In this issue
Features
Improving health and wellbeing
Catherine Jackson explores counselling鈥檚聽public mental health role.
From soldier to civilian
Michael Stott explains why military veterans聽can find it hard to accept counselling.聽
Soldier, veteran, survivor (free article)
Mervyn Wynne Jones offers guidance for聽therapists on working with military veterans.
Talking business
Nicola Banning outlines the particular聽demands of workplace counselling.
Meditative flow psychotherapy
Jeffrey Po introduces a psychotherapy聽that harnesses the power of meditation.
Growing through loss
Philippa Skinner describes how she coped聽when her son died from a drug overdose.
Listening to transgender voices
Jane Hunt finds out what transgender聽clients want from counselling.
Regulars
In practice
Rachel Freeth: The limits of science
In the client's chair
Eina McHugh: Why I put my life on the page
In the supervisor's chair
Rosie Dansey: Supervision under threat?
The researcher
Barry McInnes: Would you believe it?
How I became a therapist
Abbas Khan
Dilemmas
Crime and judgment
The interview
Sally Weintrobe: Denial and disavowal
香港六合彩精准资料
From the chair
Amanda Hawkins: Beware of middle age
Additional online content
In training
Sit down next to me. Mel Perry updates us on her first steps as a qualified counsellor after finishing her training.
In conversation with Nicola Banning
Colin Feltham interviews Nicola Banning about the challenges in embarking on a career in workplace counselling, working for an employee assistance programme (EAP) and the fascination of the work itself.
In conversation with Jeffrey Po
Colin Feltham interviews Jeffrey Po about meditation, psychotherapy and how the two combined offer a powerful means to revisit and process traumatic past experiences.
Members and subscribers can download the pdf of this issue from the Therapy Today archive.
Editorial
Readers may have seen the Panorama聽documentary 鈥楤roken by Battle鈥� in July,聽which highlighted the 50 suicides in 2012聽of veterans who served in Afghanistan. The聽documentary suggested that the numbers of聽suicides and sufferers of PTSD are far greater聽than the Government is prepared to admit.聽The Ministry of Defence has been criticised聽for not even recording the suicide rate among聽ex-soldiers, as the US Government does.
However society does seem slowly to be聽becoming more aware of the long-lasting聽effects of war and possible mental health聽problems of soldiers who have fought on the聽frontline; NHS provision has developed and聽there is growing support from charities like聽Combat Stress, which has seen a large increase聽in the number of veterans seeking its help.
In this issue two therapists with direct聽experience of the military world share their聽thoughts about the particular difficulties聽ex-soldiers face in accessing psychological聽therapies and enrich our understanding聽of the experience of military service. One聽quote from Michael Stott鈥檚 article brings聽home the problems faced by some ex-soldiers聽adapting back to civilian life: 鈥榁eterans who聽are traumatised,鈥� he writes, 鈥榗an鈥檛 work out聽why they find themselves looking for exit聽routes and intelligence gathering when聽they鈥檙e in the supermarket shopping with聽the family.鈥� As Stott explains, the military聽trains its members exceptionally well to聽make them fit for their role; what it needs聽to improve is the way in which it retrains聽and decommissions its personnel.
There is a debate, which Mervyn Wynne聽Jones outlines in his article, about whether聽military veterans respond better to fellow聽veterans in a therapeutic setting 鈥� a lack of聽understanding of military life is often cited聽as an obstacle to veterans getting effective聽therapeutic help. As with so many areas of聽life, if a good therapist makes an effort to聽properly understand their client鈥檚 culture,聽useful therapy can take place.
Sarah Browne
Editor