NEWSLETTER
2009 Articles
Newsletter No. 45 September 2009
This Edition: Beyond Words
PACAWA News Team
Editor: Susanna Howlett
Editorial Committee: Gill Falconer, Rosealeen Tamaki, Susanna Howlett
Artwork/Production: Mandy Becker Knox
Thank you to Artproof Printers and Coral Pearce for assisting with distribution.
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My recent retraining in Hakomi psychotherapy, which is saturated with mindfulness practice and works interiorly within mindfulness as a method of assisted self study, led me to relate mindfulness to the established methods of psychotherapy which develop the observing self in therapists and clients. Although not as specifically mapped as Buddhist mindfulness practice, so many forms of psychotherapy follow a similar route to self awareness: the awareness/centering methods of gestalt therapy, the ‘free floating attention’ of reverie in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the ‘participant-observer ‘ in psychodrama, ‘active imagination’ in Jungian analysis, the mindfulness-based stress reduction methods in cognitive behaviour therapy and the no-self connection with narrative understandings of storied self. All are working in the realm of studying the phenomena of consciousness and behaviour. All are developing the capacity to pay attention to the inner world of responses as they happen in the moment for the purpose of transforming interpersonal habits, reactivity and sense of self in relationship. My contribution to this edition exploring silence in the counselling session and mindfulness/ meditation as an adjunct to psychotherapy, is to recommend a do-it-yourself book which may work for people who are self reliant in character, reluctant to enter a psychotherapy/ counselling relationship or who are wary of spiritual guides: Mindfulness in Plain English. (2002) by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Boston: Wisdom Publications. After years of exploring various teachers, groups and forms of meditation and finding them not suiting, my dear husband read this book, ‘got it’, uses a suggested mindfulness method from it and now enjoys regular benefit from daily practice. (Maybe there is a future newsletter article here - Partners of Therapists?) This book distils the essential elements of mindfulness practice in detail distinct from the rituals and Asian cultural context in which Buddhism emerged. At the same time the book honours and illuminates the tradition from which it came. Regular stillness practice, breathing with awareness, is recommended for every therapist - to become an observer of your own experience and maintain this observing self when you work. Such attention can be in one’s life as a regular practice, in the deep listening with clients, between sessions as a clearing space in readiness for the next client, or as the interior supervisory space contemplating the client or session that stays in the mind calling for further attention. In the practice of ‘second attention’, of looking deeply into things, wisdom arises. Although stepping down from the editorship I look forward to continuing to write on occasion for future newsletters. It has been affirming to receive so many responses to the recent request for feedback as to electronic format or hard copy. There is a clear mandate for hard copy. May the next editor be encouraged to step forward. Susanna Howlett
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Silence, reflection, meditation, mindfulness, stillness: No Words. A suitable topic for this edition, my final as editor – from one who by nature launches into words overly much (sure to send a meeting off on a side track) and loves dialogue as the food of life!
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What’s happening when words are not enough? |
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After about 10 minutes I offered assurance I felt very comfortable to sit and say nothing, that I didn’t need to say anything, I was comfortable simply being with her. We sat in silence for the next two hours. No words being said, just being in each other’s presence. So where did that come from? What happened in that session hadn’t appeared in any of the text books I’d read. In fact, the documented history of this client would most likely have discouraged this style of therapeutic approach. Janny was in foster care with a long history of foster placement breakdowns, recently home from an extended stay in an adolescent psychiatric unit, recovering from a daily cocktail of anti-psychotic medication, and so her history went on. Too much to mention here. Janny became a valued teacher helping me understand silence and its therapeutic value. Some months after our weekly sessions began Janny revisited that first