Therapy Today - The Online Magazine for Counsellors and Psychotherapists

"Sadomasochistic sex is arguably one of the least understood and most demonised forms of consensual sexuality. How able are we to offer ethical therapy to kinky clients when there is so little awareness of the kink experience?"

In training - Endings and beginnings

Life has aquainted me in the past with ends. I have torn enough pages off the calendar to have marked the passing of close relatives, to have waved goodbye to workplaces and work colleagues, to have shared dinner with them and thanked them for the mantel clock.

In practice - A pile of dead leaves

2 June Three hours between clients. The sun is shining and it’s a shame to be indoors. The tall front hedge needs trimming and even with my new extendable battery-powered hedge-trimmer it’s a job I don’t relish, fearing one day I’ll over-reach and topple off the ladder

In the client’s chair - Walking alone

On Tuesday my friend Rachel sent me a text; she was in need of urgent advice. She had had three sessions of therapy following an initial assessment. She had left the last session early, convinced that the therapist was not for her.