My approach to Therapy and Counseling

There is a lot of psychojargan out there and when we first start looking for support it can be overwhelming to see so many new words and approaches. I’m an intergrative therapist which means that I draw on a number of approaches to inform my work.

The three main ones are:

Compassionate Inquiry:

Compassionate Inquiry (CI) is a psychotherapeutic approach that has been developed by Dr Gabor Maté that reveals what lies beneath the appearance that we present to the world. You may find CI useful to gain a deeper level of understanding of some of the problems that you are experiencing in your life. Through CI we can recognise more of the unconscious dynamics that run our lives and start to achieve a sense of liberation from them.

Attachment-based Developmental Approach

Using developmental science and attachment to inform a relational approach to working with both individuals, families and supporting parents helping to raise children. Studying and learning at the Neufled Institute under Dr Gordon Neufeld this approach gets to the core underlying process of development and the unfolding of potential.

Play Therapy

Creative arts therapeutic techniques to support the therapeutic process. Play is just the best medium to explore sometimes and even though I work more with adults and parents now then with children it can still be at times a key component of how I work.

If you want to find out more about my work as a Compassionate Inquiry practitioner, therapist. Or if you want to find out more about online parent coaching then please get in touch mail@joeatkinson.co.uk or jump on over to www.thecaringinstinct.co.uk

I offer online zoom sessions and walk and talk sessions in Roberstbridge, East Sussex

The Caring Instinct

I have a new website page with links to useful resources on parenting, podcasts with special guest and Compassionate Inquiry practitioners, courses and free webinars. Myself and Olga will be updating it throughout the rest of the year and next year as we will build and play around with content.

So far you can check out:

• The Caring Instinct - Big Emotions FREE Webinar -  Are you baffled by your child's ever-changing emotions and out-of-proportion reactions? Or maybe alarmed that they are unable to keep their word, work towards a goal or think about other people's feelings?

• The Caring Instinct - PODCAST - Navigating parenting challenges with trust and an open heart. Tune in for our parenting journeys through the lens of developmental science and stay for interviews with our amazing guests. Check out my personal favourites Debi Gliori and Darcia Narvaez episodes

• The Caring Instinct - COURSE - Housework for Children: How to Get Kids Involved, Grow their Autonomy and Futureproof your Relationship (£49)

And there is much more. And remember for any information on Compassionate Inquiry, the attachment-based developmental approach, parent consulting and support with families then please contact me on mail@joeatkinson.co.uk

Play & Emotion

I work with a lot of families and individuals for a whole variety of reasons and each session can be very different, but you can be guaranteed of a few things. One of those things is that there is going to be emotion and a characteristic of emotion is that they are messy.

Emotion has a very integral role to play within behaviour and our own development. We’ve come away from this notion though. It’s very often seen as a nuisance or something that gets in the way of development. If a child is upset that they have not won a game of snakes and ladders then this upset is a nuisance and it is in the way of them finding behaviours and virtues that we would love to see in our children. If an adult experiences a lot of anxiety, then a lot of the support is around reducing the anxiety, to getting the symptoms down.

We have been ushered away from emotion in many areas of life. There is no place at school for meltdowns for young children. Even when there is they are called something like ‘calm down’ zones and the message is the same but just more subtle. Stop feeling and calm down. Wouldn’t it be better to have something like ‘safe eruption’ rooms for our youngest so we could invite the movement of emotion and have an opportunity to come along side it.

But it is very hard to see the value of these emotional journeys. The work of emotion is very different to this support. The work of emotion leads us directly into experiencing a lot of pain and suffering as well as joy and excitement. It will take us wherever we need to go.

 So what about Play? Play actually shows up historically around about the same time that emotion did in mammals. Dr Jaap Pankseep actually discovered play circuitry in our brains as part of 7 emotional circuits we share with mammals. He also famously discovered that mice laugh when you tickle them. Yes that’s right, mice laugh when they get tickled.

The journey of emotion is an important one and maybe that topic is for another blog post but what helps this journey is play. In play emotion can move within us in a safe way. If we consider some popular childhood games you’ll notice how dark they are. How the themes resemble the hardest things we might go through in life e.g. grief, loss and separation.

Notice how many games revolve around going out and then finding home. Facing death by lava or by the big bad wolf.  The themes that we find in our stories from young to old in probably one of the oldest playgrounds that we have. How constructing  play helps us to find our emotion around problem solving. How when a dad instinctively throws a baby in the air and then catches them we are playing around with our alarm system and so on and so on.

Play usually goes hand in hand with some form of emotional expression and/or invitation for it to exists. It’s safe and it just makes it easier to be able to master life if when we have time for play. Life would be just be too hard to experience if we didn’t have a playgrounds to let our emotions move and to grow us up. The problem is we are losing more and more spaces to play.

As part of my work as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner  and my support of families and parents we will often look at play as a way to find emotion and find growth and development. If more if us would trust in our play instincts we would not have as many children struggling as they are now.

To find out more contact me at mail@joeatkinson.co.uk and find out more about Dr Gabor Maté and Compassionate Inquiry.

Grief & Loss - Our own family experience of the loss of a pet

This week we lost our beloved pet dog Bear. He's been with us for most of my children's life. One of the many great things about pets and children is that we can explore these feelings of grief and loss and sadness when the time comes. We did not expect it so early in our case but that’s the way it goes sometimes. My children are 3 and 5 and I half expected Bear to be accompanying my daughter on her first date as she grew up with him, there by her side to look after her.

