Author: Stephen

Stephen is a Psychotherapist, Yoga Instructor and Artist, and practices using Existential Analysis and Integrative Psychotherapy employing a variety of creative methods designed to help people overcome their internal and external obstacles towards a free-er, more fulfilling way of living. He views mental disturbance and distress, not as illness, personal defect or failing, but as features of the spectrum of human nature responding to the world's influences. He offers individual, couples, family and group therapy, face-to-face and by Skype, with supplementary Email and Telephone support. Work can incorporate yoga and meditation, art media, writing, monodrama, body awareness development as methods of exploring experiences and personal meaning in engaging and non-threatening ways that respect the patient's worldview.

Protected: Oppression: the origin of much suffering

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Protected: Consciousness: clarity, purpose, direction

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Protected: From Hole to Whole: suffering and addiction

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Protected: Relationship Imbalances and the Co-dependency See-Saw

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Protected: Standing Down: transforming insecurity, anger and vulnerability

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Protected: How to Forge Your Own Sword: from fear to courage

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Protected: The Risks of Playing Nice: reconnecting with our innate power

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Protected: Child Work Part 1: Home is Where the Heart Is

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Protected: Child Work Part 2: The Missing Piece and re-integration of the psyche

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Protected: On The Edge: ‘the Crowd Conscience’ and the Individual

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Protected: Changes in the Weather: Stability, Power, Response

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Protected: The Talking Trap

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Abuse and Crisis Helplines

Psychotherapy can be an effective means of addressing the aftermath of abuse and all forms of interpersonal mistreatment and can help us develop the life skills necessary for protecting ourselves and meeting our needs in all kinds of relationships. However, it isn’t intended to be used for crisis intervention. The following is a list of…

Protected: The Abuse Cycle: Seeking Justice

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 10: faith and self-belief

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Protected: Have You Ever Been Seen? Part 2: Anxiety, Nothingness and the Existential Survival Kit

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Protected: Have You Ever Been Seen? Part 1: Anxiety, Nothingness and Surviving the First Lie

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 9: your fork in the road

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Awakenings: a patient’s account of toxic parenting Part 2

As children, we do not have a developed sense of self; an ability to discern our being treated badly from our being bad; interpersonal boundaries that can protect us; a physique that can defend us from harm, or a developed sense of morality. In such a state of genuine vulnerability we are then open to…

Stigma: a patient’s account of toxic parenting

Toxic parenting is the term I use to describe a broad range of poor parenting, childcare, school and community practices that impact upon children in ways that are detrimental to their long-term mental and emotional wellbeing. This is not to suggest that coddling children is a solution either, as per the millennial trend of ‘child…

Protected: My Space: reclaiming and protecting my psyche, body, and world

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This Cold Hollow: children born to parents who don’t want them

How did I know that you had left me before I knew the words for empty, lost, bereft? Before my birth scar? Before I witnessed the guillotine of your contempt? Before I could control my bowel, or tie my shoe, or awakened trembling in the night. Before you scoffed at me as I learned to…

Using The Resources Section

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~Aristotle This resource section contains a collection of articles designed primarily as password-protected psycho-educational material for use exclusively by my patients who currently attend sessions weekly. It also contains some open-access pages, some of which may help people who are looking into personal development or psychotherapy work…

Protected: Psychotherapy: going beneath the surface

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Protected: Darkness Travels: how we allow ourselves to be shaped by others

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Protected: The Vulnerable Self

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Object Relations: Self and Other

Cameos, written in irony, illustrating how human beings routinely and habitually relate to Self and Other as objects.

