Category Archives: In The Media

Online or Face-to-Face?

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

Let me start with something that may surprise you:

Online/telephone work is as effective as face-to-face, according to the research. Is online/telephone work just the same as face-to-face then? – it does have a different feel. It can move slower sometimes, or faster sometimes. It can feel more intense, or less intense, at different times. Some clients can talk about issues over the phone/video more easily than face to face, and for some it’s the other way around.  So, the feel is different, but it works just as well for most people.

 

Most clients are pleasantly surprised at how well online and telephone counselling works for them, actually. To be honest, I have always preferred working face to face (although I started my counselling life as a telephone volunteer), and I prefer using video conferencing to a phone call – particularly now that smartphones can do everything. I have used all the methods for many years now, and I am well used to them.

The choice of a therapist is very difficult, because there are so many available.  Of course you will know that, whether you are looking for an online or face-to-face therapist it’s important to find a therapist that

  • you get on with
  • you can come to feel comfortable and relaxed with
  • who is competent and professional.

 

So how do you choose from the tens of thousands available?

Firstly, I do think that the best way to begin is to search professional directories for therapists in your own area. Why your own area? Your circumstances may change, and it’s then possible to move to face-to-face work if you want to, without having to start again with someone new.  So I suspect we would use online or telephone counselling during the times when we can’t meet in person – say if we think we might be infectious. I am open to creative solutions too – for instance I have had clients sit in their cars in front of my window, and talk on the phone to me while we nod to each other (fortunately my driveway is suitable for this).

Another advantage of working with someone in your area is that it is easier to make a connection with someone who has some shared experience with you – living in the same country is a good start! It can be a little difficult, for instance, having a deep conversation with another English speaking person from a different country, as the meanings of words, and the organisations of society are subtly different.

Using a professional directory means that the work of checking the therapist is qualified and experienced has already been done for you. For instance, I have chosen to advertise on the BACP website (my professional body), Counselling-Directory (I like their layout), and the BUPA Providers online website. (Spoiler alert, they all say the same thing, more or less – which is no bad thing).

Coming to feel a real connection when talking with your therapist is the number one predictor that your therapy will be successful. That comes as a surprise to most people, who think that face to face therapy must be better than the alternatives, or that one type of therapy must be intrinsically better than another.

Of course, when you are working online, some of that feeling comfortable and relaxed is down to you – a comfy quiet chair, privacy, a cup of tea, and decent phone or internet reception.

I think I can get a “feel” for a particular therapist by reading their website, however my wife would always want to speak to someone before making up her mind. It’s important that you find your own way. In my own practice, I find I get on very well with most people (surprise, surprise, I suspect that’s true of all good therapists, and anyone who is genuinely interested in hearing what the other person has to say), and very few clients have come to me since 1995 and just not got on with me. I don’t do trial sessions as such, but if a private client doesn’t want to continue after the first session, I refund all money received and am pleased to do it, – and as I say, it’s maybe happens once or twice a year. Take a look at the First Appointment page (link) if you need more details on that.

 

What’s here:

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

Received wisdom is that every website should have a blog. Mine contains (see on the right under “From David’s Blog):

  • musings about therapy, clients, counsellors, and society
  • answers to questions that I’ve been asked
  • if I’m taken ill, or there’s another reason why I can’t be reached, then I’ll try and post a notice here.  (so it would be a good idea for clients to tick the box below “Notify me of new posts by email.”)

 

Suggestions for additions (and subtractions) welcome.

Playing N.I.C.E.

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, has come up with another set of guidelines on mental health. Why is this important? Because if NICE recommend a treatment, it gets used as a matter of course, and if they don’t, it doesn’t.

The problem is that Mental Health is very hard to assess. Very hard indeed. And NICE are not doing a good job at assessing the different methods of delivering talking therapy..

In the area of health generally, the standard of proof that NICE requires is the “double blind randomised trial.” In brief, this is where neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether the patient is being treated, and neither do they know what they might be treating the patient with. This is good, because it stops the doctor from putting his own bias onto whatever results s/he is collecting.

Of course, this kind of research is quite impossible to carry out in the field of mental health. How can a counsellor not know whether or not he is counselling a client, for instance? Success in counselling depends on the relationship between counsellor and client, and that means often (shudder from NICE) the results come from asking the clients’ opinions. Good lord, how would the NHS function if effectiveness and quality was measured by the patients. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

So NICE is going to prefer the type of therapy that can generate statistics closest to the double blind model. By it’s nature, CBT is easier than others to collect that kind of data. NICE, therefore, seemed to have been of the opinion that CBT was the only talking therapy that is proven to work, as that was the only type to have generated the statistics they considered reliable..