session and told me “You were the first person to let me hurt. Everyone else needed to manage me.” If only I’d known that’s what I was doing!! Today Western civilization has become communication drenched. Mobile phones, skype, internet, appliances that speak to us – we’ve got it all. Or so it seems. Except for the distinction between communicating and connecting. In therapy, the value of having the space, and time, to sit in silence and connect with each other, to feel the resonance between self and other, cannot be underestimated. Those moments of authentic meeting, moments when nothing is being said, but each person has a chance to simply experience the other’s presence, give us a privileged opportunity. In the ‘space between’ (what as a novice therapist I used to call the ‘X factor’) much needed time becomes available - to process input both from the outer world (therapist dialogue) and from the client’s inner world. Giving time to processing input allows something new to come forward rather than language directing attention along familiar problem-focused pathways; dialogue that can sometimes divert attention away from the ‘central essence of connection with ourselves’ (Bradway, Chambers & Chiaia, 2005, p.40). Providing the space for authentic moments of meeting, reflecting, connecting brings forward moments of clarity when the client or therapist makes an unintended ‘surprising’ contribution to the process. Despite what sounds paradoxical, creativity happens in stillness, not in action. Waiting in stillness for those moments of surprise, moments of creative emptiness can seem very strange and alien to the client – especially if they have used words to avoid acknowledging and expressing the inexpressible. Therapists too can feel uncomfortable with silence – sometimes thinking that words are our passport to success, the most valued currency of our trade. When we can step aside and allow times of complete presence and attention, being a silent witness becomes a ‘powerful agent of cure’ (Cozolino, 2004, p.20). Questioning and reflecting on our own level of comfort with silence and stillness is crucial. ‘Meeting another human being in the space allows for a deeper meeting or for something different to happen’ (Bradway, Chambers & Chiaia, 2005, p.31). We come to understand how presence and giving time to developing resonance influences the interactions between participants in the therapeutic encounter. Silence as a therapeutic intervention certainly has something going for it. Over a decade ago my young client helped me begin the exploration of what happens in those moments when nothing is being said. Our encounter gave me cause to reflect on my own relationship with silence and the work of tolerating silence and stillness. Grof (1998) has continually referred to an inner healing mechanism – or wisdom – within the human psyche. He encourages therapists to develop an ability to tap into, trust the existence of, and work actively with the healing direction demonstrated by clients’ inner wisdom. Using all our ways of knowing – our training, our mind, body, heart (and, dare I say – informed intuition or instinctual knowing) - creates effective interactions in therapy. Including times of silence, sitting in the space between without words provides therapeutic encounters with simple, perhaps mysterious, but powerful opportunities for surprise and change. Helen Wilson Helen Wilson has been in practice as a psychotherapist, counsellor and supervisor for the past 18 years. Stepping outside ‘mainstream’ for several years in the early nineties, she studied Transpersonal Psychology, Sandplay Therapy, and Expressive Therapies, dabbled in Tai Chi and occasional ‘visits’ to the world of Dervish Whirling, tried her hand at painting as a hobby and explored depth psychotherapy. She specialises in expressive arts-based therapy, with a focus on client-directed outcomes. Helen is a part-time lecturer at University of Notre Dame in Fremantle and also conducts a small private practice working with individuals, couples, families and providing professional supervision. References Bradway, K., Chambers, L., & Chiaia, M. E. (2005) Sandplay in three voices: Images, relationships, the numinous. USA: Brunner-Routledge.
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She sat as though pinned to the floor of my therapy room: pressed up tight against the glass doors, both hands glued to her face, fingers spread slightly apart to allow a reasonable view of the room and me, the therapist. Thirteen years old, Janny had already lived through more than most adults. I asked the usual questions to open our dialogue. Questions were met with a silent shrug, a shaking of her head from side to side, hands never moving from their role as guardians of her gaze.
