Contents:

• Features
  • The art of moving

    • Parkour involves overcoming obstacles by adapting one’s movements to the environment. Gabrielle Pearson-Heavisides visited a programme in St Petersburg that uses the discipline to restore young offenders to mainstream life

  • Miracles of mindbody medicine

    • A small but growing number of healthcare professionals believe that chronic pain is often a psychophysical phenomenon that responds well to psychological treatment. Alan Gordon and colleagues tell the story of tension myoneural syndrome (TMS)

  • Facing the future

    • Nineteen leading thinkers came together at the Big Idea conference in London in March to present their bold proposals, visionary ideas and inspiring concepts for the future

  • DIY therapy

    • In light of the launch by GPs of a campaign advocating self-care for minor ailments, Emma Redfern argues the case for therapeutic self-care

  • Mindfulness in context

    • The growing interest in mindfulness has opened the doors of meditation to the helping professions, but mindfulness-based CBT represents merely the beginning of many possible connections still to be made between Eastern contemplative practices and Western psychotherapy, argues Manu Bazzano

  • Essential ‘how to’ guide to research

    • Researching, reflecting and writing about work: guidance on training course assignments and research for psychotherapists and counsellors, Fiona Gardner and Steven J Coombs (eds), Routledge 2009, £19.99, ISBN 978-041547230

  • Cover feature

    • Addressing medically unexplained symptoms has huge potential to reduce the burden of illness and the cost of health services. Yet our systems of healthcare delivery militate against it, writes Tim Webb

• Regulars
  • Columns
    • In practice - Whither pride?

      • You find me in playful mood. Might be the fact that the ‘Dun Listening’ sign is in the window and I’m looking forward to a long weekend off.

    • In training - The wrong hoops?

      • As postgraduate students, we currently find ourselves at the sharp end of the course, represented for many of our number by the looming spectre of another extended written project

    • In the client's chair - In the flow

      • We’ve settled into a routine now. My therapist and I sit opposite each other in armchairs in a dimly lit room. A coffee table separates us, with nothing on it but a copy of the flow diagram he presented to me in session five

    • The art of coaching - Learning from assessment

      • One of the hot topics around the corporate coaching world is how some organisations, particularly larger ones, are increasingly using assessment centres to select coaches to work with them.

  • News
    • GPs demand end to therapy delays

      • An ‘overwhelming’ response to a survey sent out to GPs by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has painted a picture of patchy availability of adult psychological therapy services across the country

    • Funding will help Welsh veterans

      • A pilot project to support armed services personnel experiencing mental health problems is to be extended

    • Websites told to remove material promoting self-harm

      • Doctors have called on websites to remove material which romanticises or promotes self-harm by young people, as figures emerged suggesting a significant rise in the numbers admitted to hospital

    • Motherhood cuts suicide risk

      • A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal has found that having children can cut the chances of a woman committing suicide

    • Mental health costs Wales £7.2 billion per annum

      • Promoting better mental health would save money and boost life expectancy by seven-and-a-half years, says the All Wales Mental Health Promotion Network

    • Mother’s love keeps sons on straight and narrow

      • Experts who analysed data provided by around 6,000 youngsters aged 12 and under, found that boys who never forge close relationships with their mothers are more likely to be aggressive and suffer mental health problems

    • Six out of 10 people have suffered mental health problems

      • Six out of 10 people (62 per cent) in Britain have had at least one time in their life where they found it difficult to cope mentally, according to a recent survey

    • First National Clinical Director

      • Professor Louis Appleby will be the first National Clinical Director for Health and Criminal Justice

    • Community Links in top 100 best companies

      • Leeds-based Community Links, a mental health service provider, has scooped a prestigious place in The Sunday Times

    • Do we know when our clients get worse?

      • About five to 10 per cent of the time, people in therapy get worse instead of better (see www.bps.org.uk/harm)

  • Editorial

    • Up to one third of people consulting a GP will have medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) – from breathing attacks to chronic back pain – as part of their problem

  • Letters
    • BPD: rounding the picture

      • I am writing in response to Gillian Proctor’s article in last month’s issue, which I read with some frustration. There are various points I would like to make

    • Claims lack substance

      • When Therapy Today dedicated a significant amount of space to Human Givens (HG), I thought, well, there are so many similar things around, it does not do any harm. But when I read the following sentence in Ivan Tyrell's response to a not particularly strong critique in the last issue of Therapy Today, my attitude changed

    • Limitations of ‘rewind technique’

      • I would like to add some observations to Ian Stevenson’s letter regarding Human Givens’ claims about the treatment of clients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

    • Ditch the evangelical style

      • I have never read beyond the first page of the MindFields promotional leaflets. Any therapeutic approach that seems to offer itself as ‘the way, the Truth and the Light’ I tend to bin

    • Human Givens a serious body

      • In the March letter titled ‘Extraordinary claims’, Ian Stevenson raised further issues concerning the Human Givens approach: ‘HG doesn’t even believe in the necessity for practitioners to have their own therapy.’

