In a nutshell, what is Emotion-Focused Therapy?
It's an exploratory process which views the empathic relationship and, more specifically, empathic attunement to affect, as being most important. People experience painful emotions and these are seen as...
One of the first therapists who practised single-session therapy (SST) was Sigmund Freud. It is reported that the pioneer of long-term psychoanalysis carried out two well-known single-session treatments with Aurelia Öhm-Kronich (“Katharina”) in 1893 (Freud & Breuer, 1895...
After reading Terry Birchmore’s letter (July 2018) in reply to the question presented by Hugo Maximillian...
I am an assistant psychologist working for an organisation that specialises in the support of families with children who have experienced developmental trauma and attachment difficulties. Since taking this role, my professional ability has made great developments. However, I...
I met Emmy at her house in the outskirts of Sheffield. Our conversation covered therapy, politics, and her art [see also this month's special feature].
Do you think we’ve lost academic debate?
Certainly in the media. When I think back to 30 or 40...
I was interested to read the letter from Hugo Maximillian Metcalfe in the April issue of The Psychologist. He raises an interesting question: Why do we think that the standard...
For some time now our healthcare system has been struggling ‘to cope with the demands of acute care, let alone the needs of those with long term health conditions,’ (Barlow et al., 2002). As this struggle has intensified, the phrase ‘self-management’ has proliferated,...
Therapy is both art and science. We draw upon research as we practise naturally, but our craft is not so clear cut and limited as to be simply such-and-such an intervention to this degree and in that way. Humans are too messy. There are deeper waters in the human mind and...
In a May 2016 piece ‘Are we punching our weight?’, The Psychologist journalist Ella Rhodes noted that ‘an evidence-based approach to human behaviour is central to mental health,...
Before the start of a recent co-therapy session with my supervisor, she asked that I come with her to the room we had booked to ‘make sure it was OK’.
We entered and, as I have done myself countless times before, we arranged the furniture. Moving surplus chairs to the...