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There are now thousands of encouraging scientific studies on the benefits of meditation. In 2007 however, the University of Alberta in Canada published a 210-page meta-analysis of the literature. It concluded that nearly all the studies were too flawed to be of any scientific value due to poor design, researcher bias, low numbers, no double-blinds or control groups etc. It also complained that the studies rarely attempted to define what meditation was or to present any explanatory theory of how it could produce a particular effect. In this article, I’ll particularly address those two issues. Meditation is easy to describe, despite the diversity of techniques. In my experience, I find that the vast majority of meditators typically do a ‘sitting’ (or ‘lying’) meditation of 15-25 minutes. In this time, their bodies relax (through inactivity, if nothing else); they calm their minds by focusing on something - the breath, the body, a mantra etc. and they gradually detach themselves from the inevitable mental distractions. These are the three key skills that define meditation: relaxation, focus and what we can loosely call ‘awareness’ or ‘mindfulness’. Meditators rarely think much about what they are doing. They learn through repetition, via what is called ‘procedural’ rather than ‘semantic’ memory. They gradually recognise the feeling of doing it well and how to induce it. It is more like learning to ride a bicycle than learning facts. Furthermore, I’ve observed that even people who love meditation rarely practice it for more than a couple of hours a week. Since we know that skill acquisition is directly related to the amount of training, this suggests two things. Firstly, that even this modest effort produces worthwhile results, if falling well short of excellence. Secondly, that although meditation is often described in hyperbolic language (pure consciousness, transcendence, God-realisation, etc.), the experience of the average meditator is likely to be far more ordinary and indeed more useful. Given this, we can define meditation as any technique that relaxes the body quickly and makes the mind relatively still and clear. I’d like to emphasise that I see meditation as the technique and not the state of mind, if only because there doesn’t seem to be one ultimate unitary state. Meditation explores a huge range of states from the virtually unconscious trance states to the hyperconscious, in-the-moment states. The skills that define meditation, however, remains much the same regardless of the objective. Although one’s mind can feel exquisitely still, silent and clear in meditation, it is best to regard these as relative, not absolute, terms. The body and mind are constantly active, day and night. In meditation, they just become more quiet than usual. ‘Stillness’, in other words, is about shedding unnecessary tension, having the right amount of muscle tone and arousal and restoring homeostasis. It is about inner balance, not perfect immobility. ‘Silence’, on the other hand, is when the mind stops talking to itself. It indicates the shift of attention from actively thinking to passively sensing. As meditators gradually detach from thought, the resulting spaciousness allows the normally invisible network of their ongoing body sensations to come to the surface. A relaxed body, unstimulated by thought, usually feels delightful. Peace, stillness and silence, in other words, are grounded in physical sensations. Nonetheless, our brain activity never stops. Its standby mode is to have multiple circuits buzzing at once in case they are needed. The best way to calm the mind is through what brain scientists call ‘sustained attention’; to consciously give priority to one mental activity over the alternatives. This activity – focusing – is also what makes meditation different from merely relaxing. When we focus well, the circuitry relating to that task becomes activated - it receives more blood flow. At the same time, the peripheral circuits are inhibited - less blood flow. Focusing actually uses less energy than if we let our minds drift. This is why the yoga tradition regards deep, sustained focus, ‘samadhi’, as a synonym for tranquillity. Enhanced body awareness is invaluable to a meditator. The quality of focus is invariably brittle until the body is thoroughly relaxed. Good focus has a strong but gentle quality, like ‘oil flowing from a jar.’ However, it still needs support from another cognitive skill, variously called ‘interference control’ or ‘distraction management’ or, to use a broader term, ‘supervisory attention’. Focusing is particularly the function of the orbitofrontal cortex, just above the eyes. ‘Supervisory attention’, however, operates from further back, in the cingulate gyrus. While the orbitofrontal cortex operates like a spotlight, the cingulate gyrus operates like a radar. It endlessly monitors the succession of peripheral thoughts, sensations and feelings that William James called ‘the stream of consciousness’. Supervisory attention is roughly equivalent to ‘mindfulness.’ This is often defined rather grandly as ‘non-judgemental awareness’ or the ‘detached observer mind’ or as ‘pure consciousness’, or the ability ‘to see things exactly as they are’ with no ego-involvement. In fact, mindfulness is, and needs to be, far more self-interested and judgemental than this. Supervisory attention is actually a cluster of functions. Firstly, it identifies the particular stimuli that catch its attention. Within milliseconds, it evaluates each one: ‘Is this worth giving attention to, or not? If it is, how much and when?’ Finally, it chooses between alternative courses of action: ‘At this moment, shall I continue focusing on the body or think about this new input?’ To do all this, it can’t ‘just watch’ the stimuli; it first has to arrest it. Long before thoughts surface in consciousness, they have triggered off the brain regions responsible for physical action. Thoughts initiate a literal ‘acting-out’ within the body which is why thinking makes us agitated. Mindfulness is about becoming conscious of, and then restraining, the subtle impulses of the mind and the body. It is like slowing down the video to catch the detail and significance of what is actually happening. This is when a meditator can say “I know this thought or feeling is in my mind, but I don’t need to respond to it.”. Mindfulness, or ‘supervisory attention’, therefore involves: the ongoing identification of stimuli, impulse restraint, evaluation, and the selection of alternative courses of action – all happening continuously at the speed of milliseconds. This may seem quite busy and it actually is. Paradoxically it is essential for a calm, clear mind. Relaxation and focus alone can’t get there. They need awareness to make them strong and protect them from decay. The combined result, however, is a mind that is still, clear, perceptive and intelligent in its responses: a great outcome. So what does the science, such as it is, tell us about meditation? It finds that good meditators tend to be healthier, probably because they are more relaxed. They have enhanced muscular awareness and visceral, gut-feeling awareness. They score highly in left frontal hemisphere functions of rational thought and attention, which are also correlated to more positive affect. They have good impulse control, i.e. are calmer and more emotionally cool. Nonetheless, science doesn’t sit comfortably with meditation. The meditation traditions invariably believe in a strong duality of body and mind. No respectable scientist does and nor do I. Meditation is a straightforward practice that has genuine, measurable results. However, it will always lack scientific credibility until its advocates stop claiming authority from the antiquated beliefs of the past. Eric Harrison Eric Harrison is the founder of Perth Meditation Centre and has taught meditation to thousands of people since 1987. His books on meditation are now published in 10 languages and 15 countries worldwide. www.perthmeditationcentre.com.au
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National NewsThe Australian Register of Counsellors AND Psychotherapists (ARCAP) is now an entity, since 1st July 2009. It is a delight to acknowledge how creative discussions can lead to such an occurrence despite such apparent vast differences, particularly at the onset of negotiations. Rosealeen Tamaki (PACFA delegate) and I will attend the PACFA Council meeting and AGM in Melbourne next month (August). The structure of PACFA, the Council and how it liaises with members is all up for discussion. ARCAP will, of course, also be an agenda item! ARCAP Opening Doors (See PACFA eNews May/June ‘09) National conference: AUSTRALIAN DREAMING: COMING TOGETHER The first combined ACA/PACFA conference is being held in Canberra in October. Register your interest now; don’t miss out in being part of this exciting event. See flyer in your latest copy of eNews or visit the PACFA website at www.pacfa.org Local NewsCommittee Changes David Malkin has stepped down from the role of Vice-President due to work commitments and having held the role for eighteen months. We take this opportunity to thank David for his contribution and wish him well. He is replaced by Susanna Howlett. Thank you Susanna and welcome to the role of Vice-President. Professional Development Meeting The June PD meeting was a presentation by David Harvey and Jackie Lewis. It was an interactive and engaging session on the use of art in counselling/psychotherapy. Feedback was offered that the nature of the session led members to ‘join’ more effectively with each other than they would in other forms of PD, particularly when the focus is more didactic in nature. See website for more information. Something NEW from PD Friday 27 November In keeping with the management committee’s promise at the AGM to consider offering more in terms of professional development this year and in keeping with your input at the open discussion in March, we have decided to offer a FULL DAY of Professional Development this year. This replaces the usual Christmas event scheduled on that day. The theme will revolve around professional issues and support for practitioners. It will be a lively, interactive and nurturing day, with support from complementary practitioners offering ‘tasters’ of their work during break times. So add the date 27th November 9 am – 4.30 pm to your diaries and allow yourself to have some well-deserved professional input and nurturing. Brochure of Private Practitioners The brochure of private practitioners that is distributed to over 2000 GPs is, as you are no doubt aware, due for renewal this year. The forms are available online and it is your responsibility to ensure that you are listed correctly and forms are completed and returned. Changes to Membership Criteria Following PACFA training standards review for 2009, PACAWA has updated its training standards. This assists in the process of compliance and eligibility for entry to the PACFA register and, additionally, now the ARCAP register. The changes are not retrospective and will only affect members who commenced their training after January 1st 2009. As trainers it is important to note the trainees who may have commenced training prior to December 2008 who will not be assessed under the 2009 regulations. Please advise them of the possibility of accessing membership under the old regulations. In keeping with changes at National level, the PACAWA Management Committee in conjunction with the membership sub-committee has introduced some changes to membership categories:
The new category brings the total number of membership categories to four (4) and they are:
