Links: My CV ; Diploma ; Leaflets - Counselling & Therapy; Publication ; Code of Practice - Word / PDF. My Background: For over 35 year now I have successfully worked with the features of ADHD / ADD and many other conditions that affect Attention, Communication, Socialisation, Mood and Cognition. The various 'specialist' areas vary from diagnosed Psychosis; like Autism, Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar (Manic-Depression), Anxiety Neuroses, Obsessional Compulsive conditions, Brain Damage and Dementia; through to Depressive Condition like Morbid Jealousy, Poor Anger Control, Reactive Depression, Bereavement, the effects of Physical & Sexual Abuse and Adjustment to Disablement. I have worked in the fields of Learning Difficulties, Mental Health, Sensory & Physical Disabilities, Youth Offending, Drug & Alcohol Addiction and just about every kind of occupational field. I have primarily worked as a Radical Social Worker, Advocate, Community Worker, Therapeutic Counsellor, Group Therapist, Trainer and Consultant, having developed my own style of ‘Social Therapy’ (Psycho-social Therapeutic Technique). I am not a clinician however and have never intended to become one. I have used Music, Art, Drama, Film, Video and Computers as Therapeutic Mediums I have also owned a Pub/Hotel, a small Night club, run a Cafe Bar, a Computer Business and organised local Music Entertainment events. When my friends went off to train as medics, social workers, managers & politicians of various kinds and eventually settled into their established professions, I chose to take and entirely social dynamic and person centred approach to all these various problems that people encounter. We respectfully discussed the options and I chose to take the lonelier route into the mystical area of Social Care, more an Art, when successfully practiced and a disabling, institutional activity when badly practiced. I have experienced both sides of that coin. Scientific Discipline & Methods: The reasons for my choice were simple. From my earliest attempts at studying psychology, social work and basic psychiatry, it quickly became apparent that much of the fundamental theories behind these disciplines were basically flawed. The most powerful perspectives were mostly from a very limited vantage point and relied upon principles and assumptions that had not greatly changed in over 150 years. They were also ‘value laden’ and justified under a peculiarly restrictive notion of ‘normality’. My studies of the Physical Sciences, Technology and Computers were very successful, as was my application to art and music. I, however, was more interested in how people & cultures operate and the supposed ‘science’ here was very dubious by comparison. I was also only interested in physical science and technology as it can be turned to the benefit of mankind. The rigorous thinking and intelligent application of cautiously collected and interpreted evidence was almost absent in the human sciences. It is still absent in large measure, the evidence is still ‘sought after’. The existing theories neither fitted my own rich personal experiences (ADHD, Slow Learner & Autistic features, Serious Childhood Abuse, etc), or the subsequent experience I was gaining within the social work and health care professions in which I operated. My initial struggle in the professions was marked by acknowledgments of my success in practice, but a refusal to concur with my findings, or my explanations for this success. This was because the explanations were often then too radical. They were poorly understood, but are now coming into greater recognition & acceptance. It can be quite frustrating. However, I persevered with my ‘Social Work’ and ‘Community Work’ and undertook operational research in the process. Operational Research is a method of gaining rigorous information (data) in the process of engaging in and observing ‘good practice’ and achieving measurable results and developing repeatable results (through establishing and testing rigorous hypotheses and theory). It also allows us to observe bad practice and its consequences. The nice thing about this method is that it is not ‘clinical’ and does not intrude into the natural, human relationship between client and professional. The collection of ‘masses’ of data is not essential (although it can be helpful). It is the quality of hypotheses and their applicability to increasingly general, human situations, which is most important. Good quality data is critical and others can then go off and test these hypotheses and theories for themselves (provided they understand the fundamental, deductive scientific method). The ‘subject’ plays an active part of this method. The main difference in this methodology is that there is not a requirement to stop normal life processes in order to observe ‘dissected out’ bits of the person (like thought, feeling, chemistry, physiology and social influences). It is the researcher who applies the rigorous thinking and filters out (as much as they can) all prejudices and humanly acquired assumptions. It requires discipline on the researcher’s part, not constraints upon the patient / client, who is then able to express their distress, frustration and explanations, in their terms, without significant judgment. The application of these developing hypotheses and theories is immediate and beneficial. They appertain to general findings that affect most people much of the time (including the piecemeal knowledge gained from other researchers and researches) and also consider the special condition and circumstances of the particular individual / group. They and their milieu are considered valid context for more particular research, which again, usually has the seed for more general application. There have been a few