Anarchistic Democracy

I recently watched a BBC4 Storyville documentary by Carne Ross called “The Accidental Anarchist: Life without Government” (23/07/17). I’m very grateful, the film “blew my mind” as the saying goes. It blew open the doors to seeing that maybe globally we are on the verge of a transition from old fashioned ‘hierarchical democracy’ with its… Read More

Does God Exist?

This question that has been with me for many years, and has again come into renewed focus, it is, does God exists? It may sound trite and as old as the hills, but it goes straight to the heart of so much of our philosophy and approach to living, and the orientation that therapists take.… Read More

Our need for Philosophy

There was a lovely article today (9th Jan 17) in the Guardian arguing for philosophy to be taught in schools. It is from the point of view of enabling and teaching the young to think in preparation for a working life that will increasingly need flexibility, due to many factors including the computerisation of so… Read More

What a Year!

Syria, the migrant crisis, France’s terror attacks, Brexit, Turkey, Trump, Italy, Aleppo, all against the background of our climate’s inexorable warming and the increase in inequality in many parts of the world, makes for quite a year. The later seems to be partly emanating from the nature of capitalism and how the wealthy have benefited… Read More

US Election

So, why did so many white working class men vote for Trump? Why did so many women vote for Trump? To me this is same question as why so of those who suffered the deprivation and abuse go onto perpetrate it. It is the same reason that those who have been treated harshly and in… Read More

Therapy for Weight Loss

Yesterday (13th October) the BBC’s “You & Yours” Radio 4 program had a section on the success of therapy for those wanting to lose weight. It was a clear endorsement of therapy’s effectiveness in the long term, which is the “gold standard” for Weight Loss methods. All other methods have incredibly high long term failure… Read More

Dangers of mindless Mindfulness

The Guardian recently published an article called “Mindfulness therapy comes at a high price for some” about how for some people, their training in mindfulness caused them to suffer real difficulties

More on “The Reality of Being”

Jean De Salzmann’s “The Reality of Being” It is the work of therapy that resolves many of our emotional, and thereby intellectual as well as physical, ‘tensions’. The work of therapy is all about making our suffering conscious. The trauma (pain, distress, fear etc.) we have buried is supported to be faced and accepted and… Read More

‘Problems’ really are opportunities

Because we have consciousness, and therefore choice, we are blessed (or cursed) to be inescapably tied to a developmental destiny, which is towards enlightenment, towards finding our reconciliation with death and therefore life. If we can find our way to participate consciously in this process of life, then every “difficulty” or “problem” becomes a real… Read More

The heart of Christmas

It is the season where we celebrate the birth of Christ, the birth of love. We are invited to open our hearts to the transcendent love that Christ brought. Such love brings meaning, it is meaning. However, we also need to find meaning in our lives even when we are out of touch with the… Read More

Choice – the heart of our creativity

It may seem obvious that choice is at the heart of creativity, after all, our creativity is about our originality, our uniqueness, our ability to make something new and different. But what interests me just now, is how extraordinary this process is.

Therapy anthems

Hi I couldn’t resist posting the links to these two songs which could be taken as therapy anthems. Hope you enjoy them!

Reflections on the Gurdjieff Work

I have just had a chance to catch up on a wonderful new book on the Gurdjieff work by Jeanne De Salzmann called “The Reality of Being” (2010). She talks a lot about two modes of being, that of our personal reactive, driven selves and that which is connected to a more “objective” consciousness with… Read More

Separating myself from myself

Gurdjieff made it clear that our first steps towards freedom require us to “remember ourselves” and in doing so “separate ourselves from ourselves”(1973). As I understand it, this means in today’s language to dis-identify with the reactive places we are caught in.

Education … again!

Just read about a pupil who hanged himself in his School grounds. Such pain!

Change, Politics and Development

In our post-modern age the idea of development and maturity are treated with great distrust. This is understandable, we had centuries of religions, power and money in the form of aristocracy and then the intellectual male dominated enlightenment establishment, all telling us what we should do, and how we should be.

Is Trauma Inevitable?

As we develop from embryos through to adulthood is some sort of ‘trauma’ inevitable? There seem to be some people out there who live a charmed, creative and content life, not many perhaps, but there is obviously a scale of trauma that people live with,

About Education

Having had yet another conversation with teachers about the state of education, schools and teaching in this country, I thought I’d try and clarify my thinking around the issues.

Knowing the Truth

I’ve just read a chapter in Robert Masters’ “Divine Dynamite” about Truth and it enabled me to put two and two together about the relationship between truth and being.

Problems of solution focused approaches

There is always a great attraction to the ‘magic cure’, to that one thing that will make our lives better, we so much want to believe that a solution is just there and relatively easy.