Tree Staunton

This chapter discusses change from various psychotherapy perspectives, asking the question whose change, and for what? It looks at how we see change through various lenses. What do all these approaches have in common and how are they fundamentally different? Is psychotherapy helping people to change to 'fit in'-an 'adjustment model'-or is it helping them change to become who they truly are whatever that may be? Whose change is it anyway? As a body psychotherapist Staunton sets her discussion in the context of our existence as embodied beings. The other contextual element in the paper is societal, drawing parallels between 'mid life crisis' in the psychological life of an individual and the dramatic existential crisis currently facing our civilisation. She asks if the lessons learned by individuals in crisis and breakdown can be translated to the potential environmental and societal collapse. How can we sustain ourselves psychologically as well as physically in the times ahead? How can psychotherapists help people to face the truth-that our civilisation has taken a wrong path-and to help mourn our losses and change course, rather than clinging to our unsustainable ways of life.

This book introduces readers to the known psychological aspects of climate change as a pressing global concern and explores how it is relevant to current and future clinical practice. Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown will enable therapists and mental health professionals across a range of modalities to engage with their own thoughts and feelings about climate breakdown and consider how it both changes and reinforces aspects of their therapeutic work.

In this paper I discuss current debates and attitudes regarding the body in the process of psychotherapy. Drawing on my own research, I will introduce the notion of Somatic Consciousness. I am suggesting here that whilst somatically trained psychotherapists have developed special skills in this area, we are all tasked to neither limit nor exclude somatic reality, and to embrace our client's body alongside our own, with a conscious welcome.

This chapter discusses change from various psychotherapy perspectives, asking the question whose change, and for what? It looks at how we see change through various lenses. What do all these approaches have in common and how are they fundamentally different? Is psycho- therapy helping people to change to ‘fit in’ – an ‘adjustment model’ - or is it helping them change to become who they truly are whatever that may be? Whose change is it anyway? As a body psychotherapist Staunton sets her discussion in the context of our existence as embodied beings. The other contextual element in the paper is societal, drawing parallels between ‘mid life crisis’ in the psychological life of an individual and the dramatic existential crisis currently facing our civilisation. She asks if the lessons learned by individuals in crisis and breakdown can be translated to the potential environmental and societal collapse. How can we sustain ourselves psychologically as well as physically in the times ahead? How can psychotherapists help people to face the truth - that our civilisation has taken a wrong path – and to help mourn our losses and change course, rather than clinging to our unsustainable ways of life.

This article represents a brief overview of 40 years as a therapist, from my first role in the NHS to my work today. It describes my struggle to become embodied and to learn to understand and integrate my body’s messages over time. It suggests that the body is a vital part of the therapeutic process, encompassing concepts of embodiment and body identity, the body as character and messenger of the unconscious, the keeper of the psyche’s secrets, dreams and memories. In reflecting on our current global climate crisis it suggests how psychological insights and connection to our embodied selves can assist us to come to terms with our future on a critically endangered planet.

Interview / Tree Staunton & Caroline Hickman I t's taken me 10 years to really come to be effective about climate change-I had to go through my own process of despair and grief and the other things you go through when you realise what we've done.' So says Tree Staunton, UKCP-accredited psychotherapist and director of BCPC psychotherapy and counselling training, who has a long-standing involvement in climate change activism. She lives in Stroud, the home of Extinction Rebellion. Caroline Hickman, Staunton's co-speaker at UKCP's conference 'Sleepwalking into the Anthropocene-the new age of anxiety' is a psychotherapist and teaching fellow at the University of Bath and part of the Climate 'We are talking about mapping the process that people need to go through in order to come to an acceptance and resolution of the facts as we know them, and then be able to come through some kind of action in themselves,' she adds. 'But the big difference is that with climate change, we are all in the same boat. It affects us all.' Hickman and Staunton need no telling how the 'climate emergency' has become undeniable. However, it has only just started becoming an issue for the field of psychotherapy. 'I invited Caroline to come and speak to my colleagues about being a psychotherapist in times of climate catastrophe last October, and very few people attended. People said they wanted something more clinically focused,' says Staunton. 'Now, less than a year on, I would expect the outcome to be very different.' Hickman adds, 'For many, it's a new thing to engage with.'