Gradually, NICE has been dragged kicking and screaming to the realisation that other methods of talking therapy, and indeed other methods of undertaking valid research, might just work as well in the treatment of, say, depression. However CBT has maintained it’s place as the first line treatment, the one most recommended, in the current guidelines.

At last we can get to the point: the research clearly shows that other talking therapies are at least as effective as CBT. It’s just that NICE are wary of looking at research that doesn’t have that humanity-excluding double blind methodology. And recent research shows that counselling delivered better results than CBT in fewer sessions. Add to this the huge number of trained counsellors who don’t want to work to a CBT model, myself included, and you could cure the massive problem with access to mental health services overnight. It would be cheaper too, per course of treatment.

Incidentally, the photo is of Nice, France. It has nothing to do with this article at all, but looks like it would be a nice place to recover from almost anything. Anyone who wishes to pay for me to undertake the research personally, get in touch.

Anger and optimism – a connection?

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

The School of Life published a video which suggests that angry people are often just thwarted optimists. Well, at the risk of thwarting the School of Life’s optimism, I don’t think so.

Oh, I see where they are coming from, and anger is certainly more likely to be the result when reality doesn’t match up to how we feel it SHOULD.

I think that anger is an energy in the body. Some have more of it, and some have less, but we all have some. There is no way that we can ignore our anger energy for ever, or the body starts looking for targets (consciously or unconsciously) who are passing by and don’t meet our standards in some way. Fits of anger all look pretty silly when things have calmed down.

A better way of dealing with anger is to use the energy constructively. Perhaps use it while  advocating a cause we believe in passionately, or maybe in some creative music, writing or art. In the short term, I coach my clients in techniques for venting the anger that is being troublesome in a harmless way, while they look for a satisfying project in which to pour this vital energy.

In this way they can live their lives more productively and contentedly, and have the opportunity to live life with real optimism.

Link to Video on the School of Life’s site.

Seven Ways to Sabotage Your Therapy

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

I’m not a great fan of internet lists, although it’s difficult for me to resist titles like this one. It isn’t original, unfortunately, although I am very familiar with these seven, and several more too.

This list, and several others to do with therapy, was published by Ryan Howes, in Psychology Today (link), and includes the following ways of not helping yourself when working with a therapist:

  • Choose your therapist quickly
  • Don’t ask questions
  • Lie
  • Make hints and speak in riddles
  • Triangulate (spend the time talking about other people’s troubles, rather than your own)
  • Compartmentalise (pretend that one area of your life is completely disconnected from the rest of your life – the connection is you, of course)
  • Vanish

Ryan gives some explanation on each in the article.

In practice, it is very difficult to avoid what’s on the list. I would go as far to say that if you can avoid everything on this list you have probably had a lot of therapy already! So it is more something for us both to keep in mind during therapy, to watch for ourselves doing it, and ask why (if we can!)

Leading Psychotherapist explains every Middle-Aged Women needs Therapy

David Solomon MA MBACP(SnrAccred) MPractNLP Posted on by

Susie Orbach is doing her bit to publicise the benefits of therapy to Daily Mail readers, thank goodness. However she limits the field to “women of around 50,” and, well, “women.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3955524/Leading-psychotherapist-Susie-Orbach-explains-middle-aged-woman-needs-therapy.html

OK, one of my friends has a cushion on his chair saying “behind every successful man is an exhausted woman” and I think we can guess who bought it for him. But actually it was the leading psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung who coined the phrase “mid-life crisis.” He certainly included men. Let us hope male readers of the Mail do not feel excluded.

jungJung’s point was that in the first half of life we spend our time growing up, making our way in work, raising our children, and generally being focused on the outside world. At mid-life, our attention naturally changes and different things seem to become more important to us. Questions come up like “what is my life about?” and “what do I want to do with the rest of my life?” Unless we avoid the whole area by either chasing younger members of the opposite sex, shopping, etc., which don’t solve many problems for long.

And yes, therapy can help us pick our way through that time, no matter what age it hits or what gender we are. We can find plenty of satisfaction and meaning, if we look.