Thinking Aloud

Before I meet a new client for the very first time, I remind myself of one most important thing. It is this - that I must shut up and listen - I am there to learn.  Listen not with half an ear and half a mind on what I want to say next - no. Listen wholeheartedly, to the story, to the feelings attached to the story, and to the impact the story has had on the teller.  If I say anything during the telling of the client's story, it might be to ask for clarification, or to check that I have understood something correctly.  It's called 'holding space' and I think that's a really good way of describing what happens.  As a therapist I have nothing invested in the space or in the client's life other than to have been engaged to support them, and I have no wish to guide them towards any particular outcome. If there is any 'expertise' involved, it is the ability to suspend judgement and to keep to myself what I might do in the same situation.  The experti...

The last few weeks have been some of the most distressing and dispiriting periods on social media I've ever experienced.  At the end of May, we learned of the death in the Prescribed Harm Community, of our friend and sister Shelly Johnson, who lived in the southern United States.  Shelly had been experiencing huge distress in her journey of withdrawal from benzodiazepines, and often reached out within the  online community for support. Support that clearly was not forthcoming from elsewhere in her real life.  Of course, what we could offer, particularly from as far away as the UK, was quite inadequate, but little support is better than none, and we did our best within the limits of what was possible.  Shelly's life had become intolerable, that was plain to see - her support from family had dwindled and she felt isolated and alone.  She felt she had been blamed for the predicament she found herself in. But all she had done was take drugs that had been presc...