Voluntary Suspension Please note that the title of Voluntary Suspension has been renamed as Voluntary Leave of Absence. This leave is available to members who are ill, having time out to have a baby, travel overseas, etc. and is available for a maximum period of two years. An application for leave of absence is assessed on an individual needs basis. Website The management committee are currently considering an upgrade of the website. The trial of having membership renewal forms available online seems to be working well. Thank you to those of you who have returned your renewal forms and for those of you who haven’t please attend to it ASAP We welcome your feedback on the process. Audit of Clinical Members Thank you to those of you who have responded in regards to feedback re audit non-compliance. Your feedback was greatly appreciated and was taken into consideration when deciding on a policy re audit non-compliance. Essentially, if you are audited you will have three months to submit documentation to the membership sub-committee and if you fail to submit in that time frame, you will be given support to do so and failing that your membership will be suspended for three months. The main message here is: if you are struggling and haven’t kept your records up to date, please let the committee know as soon as possible so that they can support you in finding a best way forward. Our experience of last year’s audit and being a ‘first’ was very encouraging in that the majority of those audited did keep records that were easily accessible and the audit was a straightforward process. Please keep in mind that the audit process is a means of maintaining high standards of practice in keeping with a best practice service provision to clients. Newsletter: Invitation to comment Discussion continues in regards to changing the newsletter from ‘hard copy’ to an electronic version. Thank you to those of you who responded to Susanna Howlett’s invitation. Thus far, we had seven responses supporting a move to an electronic version and twenty eight in support of keeping it as a hard copy. Susanna steps down from the role of editor in September and we are looking for an enthusiastic, available and willing person to take on the role and also take part in decision making at committee level. If you think you could fit that bill, please email president@pacawa.asn.au or Susanna via admin@pacawa.asn.au for more information. Final reflection As counsellors and psychotherapists, we on the management committee have chosen to give some time to the profession as it is evolving and are happy to do so for a limited time. Please consider giving of your time for a limited time; a bit like a relay race, or the Olympic torch run, albeit nothing as glamorous, we each hold the torch for a short while. There are a few positions coming available on the committee in September, namely the Treasurer; Professional Development Coordinator and Editor of PACAWA News. Is it your turn? Are you ready to run? Rosemary Watkins
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“Buddhist-inspired mindfulness: the conventional narrative self and non-self”. Apart from narrative, literature aligned with Buddhist-inspired mindfulness meditations has appeared recently on the psychotherapy scene. Variations of cognitive behavioural and psychoanalytic approaches are the most prominent in attempting an integration of philosophies and practices. Mindfulness meditation encourages a gentle focus on immediate present experience, observing bodily sensations, mental impressions, feeling states and so on as they appear moment-to-moment. Attention is directed with kindness and equanimity towards whatever objects of mind or body appear. As each impression arises it is not clung to nor pushed away but simply experienced and let be, making space for the next impression to arise and fall away. There is a quieting of the interpretative and conceptual mind, a deliberate quest for a non-discursive lived experience. Narrative creation, which relies on imagination and memory, is muted as meditators seek to reduce the proliferative thinking and rumination that often fills the mind. This is a time for resting from expectations, ideals and opinions. All is observed as a flow of becoming, a continuous mind/body movement that transforms itself into another mind/body movement, into something other than it was. Mindfulness can bring a precise awareness to this fluidity of the mind/body. Not only is this grasped intellectually but also there is an experiential realisation that every thought, every feeling, every movement of the body, every breath, indeed every experience and every thing has come and gone. What we commonly refer to as ‘me’, the relational narrative self, is part of this moment-to- moment flux. Specific combinations of these ever-changing mental and physical events create a particular person yet, from the Buddhist view, there is no permanent or essential self to whom these events are happening. Non-self, the notion that there is no substantial inherent self, does not deny the unique histories that each person lives; it does not imply that a person doesn’t exist, just that a person is ‘no-thing apart from these relations’. This emphasis on flow, interrelatedness and non-self lessens the tendency of people to attach to, personalise and internalise unpleasant or pleasant mental, emotional and bodily states as evidence of their core or true self.” Percy, Ian (2008) 'Awareness and Authoring: the idea of self in mindfulness and narrative therapy', European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 10:4,355 — 36. To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13642530
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Newsletter No. 43 February 2009
This Edition: Conversations
| Conversations across the Distance |
| Conversations Within and Between: A glimpse into Internal Systems Family therapy |
| News from Broome |
| Professional Development in Bunbury |
