Contents:

• Features
  • Therapy is a verb

    • If we change some of the key concepts of therapy from nouns to verbs that accentuate ‘be-ing’, we acknowledge that the client is a fluid individual who tends to actualise

  • Unexplained infertility

    • Psychotherapy work that precedes fertility treatment may eliminate difficulty in conceiving

  • Playful on paper

    • Are there ways in which creative writing can offer an effective tool for the reflective/reflexive practitioner, offering insights for use in supervision?

  • Engaging children in family therapy

    • It is important to see and hear the young child in family therapy – and to work on our perceptions of childhood and play if we are unable to do this

  • Lived experience

    • What wisdom governs the person-centred approach? How has non-directivity been misunderstood and misrepresented? We offer one therapist’s practical perspective of the model

  • Psychotherapy in dissent

    • Some of the objections to the rise and rise of CBT are not based on fact. Equally, CBT itself is changing in line with research that advances our understanding of what needs to be integrated within its approach

  • Personal development criteria

    • Is personal therapy the only route to self-awareness? The question has been asked and answered, re-asked and re-answered. BACP’s Head of Professional Standards, Helen Coles, clarifies the accreditation policy and criteria

  • Presenting the package

    • Running a business that takes responsibility for placing counsellors in schools makes sense for all parties involved. Julie Fallon reports on how she has developed this in the North West to include both in-school training and workshops

  • Cover feature
    • An Israeli TV series that followed client sessions over 10 weeks sparked intense media coverage and challenging internet discussions – as well as normalising the act of asking for help
• Regulars
  • News
    • Alternative medicine to be regulated

      • A new Natural Healthcare Council will regulate popular therapies including aromatherapy, homeopathy, reiki, yoga, the Alexander and the Bowen techniques and others, and will set minimum standards for practitioners to ensure that therapists are properly qualified

    • Teens unable to express emotion

      • Vulnerable young people with specific language impairment (SLI) are unable to verbally express their feelings and may lack the communication skills to report bullying, leaving them to suffer in silence, despite anti-bullying policies

    • Debt and mental health

      • The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has awarded leading mental health charity Mind £95,000 towards a campaign in 2008 that will explore the link between debt and mental health

    • Selfish capitalism

      • Mental illness owes its increase to ‘selfish capitalism’ and would be halved within a generation if we took up the unselfish capitalism of our neighbours in western Europe

    • Treat therapy and drugs the same

      • Two professors have made it clear that, in their opinion, psychotherapies are under-regulated in the UK and should be subject to the same scrutiny as drugs

    • Women and religious observance

      • Women who stop being religiously active are over three times more likely to suffer generalised anxiety and alcohol abuse/ dependence than women who report always having been active, according to research published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

    • Benefits of motor-sensory techniques

      • Australian therapist Christine Sutherland believes that more efficient and ‘client friendly’ treatment strategies could quickly see the demise of CBT

    • Why women cry at work

      • Women cry at work when they feel helpless, lack control over their work or feel they have been treated unfairly, according to findings by Yasmine Yaghmour and Gail Kinman of the University of Bedfordshire

    • Music therapy for depression

      • A therapist may be able to use music to help some clients fight depression and improve, restore and maintain their health, according to a systematic review from The Cochrane Library

    • Children’s Plan principles

      • The Department for Children, Schools and Families has consulted widely on the content of the new Children’s Plan, which is built around four principles

  • Editorial
    • Coming to the defence of CBT – which has been under attack from therapy today readers and more generally in the media – David Veale answers such accusations as ‘the IAPT will be a cheap fix’ and ‘CBT makes people passive automatons’.
  • Letters
    • Keep it simple

      • My thanks to Christopher Murray and Dorothy Ross for expressing what I have been considering for some time

    • Elitist writing?

      • Regarding the letter from Dorothy Ross, (therapy today, December 2007) I could not disagree more

    • Letting go of our headgear

      • Having read the letters from Christopher Murray and Dorothy Ross in your December issue, I simply leapt for joy

    • Extending our understanding

      • After reading Dorothy Ross’s letter, headed ‘Elitist writing’ (therapy today, December 2007), I reflected long, before deciding not to let her opinions on the editorial content of therapy today in general and James T Hansen’s article in particular go unchallenged

    • Essays are not alien, surely?

      • I would like to express my support for articles like James Hansen’s in the October 2007 issue

    • A chore to read now?

      • I fully agree with Dorothy Ross (Letters, December) regarding elitist writing

    • How real is this proposal?

      • It is good to know that the Government has pledged increased funding for its Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (IAPT)

    • Keep psychotherapy out of politics

      • Having now read Gabrielle Rifkind’s article, ‘Western diplomacy and psychology’ (therapy today, November 2007) several times, I feel moved to respond and offer another perspective

    • The dialogical self and psychosynthesis

      • The letter from Keith Silvester in the November 2007 issue makes the point that my article on the Dialogical Self did not mention psychosynthesis, with all its excellent work on sub personalities

    • Regaining playfulness and visions

      • It was good to read about the origins of BAC in the articles by Nick Tyndall and Gertrud Mander (therapy today, December 2007)

    • Positive masculinity, please

      • What a pleasure to read two articles concerning male perspectives on counselling in therapy today, December 2007

    • Map, measure, capture... and dispose of love

      • It is easy to be swamped (or just bored) with the whole business of state regulation of UK psychological therapies. But if we can find the patience to look at the big picture, what might we see?

    • What have I started?

      • I am delighted to see that a letter I wrote in June therapy today (‘LGBQ and trans students, please stand up’) has sparked so much debate

    • Keeping our hands off the cocoon

      • I read James C Buckley’s article entitled ‘Completing – not competing’ (therapy today, December 2007) with interest

  • Reviews
    • Comprehensive person-centred handbook

      • The handbook of person-centred psychotherapy and counselling Mick Cooper, Maureen O’Hara, Peter F Schmid, Gill Wyatt (eds)  Palgrave Macmillan 2007  ISBN 978-1403945129 £24.99

    • Poetry reflecting life

      • Water from the rock: poems flowing from a lifetime Jean Clark Watershed Publications 2007 ISBN 978-095287136X £10 Available from jeanclark@aol.com

    • Perspectives on attachment theory

      • Attachment: new directions in psychotherapy and relational psychoanalysis (Bowlby centenary issue) Vol 1, no 1
        Karnac 2007 ISSN 1753 5980 £19.99 Annual subscription (3 x pa) £45

    • Useful guide to widen practice

      • Therapist into coach Julia Vaughan Smith McGraw-Hill/Open University Press 2007 ISBN 978-0335220519 £18.99

    • Thoughtful exploration of mindfulness

      • Mindfulness and psychotherapy Christopher K Germer, Ronald D Siegel, Paul R Fulton (eds) Guilford Press 2005
        ISBN 978-1593851392 £27.50

    • Accessible overview of therapy professions

      • A short introduction to psychotherapy Christine Lister-Ford (ed) Sage Publications 2007 ISBN 978-0761973041 £17.99

    • Collection of essays

      • Parent-focused child therapy: attachment, identification and reflective functions Carol Wachs and Linda Jacobs (eds) Jason Aronson 2006 ISBN 978-1855754201 £39

    • Novel or textbook?

      • Binge! Richard Bryant-Jefferies iUniverse.com 2007 ISBN 978-0595442072 £9.00

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• BACP
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    • Findings, decision and sanction
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    • Professional standards

      • News from the Professional standards department

  • BACP Research
    • Counselling in schools

      • A research study into services for children and young people, commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government

    • The main therapies: equally effective or not?

      • Some encouraging new research

    • Research

      • News and information from the BACP Research Department