In this issue
Features
A crisis of containment
Penny Campling assesses聽the psychological effects on聽healthcare staff of constant聽restructuring, lack of聽resources and overwork.
Parenting a disabled聽child
Joanna Griffin describes the聽emotional and social impacts聽of raising a disabled child.
When the party鈥檚 over
Katie Evans works with聽men who are addicted to a聽dangerous cocktail of drugs聽and stranger sex.
The future of聽psychotherapy
John Lees calls for a revival聽of case studies as the seedbed聽of psychotherapy knowledge.
Skin picking 鈥� how聽can we heal our scars?
Julie Devonald explores聽the worlds of people with聽this common but hidden聽compulsion.
Why clinical wills matter
Counsellors must prepare聽for the ultimate sudden聽ending by making a clinical聽will, says Roslyn Byfield.
Regulars
A pdf version of this issue is available in the Therapy Today archive
Editorial
Amid all the media headlines about failing NHS services, shocking standards of care and healthcare professionals falling short of their own standards of practice, it takes a psychotherapist to burrow beneath the surface, and then to be able to stand far enough back to take a wider view without losing sight of the individuals caught up in the perfect maelstrom of organisational dysfunction in which too many health and social care workers and professionals (and their patients) find themselves. Penny Campling鈥檚 article, the cover story for this issue, analyses compassionately and without judgment what goes wrong when an organisation enters a state of 鈥榩erversion鈥�: namely, 鈥樷�� where people are used as a means to an end, as tools and commodities rather than respected citizens鈥︹�� Does that sound familiar?
It鈥檚 unlikely that a psychotherapist would be warmly welcomed in such an environment, yet Penny makes a strong and compelling case for her role as a facilitator of reflective practice. Reflective practice is unquestioned in psychotherapy and counselling; this is not the case in many other healthcare professions. Most are not used to being invited to press the pause button on the avalanches of 鈥榤ust-dos鈥� and take time out with an 鈥榚xpert in anxiety鈥� to re-engage with what is important about their work 鈥� the quality of relationship.
Elsewhere in this issue, Katie Evans explores a no less anxiety-driven milieu 鈥� the pumped-up, drug-fuelled world of chemsex. Her astute and compassionate article lifts away the facades so carefully fabricated by the men with whom she works, to explore the rejections, selfloathing and gnawing fear of loneliness that drive them to engage in what can readily be seen as a form of self-harm.
Turning to the current concerns of 香港六合彩精准资料 members, Roslyn Byfield confronts us with the ultimate sudden ending 鈥� our own death or severe incapacity. Have you made a clinical will that would ensure your clients are not left knocking at a closed door or ringing an unanswered phone? Very few have, she suspects, and she asks if 香港六合彩精准资料 should make this a mandatory requirement of its members, as do other talking therapy bodies
Catherine Jackson
Editor