Protected: The Trauma of Betrayal

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Protected: Relationship Skills Part 2: equal investment

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Psychotherapy Support During the COVID-19 ‘Lockdown’

The government response to the Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in severe restrictions on the citizen’s rights to freely move and travel. In the UK we have been told by government not to leave our homes unless absolutely necessary, leaving millions of people disconnected from friends, family, employment, and support services they would normally…

Protected: The Reduction of Being: relating to others as objects

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Protected: Reactive Abuse: kicking the dog

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Protected: Internal Obstacles: conflict and introjects

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Protected: Present Awareness

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Protected: Grounding and Affirmation Guided Practice

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Protected: Emotions: understanding and expressing their purpose

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Protected: Holding Fast: the Lighthouse Plan

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Protected: Destructive Envy and the Hungry Family

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Protected: Boundaries Part 3: information sheets

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Affirmation

Existential Affirmation Affirmations are statements of a supportive or motivational nature created as a form of autosuggestion by Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie (26 February 1857 – 2 July 1926), a French psychologist and pharmacist. Repeating affirmations throughout the day can be a means of redirecting and changing our thoughts, steering our mind and beliefs…

Mindset: Entitlement, Empowerment and Cooperation

Three discreet, contrasting mindsets evident within psychotherapy and society are entitlement, empowerment and cooperation. Taking a compassionate, non-judgmental approach, it is worth clarifying each of these mindsets and their implicit values and their relevance to psychotherapy work in the interests of helping patients appreciate and enhance their contribution to the therapeutic relationship with the overall…

Protected: Shame

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Protected: Existential Awareness: a thread of despair

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Protected: Worry is the Beginning, Not the End

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We Are Affected by the World

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.” ―…

Protected: Relationship Skills in Black and White

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 6: Responsibility

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Protected: Existential Void: beyond an empty belly

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 8: when no-one’s looking

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Protected: Depression Part 6: The Narrowing Way

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Mindset: Ambivalence in Psychotherapy

ambivalence 1. simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action 2. a. continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite) b.uncertainty as to which approach to follow Merriam-Webster Ambivalence as an Asset Ambivalence – the urge to go in two directions at once; to…

Protected: The Labels We Use on Self and Other

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Psychiatric Diagnosis Part 2: help or hinderance?

Some things to consider before being assessed for a psychiatric diagnosis or treatment

Protected: Boundaries Part 2: your values and rules of engagement

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 7: living an authentic lifestyle

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 5: genuine relationship

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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 4: being and becoming

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Protected: Boundaries Part 1: keeping out the poison

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Protected: Splitting: the world and others in black and white

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Protected: When the Past is Present

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Protected: The Traumatised Psyche

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A Poverty of Help: inadequacies of support to vulnerable persons in the UK healthcare system

This is the start of a collection of experiences of government-funded mental health service and medical service encounters conveyed to me by patients over the years. I will add more in time. Because of their prevalence, I thought I would start putting some of them together as an illustration of some of the bad practices…

Psychiatric Diagnosis Part 1: a guide and caution for the weary

This post seeks to give an overview of how upsetting or distressing human experiences can be viewed and categorised as illness, disease, defect, disorder or dysfunction requiring the special expertise of specific treatments, therapies, interventions and pharmaceuticals for effective ‘cure’. It is not my intention to devalue the choices exercised by patients who elect this…

Protected: Existential Crisis

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Protected: Keeping a Therapy Journal or Notebook

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Protected: The Outsider Part 4: the scapegoat, and surviving the dysfunctional group

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Mental Distress and Suicide

Statistically, suicide is the highest cause of death in men between age 20 and 49. This is not to diminish the female suicide rate, merely to present statistics. And the suicide statistics are shocking, with greater numbers of men taking their own lives than are killed in road accidents, or by cancer and coronary heart…

Authority Part 1: Common Sense and Freedom

How subservience to toxic authority erodes individual freedom, power and authenticity.

Protected: The Outsider Part 3: whistleblowers, and surviving the inauthentic culture

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Protected: Anger, Aggression and Passive-Aggression

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Considering Starting Psychotherapy or Counselling?

