The art of expression

Last Friday, as part of my birth ”day”* celebrations, I was treated to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. Set in the ‘brutalist’ exemplar of the Southbank Centre, the contrasting ‘gem’ of a music venue was the ideal setting to see a concert that carries much value…and the performer, “Sleeping at Last”, has come …

The art of disclosure

I am appreciating the turn of focus back upon my core, therapeutic training in the humanistic tradition that my second book is inviting. I have a general thirst for understanding psyche, and as a result my reading is spread wide across disciplines; this breadth not only helps my practice, it helps my teaching – especially …

Relishing the challenge

Back from France, and more than content with the week: the creative and self-care intentions accomplished. When I arrived in Normandy, I pondered what a “good week” would look like for book number 2. I set the intention to know my rationale for this book, including who it was for and why it would be useful …

The next chapter

Easter, and Spring more generally, is a time of renewal and beginnings. As I sit here in my beloved Normandy overlooking the crabapple and magnolia blossom, I see life coming back to life. Five years ago, pretty much to the day, I drafted a table of contents for my first book; a year ago, pretty …

You’ve got a friend

This past week, I have been spending some time gathering my thoughts and resources ahead of a writing retreat over the Easter break. I have been working on a research project since last autumn, and having now analysed the interview data, I am ready to start preparing the research article…or so I thought. I had …

You’ve got to have faith

…and grace will follow; or so that is what I have been reflecting on in recent months. “Faith and Grace, Helen…I thought you were a Buddhist?” Yes, these are two words one might associate more commonly with the Christian, and indeed other theistic, traditions. And so why am I pondering on them this week? Well, …

Writing down the myth

In the last two weeks of this term’s enneagram for therapists group I have been facilitating, we are turning toward the “path quality” that the enneagram offers. What makes the enneagram so much more than a personality typing system is how it points to both our blocks to wholeness, and how to lever back into …

Nine gateways to contact

As well as my love for facilitating group work, one of my motivations for setting up and running a personal and professional development group for therapists was to deepen my exploration into the enneagram. I have been using this mapping of the “all what it is to be human”…self, soul, spirit… in my personal life …

Re-search, me-search

Back from retreat, and with a momentary detour into the activities of marking and exam boards, back into retreat….of sorts. A research retreat: a chance to indwell in the data I have collected at the back end of 2023. I interviewed five humanistic therapists who had undergone the training journey of counselling then onto psychotherapy …