For my 3 year old he doesn't understand much but it has been an opportunity for him to see both of his parents experience these emotions, to normalise them and to start his own relationship with his feelings within the context of 'it's ok to feel'. Especially in a society where we are almost feel-phobic at times with our children. One of the main reasons for keeping children out of the grieving process is that ‘they are too young to understand’. Another sign of how much we are aligned with the idea that we are to think our way out of the tough experiences we go through in life, to feel is a nusiance, only do it perhaps if you know you’ll be able to think your way out of it at some point. His tears come sporadically like yesterday when he saw a picture of Bear, tears flooded over him and he could say ‘I miss Bear’. I’m grateful that he can find these feelings and emotions and be able to say something so vulnerable at a young age.

For my 5 year old she can understand a little more. She now knows one more thing in her life that has gone. So far it's been my parents' pet dogs, a friend's dad at school and the queen (She had already made a shrine in the garden for the dead that she new). The understanding of life and death is starting can start to come together and integrate with feelings at this stage. She has been able to feel the emotion at times and just like any other young child find her own excitement for doing ballet a few minutes later. Again it's an opportunity for her to find her own feelings within the context of 'it's ok to feel'.

One of the ways she has found her own grief is when she has seen it present in both her parents. We've kept them both part of this process and we have all leaned in towards the grief. If she notices us shedding a tear she will come with curiosity and will often find her own feelings of grief in that moment too.

We've also invited it into the play arena. We've collected rocks from the beach and painted them for him. We wrote him letters and poems and sang him songs. We've told stories about him to each other.

One of the best things about bringing it in to the play arena is that there is this beginning and end to it. The emotion can be invited out but it's just that bit overwhelming and supported within the context of play. Because play is not work then you have freedom to enter it and exit it and with this we get the chance to experience vulnerable emotion in a safe space boundaries with a beginning and an end. Did you know that evolutionary speaking that play came along at about the same time emotion did. It’s almost like they are meant to be together, with play being the answer to excess emotion that needs to move.

So when you experience the tough moments in life as a family, invite your children to lean into it with you. Find your own playgrounds for the experience. Leave understanding at the door because as Dr Gordan Neufeld says ‘We need to feel to grow up, not learn to grow up’

If you’re interested in Compassionate Inquiry, Counselling or my work with families and the Neufeld Institute then please get in touch with me - mail@joeatkinson.co.uk

We will miss you boy, thank you for being a wonderful teacher

POEM _ BEAR YOU WERE MY LITTLE BOY

Bear you were my little boy

You came along with me my boy

You sat by my side wherever I was my boy

My boy, my boy my boy.

I miss you very much my boy

Your presence and your touch my boy

We took you home one day my boy

You found a place with us my boy

We kept you safe as we could my boy

My boy, my boy, my boy

It came one fateful day my boy

We had to say goodbye my boy

I don’t know how or why my boy

My boy, my boy, my boy

We love you very much my boy

We’ll miss you everyday my boy

You’ve left a great big hole my boy

My boy my boy my boy

Thank you for all you did my boy,

You are very very special boy

You kept us all together boy

My boy, my boy, my boy

Self-care for children - Is it all it is cracked up to be?

I’ve not found as much time to keep up with blogs recently because, you know, life gets in the way sometimes. But here are some of the things that I have been finding interesting:

I’m worried that we really have made quite a major wrong turn with how we care for our children in our society and one of the things that alarms me a lot is the move towards self-care.

On the Young Minds website self care is described in child friendly terms as:

In its simplest form, self-care is just the little things we do to look after our own mental health. It’s about trying to listen to how we are feeling and understanding what we need, even if it’s difficult, so we can care for ourselves.

Notice a few things about this statement.

• The focus is on the desired behaviours. It’s a bubble bath, a yoga class, a jog, reading a book etc.

• The responsibility is on the individual. We are listening to our own feelings, we are understanding our own needs and we are caring for ourselves.

Why is this alarming for me? There is no mention of relationship and with this we are not heading towards a place where we can experience being looked after. We are all pretty much aware of the mental health crisis that is experienced by so many of the lives of our young and self-care has become a growing answer to this crisis.

The underlying message is that the child can take and maybe should take responsibility for his own feelings/enotions/needs and if they are struggling too then they can learn through teaching methods or sharing activities ways to take responsibility for their own feelings/emotions/need

Without this focus on relationship it has the potential to miss out on some of the gold. Contrast this approach with a parent who shows up with all the confidence in the world that they know the best way to care for their own children and lead them through the messiness that comes with being a human being with feelings/emotions/needs. The invitation for the child here is that they don’t need to work or do self-care. They can experience these very natural human qualities within the comfort of a loving bond with a care-giver.

I wonder if this is the same dynamic that plays out in schools where we really just want children to get to be able to get to the test at the end of the year remembering what they have been taught. Proof that they have learnt something and are smart. It makes sense rationally, but it misses out squashes so many important dynamics of learning like for instance ‘curiosity’. Curiosity itself is like attention at play but there is very restricted space for play in school and attention is needed and valuable to get the grades at the end of the year so it very easily gets surpressed. Then because we can’t see it we think that we can teach it or command curiosity. We get lost. And the child that can hold on to their curiosity and nurture or recover it will see how learning comes naturally.

Instead of self-care my hunch is to go towards realtionship and play. Play is natures answer to self-care that does not come packaged in exercises that need to be taught. With play feelings/emotions/needs can be experienced in a safe space. Play leans into relationships and our attachments. In play you have the potential for all the elements of that relaxation of the bubble bath, the stretching and movement of a yoga session, the physical exertion of a run and the space for our attention to take us towards books.

What do you think about Self-care?

If you want to find out my work with parents and families or as a Compassionate Inquiry Practioner and therapist then please get in touch at mail@joeatkinson.co.uk