    • Working with brain damaged clients

      • I was interested in this excellent article in the March edition which highlighted many of the complexities of working with brain damaged clients.

    • Obituary, Celia Hindmarch

      • Readers of Therapy Today will have noted the very moving article by Celia Hindmarch in October 2009, 'On being open and letting go'

    • Obituary, Nicola Benson

      • Nicola Benson died on 12 February 2010 after a long illness

    • Trauma – ‘no quick fix’

      • I was very interested to read the letter from Ian Stevenson in the March issue of Therapy Today regarding the claims made by the Human Givens approach, when working with trauma. I have for a long time questioned the, quite frankly, unbelievable time frame they are suggesting in which trauma can be worked through.

    • Britishness, otherness, BACP and becoming accredited

      • Some years ago, just after I finished my graduate diploma in counselling, I became very excited when the then CPJ devoted a whole issue to ‘race’. I was excited because I was brought up to believe that mental health ‘disorders’ – especially schizophrenia and paranoia – were applied mainly to black people.

    • Stick to walkies please

      • I'm sure I can't be the only reader of Therapy Today to have been shocked by the statement in Martin Halifax's article that, as a counsellor in training, he is worried that now that he has been issued with the counsellor's lens he will put all his feelings under the intense scrutiny of this lens when, before, he ‘might have walked the dog or kicked the cat’.

    • Questioning attitudes towards sexual diversity

      • I would like to support David Sagar in his letter ‘Anti-male bias’ (March 2010). Not simply in his suggestion that this journal is anti-male but to broaden the discussion to the questionable attitude Therapy Today has towards diversity and difference.

    • BPD: not just a feminist issue

      • Gillian Proctor, in ‘BPD: mental illness or misogyny?’ (Therapy Today, March 2010), argues that ‘Given that at least 75 per cent of those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder are female... this is the latest example of a historical tendency to explain away as “madness” the strategies some women use to survive oppression and abuse.’

  • Questionnaire
    • Colin Feltham

      • Facing redundancy at the age of 60, Colin Feltham’s idea of perfect happiness is to gain enlightenment and win the lottery on the same day

  • Day in the Life

    • Working as bereavement co-ordinator for St Christopher’s Hospice in South London, Christine Murray is responsible for the day-to-day management of the service

  • Reviews
    • CNH exposition

      • Constructivist psychotherapy: a narrative hermeneutic approach, Gabriele Chiari and Maria Laura Nuzzo, Routledge 2009, £20.99, ISBN 978-0415413138

    • Sibling relationships

      • Siblings in development: a psychoanalytic view, Vivienne Lewin and Belinda Sharp (eds), Karnac 2009, £20.99, ISBN 978-1855756847

    • Fear of flying

      • Overcome your fear of flying, Robert Bor, Carina Eriksen and Margaret Oakes, Sheldon Press 2009, £7.99, ISBN 978-1847090829

    • Supervision: a psychodynamic perspective

      • Supervision in counselling and psychotherapy: an introduction, Liz Omand, Palgrave Macmillan 2009, £19.99, ISBN 978-0230006324

    • Learning from young people

      • Young people in post-conflict Northern Ireland: the past cannot be changed, but the future can be developed, Dirk Schubotz and Paula Devine (eds), Russell House Publishing 2008, £14.95, ISBN 978-1905541348

    • CBT for people living with disability

      • Living with physical disability and amputation, Dr Keren Fisher, Sheldon Press 2009, £7.99, ISBN 978-1847090768

    • Disability and child sexual abuse

      • Disability and child sexual abuse: lessons from survivors’ narratives for effective protection, prevention and treatment Martina Higgins and John Swain, Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2009, £22.99, ISBN 978-1843105633

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    • Research

      • Participate in research

    • Networking

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• BACP
  • BACP News
    • BACP News

      • News from your Association

  • BACP Professional Standards
    • Applying for accreditation: supervision

      • In the third of our guidance articles on accreditation, assessor Stephen Hitchcock looks at reflective practice criterion 8.3: supervision

    • Newly accredited counsellors/psychotherapists

      • We would like to congratulate the following members on achieving their BACP accredited status:

  • BACP Research
    • Seed corn project yields interesting findings about same-sex couples

      • Jan Grove reports on the findings of a small-scale study undertaken to explore the experiences of people who have engaged in same-sex couple counselling

    • BACP research conference

      • The research conference ‘Research Impacts’ runs over two days, Friday 14 and Saturday 15 May 2010