Some extracts from published articles of mine:-

“In families, in childhood, patterns of abuse and deprivation often, of course, take the form of a secret war that goes on, hidden by masks and unsurpassed acting. But whatever the scale of it, the eternal pervasive dynamics are much the same and there are always casualties…”
Counselling News

“… If I have some surplus energy I might occupy myself with wine-making – an absorbing hobby where however much experience one has there is always the adventure that the results are never precisely predictable. It is not far fetched to say there is an analogy with the counselling process. One has a mix of ingredients, a catalyst is added (the therapist in this case), the whole starts to ferment and change and what is obscure and murky eventually, with luck and judgement, falls star-bright and balanced. Sometimes of course the wine may become ‘stuck’ and fermentation cease for no apparent reason. Then decisions have to be made and hopefully the process can be invested with new vigour”.
Therapy Today

“… We can grow up with this internal negative judge. It inhibits us and is demoralising. We try to avoid doing it wrong but aren’t sure how to do it right. We need to do well but fear doing badly. As my grandmother would have said we are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. It means escaping those constraints of the past, which means facing the fear in a positive and supportive environment and taking it step by step. This can be an adventure. We can find that the judgmental part does not now have to be scary at all, and the deep blue sea is not something we might drown in but something in which we might swim with all the freedom of self-expression”.
Communications

“… It is the remarkable power of these moments to drag and hold that make us suddenly aware of old longings, pangs of guilt… When younger, the past is less intrusive. For one thing, there is less of it. And there are many distractions. As a 24 year old in Paris the present had an intensity and excitement that helped obscure the past anyway. Later in life too, we re-enact those old devices, filling our lives with distractions so as to convince ourselves that the past has been ‘dealt with’, that we have, so to speak, ‘seen it off’. There is of course the ‘adult’ part that strives valiantly to be fully alive in the present, to live in the ‘now’. That, as they say, is the place to be. All we have is the now and the point of power lies there. The prize is the freedom to be ourselves…”
Counselling News