Freud: The Case Histories

Two linked Radio 4 dramas that come strongly recommended -

Episode 1 - Dora

"1899 finds a father imploring Sigmund Freud to treat his daughter after discovering her intention to end her life. When Dora first comes to Freud she suffers from a loss of voice, a debilitating cough and a limp. Dream analysis is the key to unlocking the causes of Dora's condition, and as Freud's treatment continues, secrets, seduction and betrayal are uncovered."

you can get that one on the iPlayer

Episode 2 - The Wolf Man

"It is 1910 when the depressed son of a wealthy Russian landowner arrives in Vienna. Sergei Pankejeff, 24 years old, is suffering from debilitating fears and phobias. Freud's treatment of Pankejeff is centred around an enigmatic dream his patient had as a very young child; a dream of white wolves. Freud invites Sergei to return to his childhood as a means of understanding his current depression. Analysing the child inside the man Freud unlocks the meaning of the wolves that haunt Sergei's dreams"

This will be broadcast at 9pm on Friday 31st August and then, presumably, will also be available on the iPlayer too.

Marilyn, the Last Sessions

Goodness knows what this will be like, or what it says about client confidentiality, but it's certainly something I'll be watching.

Screening on More4 at 9pm this Saturday, this is tagged as "A unique look at the life of Marilyn Monroe, focusing on the relationship she had with Freudian psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson shortly before her death"

A quick search on the web will find you a ton of information about both the film, and the book of the same name. Could be interesting.

Therapy with Child Soldiers

Uncomfortable viewing but some extraordinary work
You can find out more about the project by contacting David Taransaud directly at davidtaransaud@yahoo.com

Dying Matters Awareness Week

Today marks the first day of the "Dying Matters Awareness Week", an event whose theme is ‘Small Actions, Big Difference’. By being more open about dying and taking small actions such as writing a will, signing up to become an organ donor or looking out for those who have been recently bereaved, we can all help make a big difference to ensuring people can live well and die well. 

There's an excellent web site which is well worth visiting - you can find it here.

Dave and his hierarchy of needs

This is Dave, a feral cat that has been hanging around our house for the best part of a year. Yesterday he spent the evening sitting on the arm of the sofa watching TV with us. This was something of a breakthrough, because Dave has been extremely cautious about any sort of contact. I mention this not just because I'm extraordinarily  fond of this small black cat who yowls, dribbles and who gives me asthma, but because watching him through the last few months has made me very aware of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

Dave's primary concerns have been food and safety. We left food outside the house and he would eat it. We put food just inside the house and he would eat it - but only if we left the door open so that he could escape. If we got between him and the door he'd be off in a flash. This went on for months, which was particularly tedious in mid winter. He then discovered the stove, and realised how nice it was to sit by it - but  it was a long way from the door - but by then he was starting to trust us enough for us to be between him and the door and, eventually, for us to actually shut the door. Then he let us stroke him when he was outside. Then he decided that he liked that quite a lot and started to purr for the first time. Then he let us stroke him when he was indoors. Cat's aren't pack animals, they're solitary hunters, but seeing him watch TV last night made me wonder whether there was some need for belongingness that was now being met. 

Dave doesn't always feel safe with us, though - it's a comparative thing. This morning the door was open, Dave was half way in when a walker went by with a couple of dogs - most cats' would have responded by diving into the house and hiding under the bed. Not Dave - he  shot out of the door again and disappeared into the undergrowth. He's constantly calculating the risks and benefits. Mixing with humans might get him a more reliable source of food, and a TV to watch, but he's not going to go for it if he doesn't feel safe. Is it any different for humans? I doubt it.

You can find out more about Maslow here, (and sorry, yes, that's wikipedia) and you can find a truly terrible game I made many, many years ago based on his hierarchy of needs here. 

Picture This

I've been making a lot of web sites for therapists lately, and in many ways the content of all of them has been pretty similar - this is what I offer, this is where I'm located, this is what counselling's all about, and so on.

One thing that not every counsellor agrees on, though, is whether they want a picture of themselves on their site. I think it's a good idea, it gives potential clients a bit of a sense of the person they might be working with, but this is the very thing that some people don't feel at all happy about. They don't want to be judged by what they look like - they want potential clients to come to a decision based on what they read rather than what they see.

I think this is an interesting point - do we judge a book by its cover, or do we simply feel more ready to open the book once we know what the cover looks like?

Enduring Love

The Enduring Love project looks interesting -

The Enduring Love? research project is an exciting development in the study of personal and family lives in contemporary Britain. Much recent policy, academic and professional research has focused on the causes and effects of relationship breakdown, but many heterosexual and same sex couples also remain together for significant periods of time. In some ways, then, these couples appear to sit outside a growing tendency towards serial or transitory relationships. To understand more about couples who stay together, our research will focus on the meanings and everyday experiences of long-term relationships. However we will not be presupposing that such relationships are uniformly loving or straightforwardly associated with contentment. The project will rather be concerned with what helps people sustain relationships and how cultural myths, such as finding ‘the one’ and living ‘happily-ever-after’, are understood and reconciled by adult couples whose own relationships may fall short of these romantic ideals.

- and you can find out more on their web site