Self and Society Volume 35 Issue 6

The following lists the contents of Self and Society, Volume 35 Issue 6.
Each article can be downloaded as a PDF, but only if you are logged in as an AHP subscriber.
The table of contents for this issue can be downloaded as a PDF file.


Editorial:
Author: Maxine Linnell
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Article:
Life after primary breast cancer: changes to self and implications for relationships
Author: Cordelia Galgut
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Abstract:

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and am only now beginning to see clearly the enormous and long lasting effects on me and on my relationships.


I
Author: Jane Barclay
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Abstract:

The closest I can get to describing my experience of being all-of-me together is in physical terms: warm in my belly, full, in the sense that no-one's missing, all of me is at home, safely contained inside myself. The image of Russian dolls comes to mind. With ‘all of me at home,’ present physically, mentally and emotionally simultaneously, I communicate freely with my younger selves so I can respond to people and situations from the adult person I've become. Meeting the outside world thus I feel substantial. Knowing how to manage moments of temporary separation, or part-absence—and there are plenty of these—I feel confident.


Sex and the curious behaviour of the dog
Author: Martin Jelfs
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Abstract:

I remember a few years after starting as a psychotherapist, walking downstairs behind a client after a session and getting a strong smell of tobacco. I realised that I had no idea that this client, or any of my clients smoked. I suppose if I had a structured questionnaire as part of my assessment I might know this, but I didn't have one—and still don't. It intrigued me: what I don't know about my clients even after years of working with a person. Jung said that the unconscious is infinite but here I am not thinking of the unconscious. I didn't know what any friend of the client knew: that he was a smoker. It is curious what we don't know, what is missing, like Sherlock Holmes' dog that didn't bark. I worked with a client for over a year before I found out that she made herself sick a couple of times a day or more. For her, bulimia wasn't a problem, it simply wasn't worth mentioning. I think of the female clients I have worked with for some years where, in talking about how they feel emotionally or physically have never mentioned their menstrual cycle as if it doesn't exist or have any influence on how they are. Similarly, considering the number of prostitutes in Britain, it is strange that as far as I can recall in twenty five years I have only every once had a client who mentioned visiting one, except in their distant past. The window we have on our clients, whether from their narrative or from our countertransference, is such a small part of who they are.


Explorations in body consciousness
Author: Tree Staunton
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Process-led experiential learning
Author: David Slattery
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Abstract:

This is the key technique for learning at bcpc. We constantly refer to students' experience as a starting point for new learning. It is our previous and current experience that is the context in which we are meeting new material. So developing the ability to apprehend ‘where am I in this moment’ and ‘what is being stirred in me in relation to this theory or that idea’ is crucial to creating a milieu in which to engage in relational psychotherapy.


Intimacy and psychotherapy: a bcpc student's view
Author: Michelle Oakman
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Article:
An interesting event
Author: John Rowan
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The Regular COLUMN
Author: Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar
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Shelf Life
Author: Nick Duffell
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AHPB Chair's Page
Author: Chris Beaumont
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The festival calls…
Author: Julian Nangle
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Book Review:
Reviews
Authors: Sue Orton, John Rowan Facilitator and CEO
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