The trouble with Fish!

In 1998, Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen, two filmmakers and a motivational speaker published a book, Fish!, based on a film that they had made about the fish sellers in Seattle’s “Pike Place Fish Market”. It is a… Continue reading

Congruence

Trstenik, Croatia

One of Carl Roger’s three [most] core conditions is ‘congruence’. I’ve come across quite a few people using this term in ways that don’t really seem quite right, and have been trying to understand why and to think of ways… Continue reading

Congruence

Some people think that this means being very transparent to our clients… In other words, if we are having a ‘bad hair day’ we shouldn’t pretend otherwise to our clients.  It is true that we don’t put on a mask… Continue reading

Power dynamics in coaching, counselling, supervision, management, and teaching…

The relationship between counsellors and their clients, supervisors and their supervisees, tutors and their students, and managers and their ‘team’, are all determined by the projections of one onto the other and how the other responds. What’s important (in my… Continue reading

What’s the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of off-loading, but it doesn’t really help the client move forward in their life – “the bigger picture”. There’s an ongoing debate among counsellors and psychotherapists about the difference between the two. There isn’t… Continue reading

Gender Expansive Pronouns

“My personal pronouns: ‘he, him and his’” Earlier this year, the Association of Colleges, the representative body of the FE sector, publically endorsed this approach. Their argument is that this serves several purposes; It allows individuals whose name and/or identity… Continue reading

Eclectic, Integrative, and Pluralistic approaches to psychotherapy…

Integrative psychotherapy, when the term is used properly, relates to an approach that tries to support the client while they “integrate” their body, mind, spirit, and emotions.  There are a number of organisations that train therapists to work in this… Continue reading

The difference between supervising internal coaches compared to external ones

As coaching has become more mainstream as a means of developing managers throughout organisations, rather than being the preserve of the aspiring high achievers, so too have many firms begun to deploy internal coaches rather than relying on external providers.… Continue reading

Oh, dear… “What is your modality?”

Life is not a straight line.  Perish the thought that we should discover its meaning when we are 21 and have nothing more to learn or subsequently re-frame our perspective.  Some therapists eschew the term ‘eclectic’ and I don’t really like to… Continue reading