I thoroughly recommend this book both for trainees and experienced therapists. I wish I'd had it when I was teaching. The contributors amplify and extend current literature. Each offers their own valuable perspective on the crucial questions of "how do we change?", and "how do we support others in this process?". How pertinent, especially in this pandemic. We are offered interesting and thoughtprovoking reflections on practice and in particular on the intersubjective space between therapist and client. This is an important contribution to the field and an enjoyable read. Cynthia Ransley, psychotherapist and supervisor, formerly tutor at the Metanoia Training Institute, a founder and general secretary of the United Kingdom Association for Psychotherapy Integration and editor of Forgiveness and the Healing Process.

This chapter discusses change from various psychotherapy perspectives, asking the question whose change, and for what? It looks at how we see change through various lenses. What do all these approaches have in common and how are they fundamentally different? Is psycho- therapy helping people to change to ‘fit in’ – an ‘adjustment model’ - or is it helping them change to become who they truly are whatever that may be? Whose change is it anyway? As a body psychotherapist Staunton sets her discussion in the context of our existence as embodied beings. The other contextual element in the paper is societal, drawing parallels between ‘mid life crisis’ in the psychological life of an individual and the dramatic existential crisis currently facing our civilisation. She asks if the lessons learned by individuals in crisis and breakdown can be translated to the potential environmental and societal collapse. How can we sustain ourselves psychologically as well as physically in the times ahead? How can psychotherapists help people to face the truth - that our civilisation has taken a wrong path – and to help mourn our losses and change course, rather than clinging to our unsustainable ways of life.

I have begun to articulate some aspects of change in society today and to suggest how therapy is developing in response - or in conjunction with these changes. Psychotherapy both reflects what is happening in the culture and the collective psyche, and at the same time can bring awareness to it. We know that whilst we cannot make things change, we can create a consciousness that allows them to change.

In this paper I expand on a presentation at the United Kingdom Association for Psychotherapy Integration (UKAPI) conference 2017, where I was an invitation speaker. I present the approach to training at Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling-both the pedagogy and the underlying philosophy-which remains an integration of Humanistic and Psychoanalytic traditions. I discuss how BCPC has embraced intersubjective Systems Theory, and developed a psychobiographical approach to teaching and research.

This engaging one-day conference was a landmark in that it marked the launch of an Alliance now called the Climate Psychology Alliance (see the Alliance Mission Statement on page 17 of this bulletin). The event was opened by Judith Anderson, current Chair of PCSR. This was followed by an introduction from Paul Hoggett, Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of West of England. Clive Hamilton, public academic, Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (a joint centre of the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne) and visiting academic, University of Oxford, then gave a keynote address.

In this paper I will discuss current debates and attitudes regarding the body in the process of psychotherapy. Drawing on my own research, I will introduce the notion of Somatic Consciousness. I am suggesting here that whilst somatically trained psychotherapists have developed special skills in this area, we are all tasked to neither limit nor exclude somatic reality, and to embrace our client’s body alongside our own, with a conscious welcome.

Whilst many practitioners today may be interested in involving the body in their practice, they may lack the confidence or experiential knowledge to do so. This book goes some way towards illustrating how the body can be introduced into the clinical setting.
It is demonstrated throughout the book that the fundamental premise in body psychotherapy is that our core beliefs are embodied, and that until we begin to experience the pain held in them directly through our bodies they will continue to run our lives, even fi we mentally understand them.

This book shows how body psychotherapy can be healing, reparative and rewarding. It will make essential reading for postgraduates and professionals, whether they are already involved in this field, or wish to learn more about incorporating it into their own practice. In the past the practice of body psychotherapy has been taken less seriously in professional circles than more traditional psychotherapeutic approaches. Body Psychotherapy redresses the balance, offering insights into a spectrum of approaches within body-oriented psychotherapy. A range of experienced contributors introduce new areas of development and emerging theory and clinical material, covering: * the history of body psychotherapy * theoretical perspectives on body psychotherapy, including post-Reichian and development of integrative methodologies * body psychotherapy in practice, including applications for trauma and regression * the future for body psychotherapy. Product description Review "This book should make it possible for those psychotherapists whose training did not involve much (or any) focus on the theory and practices of body psychotherapy to think about adding a bodily perspective to their existing ways of doing things. Body psychotherapists will find the book an enormously useful resource-stimulating, comprehensive and responsible."-From the Foreword by Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex Synopsis In the past, the practice of body psychotherapy has been taken less seriously in professional circles than more traditional psychotherapeutic approaches. This volume redresses the balance, offering insights into a spectrum of approaches with body-oriented psychotherapy. A range of experienced contributors introduce new areas of development and emerging theory, showing how body psychotherapy can be healing, reparative and renewing. The book will make essential reading for postgraduates and professionals, whether they are already involved in this field, or wish to learn more about incorporating it into their own practice.