My take on it is that counsellors of young people probably flirt at this boundary more often than they realise. And probably without mentioning the words or the difference to the young person.

In some ways, and especially with adults, this could be seen as unethical. But young people couldn’t really care less which paradigm we’re operating under. They just want thing to improve. Some maybe wouldn’t really understand the difference if we explained.

I think we therapists have traditionally dallied at – and temporarily crossed over – the boundary for a number of reasons, two of which are.

1 Our clients do get well, get better, find the own agency again – but want us to see them safely on firm ground before they leave. These last few sessions are really coaching. But it feels like a continuation of the same work. Where did the line change?

2 If a client comes with an anxiety problem, for instance, or a lack of confidence, once we have explored and dealt with any originating trauma, there is still the necessary work to get things moving out in the world again – maybe a series of steps to growing confident again, or to acting despite anxious feelings. This is really more of a coaching scenario.

I’m pondering these things because I have become involved in the Youth Coaching Academy’s project called Coach in Every UK City and am setting up a pilot coaching service in a secondary school on their behalf. My main experience of coaching – despite long hours studying the YCA material, Julie Starr, Dave Ellis, Choice coaching journal et al – is with these twilight scenes with young people. It feels very strange to have to work in a purely coaching modality and to be told to look out for clients that should rightly be referred on to a professional therapist!

For the sake of my coaching accreditation and this project, I will of course adhere to the rules. But heck, I know in my guts where I belong on the continuum. If “consultancy” weren’t such a non-YP word, I would hedge my bets and relabel my practice. As many coaches of adults are doing. Besides, there are excellent youth coaches out there dealing with exactly the same topics that we therapists deal with. They don’t seem to have a problem with  labels!

Time for a big upheaval in the helping professions methinks.

If you’re interested in the YCA, they train adults and young people (that’s the significant bit) to become accredited life coaches for young people. Have a look at the video by Harry Singha on their website. I can certainly recommend their home learning course, but I’m off to Bath at the weekend to finish my accreditation in person. Sort of transitional, then!

And then I found two very short (2-3 min) videos on YouTube that allow the young people (albeit American) to speak for themselves. I didn’t hear guided imagery mentioned once! Just normal, sometimes slightly old-fashioned, activities that they find work for them.

I think this is worth bearing in mind. Or maybe it’s just a foible of mine that I never like to impose that sort of relaxation on anyone!

I’m also realising that I rarely hold the accepted view. Is that simply because it’s what everyone else says? If so, who does that remind you of?!

Anyway, the videos are from the Johnson and Johnson channel.  See what you think.

So when I find myself thinking “oh crumbs”, I resolutely say to myself, “I can deal with this.” A simple affirmation of my ability.

Not that I can always make things better for the client, or that my skills are in the same order as superwoman’s, or that I think it’s down to me to do anything other than prepare and listen and work with what comes up, and maybe challenge or give some new ideas they might want to use. It’s just that this calming phrase stabilises things. It’s become a trigger to pull myself together!

Anyway, this morning, the thought took a life of its own and went something like this:

I can deal with this – I can use my skills and knowledge and understanding and empathy as usual – I can deal with this – I may not be right – I accept with humility that I don’t always, if ever, know exactly what will happen, or what’s going on, but I can deal with it – I deal CARDS! – wow, I’ve already dealt them some cards – I don’t know which cards they’ve received because they’re face down – it’s up to them to decide which game they’ll play with them – sometimes they don’t agree to play the same game – they’re fiercely competitive to prove their hand is the best – or they can play one of those games where you need a strategy partner in order to win – it’s up to them to view the cards they’ve received and work out how to play a winning hand, a winning trick – and if they’re short of something they need, they can take another from the stock I hold.

So yes, I can deal with this today.

May you all deal magically and passionately with your young clients in 2012 and help them towards their futures with confidence.

Er, resolutions, you ask?

Well, I don’t go for them in a major way. But a tiny one is that this blog will be updated every Monday this year. Either a post or some resource content. Of course, resolutions are made to be broken… aren’t they?

