for Yeats, firstly the Occultism of the Golden Dawn, and always the vision of Blake. The work meant more to me than the poet who fashioned it: poetry originated in a creative source that transcended the personality of the one who wrote it down.

Seeing Allen Ginsberg perform his own and Blake’s poetry live in 1980 inspired me to take my own writing seriously. Tom Pickard performed on the same night at the Roundhouse. His poetry introduced me to Basil Bunting, another poet influenced by Pound. This, perhaps, is when I first took an interest in finding out more about Pound.

I don’t know how I became aware that Pound was anti-Semitic and that he supported Mussolini before and during WWII. That he saw Il Duce and Fascism as a political means to establish a heavenly order on Earth – a cosmology that resonated with him with that of Confucius – or the Renaissance imagination of the ordered Universe from Heaven to Earth to Hell. Pound wasn’t exactly on my must-read list. That knowledge of Pound’s political/social/cosmological ideas did pose another question for me: ‘How can Eliot, Yeats and Pound be considered great poets when they were so obviously anti-Semitic; and in Pound’s case a Fascist?’ And the literary question to be answered was ‘Why do so many poets pay homage to Ezra Pound?’ Without reading his work, how could I know?

In the early eighties, I moved to Italy. While I was in Rome, I visited some close friends, the Symonds family, who were renting a rambling ramshackle house in the wooded grounds of a property on the Via Appia Antica. While discussing writing and the Beats with Gestalt therapist, Barry Symonds, I heard that Allen Ginsberg had visited Ezra Pound in Venice. During that meeting Pound had said, “My worst mistake was the stupid suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism, all along.”

(The declaration profoundly affected Michael Reck, one of the participants at the meeting. Much later, Reck wrote that ‘I myself felt shocked—the light of the truth, as Pound had finally recognized it, being dazzlingly sudden.’)

Does one declaration redeem decades of prejudice? No. But it’s worth acknowledging Pound’s recognition of his stupidity.

I also became aware that, at the end of WWII, Pound had been declared insane and been confined to an asylum, St Elizabeth’s Hospital, in the USA. I wondered whether his Fascism was a symptom of his incipient madness. The courts thought him mentally ill enough that he was found not-guilty of treason for his pro-Fascist Mussolini broadcasts during WWII.

If I was prepared to accept that the poetic work of Yeats and Eliot was truly great, these two other anti-Semites, I couldn’t write off Pound without having read his poetry. After all, despite my lack of study, I had become aware how Pound had influenced the greats of modernist poetry.

My first introduction to Pound was via Selected Cantos. I was captivated by Canto I as the poet ‘set keel to breakers’. Thus began the first explorations of an epic voyage through literature, the Renaissance, Confucianism, history, economics, politics and cosmology.

Moving from Rome, I spent some years in Tuscany where many of the Cantos are set, as Pound moves through wars, patronage, banking (Monte dei Paschi di Siena) and the influence of Dante. The experiences of the Tuscan period of my life were to enrich my later reading of the Cantos in their entirety.

After moving to the United States in 1985, I found an audiocassette of Ezra Pound reading selected cantos. Hearing that voice pulled me into wanting to read the whole work. But I had to wait for a propitious moment when I could focus on reading the entire collection of cantos from cover to cover. I finally got around to reading the Cantos from beginning to end in 1989, just after the San Francisco earthquake. I remember finishing that reading when I moved to San Diego. While writing this post on Pound, his poetry and his politics, and poking around for articles on the poetry/fascism conundrum, I found this quote from Jerome J. McGann in an article entitled The “Cantos” of Ezra Pound, the Truth in Contradiction.

‘Pound’s text speaks a fuller truth than his mind was able to grasp.’

I would hope that this goes for all those great creative works that transcend the personality of the author. This is worth bearing in mind as we navigate through a new period of darkness in the world from which I suspect we will eventually emerge.

[modernmindsaus]

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