“Everything depends on inner change; when this has taken place, then, and only then does the world change.” Martin Buber Facts Here are some brief facts about Psychotherapy and Counselling: You don’t need to have anything ‘wrong’ with you to benefit from psychotherapy A psychiatric diagnosis is not required to understand, work with or overcome…

Mental Health Feedback: help me help you

In a continual effort to expand my understanding of the needs of people who need help, I wanted to invite you to tell me something about your experiences of seeking help or being helped. Your comments are valuable in developing my own psychotherapy and personal development practice and understanding as a person, and if you…

Protected: Depression Part 5: Listening to Elvis

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Dissociative Identity Disorder

Still Like A House Fractured? No, curiously I feel fractured but I see myself in the mirror and I’m whole, standing still like a house. The mirror may be fractured, but my eyes still swivel like windows in this head, guided by a nose that acts as a weather vane. I open and close my…

Protected: Spirituality II: Developing an Existential Practice

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Ways of passing the time

Indifference Here I am and there you are. And there’s the clock on the wall. I pretend I don’t want anything from you. You pretend you don’t want anything from me. Our pretending binds us like a form of artificial intimacy. And keeps us hungry, a million miles apart. Conversation I pretend I’m listening to…

Recovering your self in 7 days

Hollowday There’s a hollow in me; an absence. Like a piece of furniture missing from a room I haven’t been in for years. I enter knowing something’s changed and I can’t say what. There’s just the feeling. Hollow. Dumbday I feel dirty on the inside. I scrub the outside; wet hair, towel and soap, and…

Protected: Spirituality I: An Existential Perspective

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PTSD, cPTSD, and Dissociative Experiences

I wanted to write something about the relationship some of us have to traumatic experiences from our past. It seems important that I write this from an intuitive, non-technical place. For me, this is because intution – as opposed to fear – is what we need to develop regarding our power to manage our way…

On choosing a psychotherapist

When choosing the right psychotherapist it’s important to remember some basic facts about psychotherapy if you want it to work for you: Psychotherapy is founded upon a trustworthy, secure relationship. The best evidence from the longest-term study supporting psychotherapy’s effectiveness in helping people make changes in their lives says that the quality of the therapeutic…

Protected: Depression Part 4: downhill or uphill?

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Protected: Depression Part 3: ‘bad’ feelings, alcohol and substance misuse

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Protected: Depression Part 2: a well-worn path

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Depression Part 1: Causes, anti-depressants, and two simple steps on your road to recovery

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one…

Protected: The Outsider Part 2: living off-label

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CBT: a low-cost ‘cure’ for psychiatric ‘Illness’?

“The fact remains that the construct of psychiatric diagnosis and the construct of a psychological model aligning itself to it are both divorced from the actual, more complex and individuated realities of the particular patient and the individual practitioner. The technocratic relationship of the first denies the non-mechanistic, much more complex organic nature of the…

Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 3: the healing power of truth

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Protected: Self-Esteem: Social Worth v Existential Value

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Protected: Suffer the Little Children: neglect, abuse and its legacy for survivors

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Healing Minds: what works for you?

Often we are so socialised into looking to ‘professionals’ for their expertise that we forget that, prior to the boom in professions, we did a pretty good job of taking care of ourselves and one another. Family, neighbours, community, aunts and uncles, grandparents: all of these community bonds have been eroded by massive shifts in…

Change Your World: Self-healing and Loving Kindness

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau My strong personal belief is that it is in human nature to take care of other living things as a feature of our conscience. Sadly, many people are out of touch with this facility in themselves. I think if our culture retained the…

Protected: Existential Analysis: how I work with you

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Protected: Narcissistic Abuse Part 2: from darkness to light

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Narcissistic Abuse Part 1: heart of darkness

This post is not intended as a guide for diagnosing or labelling individuals, but instead highlights the detrimental effects narcissistic individuals (including sociopathic, psychopathic and other exploitative personalities) can have upon us. Being able to recognise some of these effects can help us protect ourselves and seek effective help in recovering from the toxic relationships…

The Outsider Part 1: clarifying our place in society

“You were born an original, don’t die a copy.” -John Mason If there’s one area of my work that I have a special interest in it’s working with people who feel like they don’t fit in or who find themselves rejected by or rejecting of the group. I wanted to start writing a series of…

Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 2: a good or bad idea?

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