The theory goes that there is something anonymising about raising your voices together, which apparently allows angry and rioting urges to come to the fore. I think this is so, but I think there’s more to it than that, and it applies to more of life than football matches.

Chants gain a rhythm and a momentum that is much like that of rock music. Now there’s loads of rock that I like, so no anti-rock diatribe from me here, but it’s definitely not calming. It raises the pulse and probably the blood pressure, and makes it impossible to sit still!

So a chant, too, has a beat and leads to the need for movement and freneticism. Communal incitement – via slogans and anti-authority statements – probably adds a rhythm to public demonstrations, and maybe also contributed to the spread of rioting last summer. It’s like a pervasive beat that lends energy to already angry thoughts.

But the important thing here is to recognise that the opposite is also true. Some music has the reverse effect.  And this is why I play classical music when seeing clients.

It happens like this. The parents wait in one room. The adjacent room has the boom box (aka hi fi) with classical music playing (not booming, though), and the third interconnecting room is my therapy room. In there, we rarely hear the music because the door is shut, whereas the door between the other two rooms is ajar. If the echo of music is heard in my room by chance, it will neither excite nor detract from subconscious processes. However, the music will be heard in all its glory by their parents, and I make no apology for it (beyond telling them it’s a buffer to ensure their child’s privacy). And over the years I’ve had no complaints from them. Fathers tend to fall asleep. Mums tend to work quite happily on their laptops, or read. And many have commented that it’s the most relaxed they’ve been all week. (I imagine they’ve had pop most of the week from their offspring!)

Part of me would like them to subconsciously, or even consciously, take away the message that pop music and chanting has an effect and that they might occasionally try Mozart/Boccherini/Vivaldi/you name it at home! But I’m not here to teach anyone about music, so I don’t. It’s good enough that many schools have become enlightened enough to play classical, calm, soothing music during the day (I wouldn’t recommend Bruckner for the purpose). You see, the less aroused our kids are at school, the better they will learn, and the less likely they are to be sent to us to tame their aggression!

Still here?

Good. You see, I’m going to speak in defense of tarot cards.

There. I’ve said it and the world hasn’t come crashing down.

I’ve not used them in therapy yet, and have no real plans to do so. But I’ve become fascinated by the furore in some circles that surrounds their misuse as fortune-telling, because in fact, on closer examination, their most prevalent use these days is for self-development.

The most amazing thing I found as I investigated (prompted by someone in my family) was that there are thousands of different sets to buy. Here I just want to mention the standard Rider-Waite kind of sets, which have pretty standardised, clear pictures and symbols. These pictures show archetypes that spark ideas as you look at them carefully. Very like looking at a Rorshach blot or using traditional picture cards produced especially for therapists. I’m sure Jung would be fine with tarot.

The theory behind it is, of course, that you only come up with something that was needing to come up anyway. We can only make links that were there in our minds to make. We construe in a personal way.

And that’s why it’s so wrong that Mystic Meg might tell you she sees a death. She shouldn’t be seeing anything except what is on the cards and allowing you to interpret it in your own way. Otherwise she is possibly criminally responsible for what might happen next. And in any case, to take a common example, the Skeleton deosn’t necessarily mean a death. It could just as well make you realise you need to be giving up something that is holding you back. How is that different from a realisation brought up by a one-to-one counselling session in general?

Therefore I see no reason why we should not use these cards with clients if we totally understand them and their proper intention.

So you can now call me a heretic and use the comments space to tell me why I shouldn’t view tarot cards in this way! But my guess is that teenagers would love them, used properly as prompts to thinking and self-awareness. Although what their parents might say if they heard about it is another matter!

If you want to view the many varieties of tarot cards available, go to the aeclectic.net site and browse.

But before you leave here in disgust, do look at these three cards. Just pick one and let it speak to you and wonder about what it might mean for you right now. If nothing comes up, ignore it. If it does: how does this relate to your self-awareness? Your life today?

I loved Violet’s two previous books which were:

1 Windows to our Children

2 Hidden Treasure: a map to the child’s inner self

But it all really came alive for me when I read the book that Peter Mortola, her associate, wrote after watching her work over the years. This book, WindowFrames, is a real eyeopener for all of us, whether we work in the gestalt model of not. Do give it a go.

