Kurt Lewin and Donald Kalsched offer psychotherapists two very different ways of thinking about groups. Lewin helps us see the group as a dynamic field of forces, roles, norms, pressures and possibilities. Kalsched helps us see the inner world of trauma: the...
Psychotherapist Resources
Kurt Lewin, Group Dynamics and the Inner World of Trauma
Kalsched, Trauma and the Inner World of Therapeutic Groups
Donald Kalsched did not write a manual for therapeutic group work. His contribution is more indirect, and perhaps more clinically interesting. His writing gives psychotherapists a way of thinking about trauma, dissociation, archetypal defence and the inner protective...
Recognising Selfobject Dynamics in the Consulting Room
Selfobject dynamics are present in every therapeutic relationship, whether explicitly recognised or not. From a self psychological perspective, clients do not merely relate to the therapist; they experience the therapist as performing essential psychological...
Working Clinically with Eco-Anxiety and Climate Grief: Ethical and Therapeutic Considerations
As awareness of climate change deepens, I am increasingly encountering clients whose distress is explicitly linked to environmental collapse, political inaction, and fears about the future. Eco-anxiety and climate grief pose particular challenges for clinical...
Reading on Bisexuality for Mental Health Professionals
Reading on Bisexuality for Mental Health Professionals Despite increased LGBTQ+ visibility, bisexual people continue to experience distinct forms of marginalisation. Research consistently demonstrates elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and minority stress among...
Autonomy, Alignment, and the Psychotherapy of Systems
The emergence of artificial intelligence that can update itself, modify internal models, and act with partial autonomy raises a set of questions that sound surprisingly familiar to psychotherapists. Concerns about misalignment, harmful optimisation, or systems losing...
Reviewing Therapy for Perverts, Weirdos and Crazy Cat People
This article offers a reflective review of Therapy for Perverts, Weirdos and Crazy Cat People: A Lived Experience Introduction to Gestalt Therapy by John Gillespie, an independently published introduction to Gestalt therapy rooted firmly in lived experience. I was...
Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame – Reflections from a Relational Therapist
Introduction Working with clients who carry a persistent sense of shame often reveals how deeply these experiences are rooted in early relational patterns. Patricia DeYoung’s Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame (2015) offers a thoughtful and clinically grounded...
Understanding Ware’s Sequence in Transactional Analysis
Ware’s Sequence is a well-established concept within Transactional Analysis (TA) that explains how individuals move through ego states in predictable ways when stress, conflict, or relational pressure builds. Originally described by Paul Ware in the early 1980s, it...
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