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As well as kilometres, the distance created through languaging from the diverse frameworks and methodologies supporting the work invite ongoing conversation. Rosemary Watkins’ article assists appreciation of the perspective of Internal Family Systems therapists and this way of viewing the work. The March 09 PD meeting is stimulated by the Christmas 08 meeting and the conversations where we discussed the differences in concepts, constructs and names for things between psychotherapy traditions. Thoughtfulness was brought to bear on the use of different names for the counselling/psychotherapy relationship itself according to frameworks: client/patient/participant – therapist/counsellor/psychotherapist - clinician/practitioner/facilitator, etc. - each of these with its own embedded worldview. There is perhaps the possibility of integrating different viewpoints, where the unifying centre is one’s self and where frameworks become transformed in the spontaneity of encounter with the client. Where the languaging with the client is meaningful and resonates with the client. Where therapists reflect, think and formulate new frameworks for peer consideration to achieve clarity around the emerging issues as they engage with their clients. PACAWA is formed as an umbrella association which offers a professional watering hole to counsellors and psychotherapists who come from widely divergent approaches, training backgrounds and types of training. Each has its own style, beliefs and structure and yet, in keeping an open mind as to the value of each, the gap is closing. We aim to maintain the conversations and keep each other informed, to promote cross pollinating and build collegial relationship. We welcome the differences, stay interested in the learning edges and are respectful of the enduring common values that make the work effective and safe for the people who seek assistance and those who provide it. Susanna Howlett
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Our first meeting for the year in March offers conversation about our way of working and professional needs across the distance of frameworks and modalities of practice. This first edition of PACAWANews brings conversations from practitioners across the vast landscape of Western Australia with its unique communities. The news in this issue is from the north west to the south west as well as business from the eastern coast. I hope other practitioners beyond the metro area - the Goldfields, Bruce Rock, Geraldton, Albany, Esperence - will also write in and tell us what is happening for them. Urbanites might also be inclined to write about the particular opportunities and difficulties of city living and how this affects people in reworking their way of being and living.
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A Glimpse into Internal Family Systems Therapy |
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“I hate you” These types of pleas and statements ring out in many a household where there are teenagers. They are often a result of frustration at feeling controlled, stifled in some way, when the shiny, delicious freedom of music, dance, shopping malls, an ability to walk the streets, take buses and trains (without mum and dad) and being with peers calls to them seductively. On the other side of this outburst, there frequently lies a beleaguered, battle-weary parent who bemoans: “What ever happened to my sweet, cooperative, pleasing, little girl or boy?” What has happened? Has the thoughtful child disappeared? Or is he/she just taking a back seat for a while and allowing another ‘part’ to have a voice? ‘Parts’ of a person is the language in Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), a model developed by Richard Schwartz and his colleagues that I had the privilege of being exposed to some years ago while attending a conference in Boston. According to Schwartz, the concepts are not entirely new but the model is unique and it draws on ideas from two different sources- intrapsychic process and family process. “Part of the model’s uniqueness is that it brings these two streams together, creating a confluence that enriches each and also produces something new- a systemic approach to the mind” Schwartz,1995 p2 Rather than trying to bring all the parts into one big Whole, Schwartz and his colleagues prefer to think of all the parts as having a valuable role to play and a need to relate to each other in a healthy way under the guidance/leadership of the ‘Self’. As in all families, the internal family can run into strife and ‘parts’ can become polarised, resources can be distributed unfairly, one part may want to lead more than another or effectively manage to completely silence another, or one ‘part’ may have too much responsibility; for example Schwartz says: “the approval seeking parts may have too much responsibility, influence and access to resources, whereas the assertive parts have too little”. A key principle of IFS is that people will relate to their ‘parts’ in much the same way as their parents related to those ‘parts’ of them, e.g. if a parent emphasises the importance of pleasing others while frowning on the child’s angry responses, he/she is likely to allow the pleaser part to dominate and ignore the angry or assertive part of the self. It is described by Schwartz as a “collaborative, nonpathologising and enjoyable” way of working with clients. Many people can relate easily to the language of ‘parts’ i.e. “the part of me that wants that job and the part of me that’s not so sure”. It has the potential to assist people to see themselves and others as ‘bigger’, not just ‘the angry boy’ or the ‘depressed man’. I invite you to think of yourself now and your own ‘parts’. How balanced is your own internal family system? Who leads, and is the ‘who’ that leads in the therapy setting different to the ‘who’ that leads at home or with friends? Allow yourself