I heard recently that another book is now out. This one is Relational Brain, Relational Child, edited by Harris and Lee. I’ve ordered a copy because sometimes you can just tell if a book is going to be of real interest. One that’s really going to repay the investment. It’s subtitled: Development and Therapy in Childhood and Adolescence (Evolution of Gestalt). There! That’s a mouthful for a misty afternoon. I’ll add it to the book list if it proves as good as it sounds from the chapter listings.

And some training from Nick Luxmoore

While we’re in educational (or CPD) mode, I want to mention that Nick Luxmoore is running another training day down in Wantage. I went to his last one, so I can vouch for the standard of detail and care (and one particular local guest house!). This training is about working with troubled and  troublesome boys. That’s, er, most of us, then. You can download the flyer here. If you’ve read Nick’s books, you’ll know his style is spot on and often humorous to boot. His experience is, of course, second to none with this teenage group.

The upshot is that these young people’s brains are never switched off from  community/togetherness/need to respond. It’s easy to imagine the damaging effect of this constant input. And I think I see it regularly in my room.

It shows up two ways:

1 An inability to name anything that they do regularly – as in, pursue with diligence.

They have interests, yes, but an ongoing absorbing hobby, no. And a hobby is known to be relaxing. Mostly because it means doing what you have chosen to do, so the stress isn’t there. (Unless your hobby is being a future Olympic athlete, in which case it has gone beyond hobby status anyway.) This portfolio approach to outside interests speaks less to me of a wide-open mind than it does of reflecting the “bit of anything” approach to life that so resembles internet surfing and forum browsing. In other words, frantic activity.

2 Difficulty with relaxing.

They admit they know of some relaxation techniques but then say they never actually practise them. They would relax to music but don’t. They would write poetry or colour a pattern, but don’t. They could do deep breathing, but don’t. Even when everything in them is crying out to stop and take time out. It’s as if they’d be failures if they gave in to the urge. So they continue in their frantic ways.

Obviously, these are generalisations. Because there clearly are kids who pursue ballet or football academy (though not many nowadays who pursue stamp collecting, it seems) and read. Though it’s true that reading for relaxation has fallen off in some young people (usually those who are most damaged psychologically, and for obvious reasons).

And counsellors?

But for the rest of our clients, where does that leave us? Well, I spend quite a bit of time coaching teens in how to honour their bodies by taking time for themselves, and how to do this. Giving permission to just be, with no strings attached and no judgement. I’m sure I wouldn’t have had to tell them twenty years ago! And we try out various ways of doing this. They even enjoy the experiment. But I suspect it needs much practice to become ingrained as a new habit – I fear this whole generation will need to relearn “time for self”. Mental self, mental health.

Which brings me to zentangle (alright, doodle – we even have a 21st-century name for idling around with paper and pencil). But wow – this is something the kids do respond to. They know how to doodle and don’t mind being told it’s good to “tangle” or doodle in time out, that it’s a healthy habit. That it frees the brain into a kind of meditative state, which is probably what is implied by the “zen” in the title, come to think of it. And that this lowers stress levels and gives them and us perspective.

So that’s my tip of the month for you and our clients. You can tell it’s half term, can’t you? Enjoy!

Doodling for relaxation

I want to share three things from my thoughts. Two were included in my speech, and the third arrived later, after meeting with one of the organisers.

Before I share them, I need to say that, in my opinion, the most important way to ensure we are doing therapy with children and young people at our creative best is to stop blindly following textbooks (yes, I know it’s heretical to mention it) and start listening to our inner selves. This is where true and useful creativity stems from.

You can’t plan for this in advance, so you just have to prepare yourself and march into the session with confidence and no baggage.

That’s the overall thought. Stemming from this, here are my three pointers.

1 Connecting dots

The wonderfully inventive Steve Jobs (of Apple computers, who sadly died this week) once said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Jobs obviously did this. And it’s great to agree with him – but in our tick-box culture, it’s so easy to start thinking ‘how will this fit in?’ or ‘how will this look to my supervisor?’. That’s trying to join up forward dots before they happen – which is clearly nonsense. Those children’s dot books have all the dots there, after which you can see the pattern they make. If the dots aren’t there yet, you have to trust in yourself as you start to put dots down.

