Let’s talk about it …
At the heart of therapy is a fundamental belief that positive change is more likely to occur when we bring our thoughts, beliefs and feelings out into the open. Sharing with someone who seeks to understand, offers us respect and sometimes challenge, enables us to process our experience, formulate, heal, grow and move on. It is usually more beneficial to bring things out into the open than for them to remain festering away, buried deep.
In recent years, I have also come to believe that positive societal change would be more likely under similar conditions. Sharing our opinions and experiences in a respectful climate, opening ourselves up to challenge, enabling us to ask questions to hone our understanding, re-formulate or develop our views. Yet what I actually see is people being shouted down, verbally abused, denigrated, ad hominem attacks, losing jobs or friends - a lack of tolerance and respect, and little desire to seek to understand the “other”. I know that there are many, many more who fear being open lest they should encounter the same fate.
My own anxiety and fear of speaking out has silenced me. Writing, speaking, being open and congruent are important to me. This authenticity was the outcome of my own tranformative therapy, addressing decades of anxiety in which I existed somewhat in a twilight world hiding in corners and shadows - thinking my views unworthy to be heard, myself as “less than”. To my annoyance, I have allowed myself to be sucked back into the shadows - and quite frankly I am pissed off with myself!
I increasingly feel at odds, out of step, with colleagues, and a seemingly singular narrative espoused by my profession and others. This narrative often does not seem to reflect the experiences of the majority of men, women and children with whom I work, and the “science” increasingly seems to have been discarded in favour of preferred ideological dogma.
Keeping my mouth shut, suppressing my views, is no longer tolerable. Now is the time to re-find my voice; no more self censorship. I trust I will, as I always try to, remain respectful; I hope my views are received similarly. Whatever the outcome remaining silent is no longer an option for me - let’s talk about it …
Who am I?
I’m a psychologist, a counselling psychologist, a “reflexive scientist practitioner.” I am also a daughter, sister, mum, granny, sometime van dweller, former teacher, proud Welsh woman, lover of the colour purple, anxious cyclist, resigned singleton, living with vulval cancer.
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I hope to write about what interests me and what is important to me, personally and professionally - not just because I find it helpful and enjoyable, but I have been told by others that they find it helpful too.
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