the luxury of getting acquainted with the rich inner landscape of your own life, of the many aspects or ‘parts’ of you. After all you live with yourself more often than with anyone else, it might be nice to know who it is that you are spending that much time with! As for myself, I have spent (as many of you will have done) long hours on self-reflection and getting to know ‘me’, noticing the times of being loving, warm, thoughtful, connected, of experiencing great joy and the times of being in touch with the randomness, the utter chaos of life and aloneness. Becoming familiar with the parts of me that have been encouraged since childhood such as ‘the caretaker’ and the ‘good child’ and working on freeing those parts so that they don’t block any, including therapeutic, relationships. As therapists, we are all aware of the need to ‘know the Self’ and the IFS model can offer an enjoyable and effective way of exploring our ‘inner family’. The aim is to lead from the Self which, according to Schwartz, is both an ‘active compassionate leader’ and a ‘state of consciousness’. Therapist ‘parts’ that can potentially become a hindrance in the therapeutic setting include: striving managers, caretaking/rescuing, approval-seeking, or angry ‘parts’. Difficulties can arise, according to Schwartz, in a person’s inner and external worlds when ‘parts’ are leaders rather than the ‘Self’ in turn potentially leading to poor self-concept and poor communication within and between internal and external relationships. This is a brief outline of some aspects of IFS. It is not intended to be an in depth description of concepts or to describe all the applications of IFS in the therapeutic setting. It is one model I integrate into my work with some clients and they have found it very helpful. Another beneficial aspect of it is that clients can be encouraged to use it in other settings. It can be used very effectively with individuals and also with couples, or families (like the one described in the first paragraph) in opening up more of each other for each other. I invite you to open up more of you for you! As the writer John O’Donohue describes it: “You come home to yourself and learn to rest within.” Rosemary Watkins Rosemary Watkins is a psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer in private practice in Bentley. Rosemary is the current President of PACAWA. References O’Donohue, John. (1997) Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World. Great Britain: Transworld Publishers.
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The first graduates of the programme are delighted to share with you that they have completed 400 hours of training and are now undertaking the required supervision practice. Early in 2009 they expect to receive the Diploma of Counselling and Psychotherapy from the Tertiary Accreditation Council under the auspices of the Australian Medical Association which is currently our Registered Training Organisation. Following this the participants hope to receive a Graduate Certificate when they submit their major essay: "Psychotherapy from an Indigenous Perspective". We are proud to say that this will be the first group of qualified Aboriginal counsellors/psychotherapists from the Wirriya Liyan Programme in Broome. Wirriya Liyan graduates are enthusiastic about continuing their professional development so that they can be available to the people who seek their services by providing the opportunity for healing and well being in their communities. We are grateful to the St John of God Health Care Social Outreach who recently sponsored us in a field excursion to visit counselling related agencies in Perth. We were able to join Murdoch Masters in Counselling students for our final group supervision with them face to face (previously conducted by video link-up), to attend the Aboriginal Mental Health Conference in Perth and to meet with members of PACAWA Committee who kindly gave us their time and support and some direction for the future. We are looking for supervisors to consult with across the distance by Skype or by telephone conferencing. If you have some time to spare please contact us on wirriyaliyan@westnet.com.au. Altogether across the two intakes, there are sixteen participants at different stages of training and professional development. Dolores Tunnecliffe Dolores Tunnecliffe is a psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, educator/trainer, group facilitator and supervisor in cross cultural situations in Broome.
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In 2005 ten Aboriginal people from Broome, Derby and Beagle Bay began their formal training as Indigenous counsellors with myself as coordinator at the Wirriya Liyan Indigenous Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre in Broome. These people were all employed in a caring or managerial capacity in local organisations, a number of whom had many years’ experience already in a counselling role. There has been a triple challenge involved with this first intake: designing a culturally appropriate training as well as meeting standards of all Australian training institutions; undertaking the training, and at the same time seeking an accreditation system to support legitimacy in the work place for graduates. The programme has been sponsored by the Sisters of St John of God Ministries.
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Selected articles published in PACAWA News are subsequently posted on the PACAWA website. All articles have been subjected to editing processes. However, the opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board or Management Committee of PACAWA. PACAWA makes no claim that
information contained in these articles is accurate, nor accepts liability
for any action arising out of information contained in these articles.
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Western Australia (Inc) 2010 |