Occasionally, something I hear about therapy takes an immediate hold on me. At the moment, it is something I heard on a training course with author and psychotherapist, Jan Winhall, who has created the felt sense polyvagal model, a way of working with addictions that combines experiential focusing practice with polyvagal theory.
It amounts to the idea that all people do the things they do because it is ‘…the body’s attempt to regulate when safer ways are not available’.1 Jan repeats these words softly and regularly during the course, reminding us that ‘…viewing all this as adaptive paves the way for healing’.1 Remembering this seems to have cushioned my exchanges, both in and out of the therapy room. I haven’t stopped having my ever-so-human reactions to other people’s
ever-so-human reactions, but there is a call to compassion, or perhaps, a sidestep away to affection.
I’ve been contemplating what the word ‘affection’ means recently.
Edwin McMahon and Peter Campbell write that ‘…being in the body with affection for another or for oneself is always growth producing, healing, expanding, supportive of wholeness/ holiness because it is our body’s way of inviting grace’.2 When I really consider how the word ‘affection’ feels to me, I realise it is a bass note in therapeutic presence.
I’d like to draw attention to the ways that authors in this issue write about their work: how, in their different ways, each of them supports their clients in understanding that they exist beyond what their nervous systems do to adapt.
This issue has a special focus on body dysmorphic disorder, a condition that is difficult to diagnose and treat. Tracy Northampton and Natasha Silver Bell discuss ways to ‘…connect the client back with the core of who they are’. Lou Lebentz offers a trauma-informed approach that moves from psychoeducation, to resourcing the adult self, to gently tolerating bodily sensations.
When I read ‘Sitting in the stillness’, former NHS psychotherapist Martin Wells’ account of embracing non-duality and its impact on his work, I thought about Jan’s words again. I’ve heard and read a little about non-duality over the past few years, and what always stays with me is the possibility that peace exists when we no longer identify with our stories about who we are, or who we should be. When I really take this in, it can feel like an embodied letting go of ‘…the things we do to survive’.3
Counselling course leader Chris Steed shares a model that he and colleagues at the London School of Theology teach to students. Chris shares the comprehensive approach that trainee practitioners are taught, unpicking the ‘…sociological and system-level inputs’ that can influence a person’s development and sense of agency. At the heart of this way of working is a shift away from survival and a ‘…re-orientation towards the transcendent’.
I’d love to hear about your ways of working, so please do get in touch.
Amy McCormack, Editor
thresholds.editorial@bacp.co.uk
