Six questions: Nick Luxmoore

Nick Luxmoore has worked for more than 30 years with young people, whether as counsellor, psychodrama psychotherapist, trainer or teacher. He has authored several books: Listening to Young People in School, Youth Work and Counselling; Working with Anger and Young People; and Feeling Like Crap: young people and the meaning of self-esteem. It might therefore come as a surprise to read below that he also hates young people (don’t jump to conclusions!) and doesn’t always say the right thing.

1. What brought you into this kind of work with young people?

I was a very angry teenager – very anti-authority, very “What’s the point?” I’ve probably been dealing with that stuff ever since! I did English at university because it seemed like the subject most about people, and I became an English teacher in a comprehensive school because that seemed like the best way of getting to what mattered for young people. Then I found that I could get there quicker through Drama, then through PSHE and then by not being a teacher at all. I became a youth worker and started training as a psychotherapist. 

2. When you hear kids referred to as “brats” and adolescents labelled as “feral teens”, what’s your chief thought or concern?

I think that most adults have a powerful relationship with their own adolescence and are reminded of that whenever they think of young people. I also think it’s an under-acknowledged fact that adults – including kind, committed counsellors – hate young people. Of course, they love and care passionately about them as well but they do, in part, hate them. It goes back to the baby loving and hating its mother, who reciprocates those feelings. Young people love and hate their carers, who can’t help reciprocating. I’ve found it immensely liberating to acknowledge my own hatred, to know that there’s a part of me that wants to call young people “brats” or “feral” while knowing that I care about and love them as well.

3. If you could make one decision as prime minister that would enhance children’s mental health, what would it be?

I believe in the capacity of schools to offer young people an experience of themselves and other people that builds confidence and a sense of worth. Counsellors can help a school with that task. So I wish that every school had a proper counselling service, owned by the school and operating holistically – seeing staff and parents as well as students, and involved in all aspects of school life, not just seeing people behind closed doors. It worries me when I hear about peripatetic counselling services, flitting from school to school, or services shrouded in mystery with school staff not allowed to know what’s going on and feeling shut out. As prime minister, I would institute a rigorous new training specifically for school counsellors and I would insist that CBT, by itself, was no qualification for a school counsellor!

4. Without breaking confidentiality, can you share something from your client cases that you’re pleased with?

Two related things happened this week. Firstly, it was The X Factor final on television. I think The X Factor is interesting as a national exploration of whether people are ordinary or extraordinary. Do we have the X factor ourselves and, if we don’t, are we worth anything? Also this week a young person told me that he no longer felt “butterflies” about his girlfriend. He was worried that this might mean he was no longer “in love” with her because what he felt was no longer extraordinary. We talked about real love being ordinary and slow and reliable and clumsy and cumulative and he seemed reassured. I was pleased. 

5. Anything you would “undo” if you had the chance to live your practice again?!

All the stupid things I’ve said and done over the years.

6. A final word?

A plea on behalf of teachers… It annoys me when professionals begin by saying to young people, “I’m not a teacher!” as if to say, “I can be trusted” or “I care about you” or “I can keep things confidential”. Teachers can be trusted. They care. They can keep things as confidential as anyone else. I’m in awe of teachers – of how relentless the job is and of how little thanks teachers get. They also get no clinical supervision, despite working with far more young people than any counsellor and usually in much more difficult circumstances. They should get supervision. Not only would it help them think about their interactions but it would stop them getting so fed up. A disaffected teacher is far more disruptive than a disaffected young person!