changes to my underlying philosophy for Social Scientific and Social Therapeutic methodologies (they were working effectively anyway), but the fundamental perspective I had in the beginning have remained sound. My ability to explain the phenomena and techniques have improved and my practice has sharpened as a result, become more generally applicable and more representative of people’s ordinary realities. Most importantly, the established, institutionalised practices and theories have become increasingly bankrupted and wanting. Modern 'Therapeutic' Social Work Practice: We have now reached a stage where practitioners are more open to these new perspectives. Psychiatry is developing the ‘Social’ strand of the discipline, recognising the greater importance of social forces in the generation of even serious mental ill health. This has always been my perspective, and that of the likes of R D Lange, David Cooper, the Richmond Fellowship and many others. The insistence of many abused people and neglected children and adults, that professionals had got it wrong, is now becoming painfully apparent and proven correct. No surprises there. Clinical interventions, of any kind, are for serious emergencies only. The natural healing process is best left to its own device, interfered with as little as possible. This is just as true for mental, emotional and social health. People need to gain new confidence in their own power to recover from distress and trauma, supported in humanly traditional ways, many skills of which have been lost or suppressed. Even with the need for ‘emergency’ clinical intervention, the speedy transfer to ‘social’ mechanisms is essential for the long term benefit of us all. People’s natural skills at their own recovery, providing support to others, offering non-judgmental counselling and intuitive therapeutic effect have been thoroughly undermined, or distorted by the latest ‘therapeutic’ and ‘health’ fashions. Increasingly, commercial operations are reinforcing this ‘felt’ need for ‘expert’ intervention. One group profits from making a mess of things and disempowering people and another professional group comes along to profit from making good the consequences. Guess what is next? The cycle goes on. Unfortunately, there are many professionals who take on the ‘new language’ but still practice the old institutional styles. The words are clear but the Sometimes this is due to ignorance and sometime due to their fear of loosing some measure of power and status. As always, the picture is muddied by institutional bullies and naïvely well intentioned and instructionally misguided people. The effects are still apparent as serious malpractices and abuses of human rights; often validly and increasingly angrily expressed by patients and clients who suffer these injustices. It is only by understanding these social distortions and well as their associated psychological and emotional consequences, that we can obtain the completed picture, from which to most effectively resolve problems. That is what we are about in the end and professional pride and disciplinary bias must take second, third or forth place to human dignity, human understanding, high level social skills and Natural Justice. That, I promise you, I seek to apply professionally and challenge universally. What I Can Offer and How You Are Protected: All that I can offer you; as a client, or their family member and friend, is the complete commitment to the fundamental entitlements of the individual and principles of good practice. These are laid down in the Hippocratic Oath and the Ethical Principles summarised in the UK’s GSCC Code of Ethics. These are Ethics that were established by well experienced, good practitioners, as rules and a ‘Contract’ by which we are committed to operate. They are not owned by the institutions and only have credibility in the good practice within an arrangement between professional and client/patient. I operate 'independently' of Local Government Policy in these respects. I apply this Code without Compromise to Policy. Copies of these ethical principles are available (on my website and on a leaflet) and stand as the basis for my methods of working. They are also good guidelines for judging the practice of other professionals you engage with and who I may be asked to engage with in supporting you. I will listen and accept any request for help, apply these principles and provide you with honest answers and seek resolutions which are enabling and empowering to yourself and which will seek to reduce the destructive conflict with yourself and your social networks. If I do not have an adequate response, or set of options, I will tell you so. I will be frank with you if I feel that your continued actions are risky to yourself, your relationships and to your community (and you in return). I will also help you understand how you community, society, family and personal relationships have been (or are being) destructive to yourself. The balance that you eventually maintain, between yourself and others, is your decision, but it will be from a position of greater understanding and insight into yourself and the needs and risks from others. Your own self improvement and understanding will invariably have potential benefits for others, but this is a matter of your moral choice. My fundamental approach is that it is only by better understanding ourselves that we are able to understand others and the conflicts and misunderstanding we have with others. It is only through this understanding of others, in their particular uniqueness, that we \re be better able to ensure mutual, beneficial and peaceful co-existence and inter-dependence (No one is an island, we are rarely, truly ‘independent’). © Terry Couchman; Visitweb / Your Choice; Jan, 2010. |