Inbali Iserles' novel

2 Pillars of tribal cat life

I quoted in my speech some ideas from a book I’d recently read called The Tygrine Cat by Inbali Iserlis. She wrote about the three pillars of tribal cat life: Trust your instinct, Use your judgement, and Protect the spirit of the client.

If we’re thinking in terms of textbook approaches, prepared worksheets or proofs of outcome, then we are not necessarily doing any of those three. Though we might be. But that would be down to luck. The creative therapist will go with these pillars, interpreting them in some way that seems appropriate, confident that the relationship with the client is the most important thing in therapy and needs the most attention.

3 Following our noses

Gareth Williams, who was co-organiser of the conference and is senior therapist at Younger Minds, an offshoot of MIND in North Staffordshire, told me about an elderly friend of his, called Violet, who said: “We must follow our noses and wait a bit.”

How amazingly true, and so hard to do in our fast-paced society, where waiting quietly for anything seems like being asked to stop breathing. “Following our noses” is to do with gut feeling, something natural and instinctual, and “waiting” is to do with an expectation that in due course, if we have laid out the dots or used our judgement, the intended result for the young client will follow. I won’t say “like day follows night’ because that would be so totally unoriginal as to undermine the whole point of this post!

This is run by New Vic Borderlines and Younger Mind (part of Mind) and is called Mind Wide Open. It will be a showcase for their work with young people in the mental health field – and promises to be exciting and multimedia. That means: performances, poetry, music, and audio-visual diaries.

But one bit won’t be so multimedia, because that involves me delivering the keynote speech and I only know how to say words into a microphone – but there you go, we can’t all be theatrical and technical! And I certainly won’t be using PowerPoint (don’t start me on about PP presentations!).

Anyway, I’d be delighted to see you there and I’m pretty certain we shall all be amazed at the contributions from users of the Younger Mind service and the theatre company itself. They do some fabulous work with young people.

Further details are available from Adhia Mahmood on 01782 381368 or email to amahmood@newvictheatre.org.uk

You can download the flyer from here.

The row stemmed from the Publishers Weekly blog Genreville, which printed an article by two authors claiming that an agent had rejected their YA (young adult) book because they wouldn’t make a gay character straight or else leave him out.

It then ensued that the agency in question said they had been totally misrepresented and that the quality of the book had been the cause of them not agreeing to agent the pair. According their own post, they had wanted a point of view changed, not the elimination of the character – and other simple points of editorial preference that I won’t bore you with.

A serious discussion ensued, both before and after the clarifying piece. Some of this happened in the SCBWI-BI private forums (that’s the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators – British Isles), but the Guardian has also picked up on it.

Because actually, it is a very serious thing that in the States there are umpteen books dealing with gay issues and in the British Isles you’d need a magnifying glass to find even one for young adults. The only one that springs to mind is Boys Don’t Cry by Malorie Blackman, where the main character’s young brother is gay and suffers for it. Black characters are mainstream now, but gay ones in British fiction? A tad invisible at present. And gay parents? Well, there perhaps are a couple with these, I can’t quite remember.

A US gay novel for young teens

I just enjoyed a US offering, The Geography Club by Brent Hartinger. There’s no reason why we can’t produce a similar book. It’s gentle, sensitive and rounded. What’s to complain at?

But the link to counselling is this: these teens have no authors and no characters against which to mirror themselves, to investigate their identity safely or to feel they’re acceptable in the world. (And before you point it out, most have no idea Dumbledore was gay.) Without such a model, we will continue to see young people in our therapy rooms who struggle to know if they are mad, bad or simply gay.

Diversity in publishing is a very real pre-requisite to good mental health. I happen to be writing a book with a main character seeking her sexual identity, fearing she’s in fact lesbian – although that is not the actual plot of course. The plot only stems from her search and is influenced by it. But before my novel is finished and gets a chance at publication, maybe we should be making noises about the need for such books.