Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

If NATO and Russia were in a good couple therapy! Both sides ignoring the fear of the other. Both threatened by the thinking of the other. As one couple said last week:
” …why and how do we think and feel so differently?….” Yet these two people find themselves together. Unable to understand the fear and anxiety of the other. NATO and Russia.

How did you first meet? All you countries were on the same side against Hitler’s Germany. What is the history of your relationship? Unsteady but at times manageable – then it began to go awry. What do you have in common? People and trade. What are your differences? One version might be that Russia sanctioned the deomocratisation of East Germany, and the Baltic states. Leaving Russia more exposed. NATO with the force of the US carried on with the world domination of democracy. Russia becoming more and more uneasy. Do the work on NATO understanding Russia’s point of view and vice versa.

What is ‘forgotten’ in therapy can lead to what is hurt, betrayed, or unresolved. The presenting past motivates us beyond our understanding. Once the past can be understood the present becomes inevitable. Then maybe the future can be more wisley thought of. Maybe ……….

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Anxiety, helplessness, & hopelessness are natural feelings to have with war on the doorstep. As humans we are set up to feel feelings to protect ourselves and those close to us. Fight, flight, & freeze are unconscious reactions for our survival. The threat we feel with a war hundreds of miles away is partly to do with modernity. The last war in Europe ended over 80 years ago.
To actually go through what the people of Ukraine are going through now has been “forgotten” in Europe. The images are awful in their ordinariness of completely destroying everyday lives.

Modernity has incubated us from the whole idea of death. But death is mercilessly consistently present. Modernity gives us the opportunity to turn away, and deny it. And so the politicians in encouraging buffer states to be a part of NATO: have ignored the threat in a state of denial. Upping the ante until the dam breaks.

Both idelogically driven. Democracy v. Dictatorship. The liberal ideologue that democracy is the besy way to live has caused much suffering and misery. Whatever side you belong to the whole point is that you cannot see the merits of the others point of view. Nevermind that research shows that many living in democracies want to be ruled by a dictatorship. Democracy is used as an economic weapon to subjugate people: who feel they gain little from the democractic system.
Both have benefits and failures that the other side cannot see.

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

The Bobsleigh event is unusual in that it attracts athletes from other sporting disciplines. Vonetta Flowers was a sprinter and long jumper who switched to the Bobsleigh event and won a Winter Olympic
Gold medal in Salt Lake City in 2002.
The first woman team to win the event for the first time since 1932, when the Olympic bobsleigh organisers added a new event, the first ever women’s Bobsleigh competition.

As ever success is bred out of desire overcoming adversity. She failed several times to make the US Olympic track event teams. Undeterred she switch disciplines. Teaming up with experienced Bobsleigh driver Jill Bakken they were outsiders not seen as having a chance for medals let alone gold.

She became the first African American and the first black athlete from any country to win a gold medal at
a Winter Olympics.

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Freud was canny in describing death. He believed that none of us can accept our own death.
“at bottom no one believes in his own death”. and “in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own immortality”.
The “secret of heroism” encapsulates the idea that we all believe we are immortal. To protect ourselves against the idea of death. Religion and its beliefs are a clever defense against death. Our efforts at life are defined by our fear of death.

With the death of parents the child/adult is left abandoned, bereft of the creator. Creators cannot be forgotten or resolved. Their death gives us the burden of being the next in line. The invisible movement of being pushed forward to the front row. Unprotected by the row of creators ahead of you – the wind of existence has a unique chill.

Like on the edge of a cliff, or tall building. The death instinct wants you to fall – the life instinct holds you back.
The self destruct button gets pushed when the life instinct loses its power to balance. Like two opposing magnets the life and death instincts fight for dominance. We fight the death instinct as we know that it will eventually win. Not if but when.
As Freud said after all “everyone owes nature a death”

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Truth and Memory. Is a memory truthful? Is the truth truthful? Does time affect memory and truth?

Parents and siblings remember memories of family incidents very differently. An only child has the parents to rely on. Siblings can give extra confirmation and depth to memories. But siblings can contradict our memories, which creates conflicting views which is upsetting and creates doubt inside us.

It is easy to imagine that if we felt loved by a parent our memories might be better of them. If not worse. A parent loves one sibling and not another. Our memories are held together with the glue of love and hate. The same repeats in adult relationships.

Physical or emotionally abusive relationships are memorised or forgotten for us to carry on our lives to better relationships. To understand how we allowed ourselves into poor relationships can come from a trauma or an attempt to compensate a childhood experience.

If we were neglected as a child counter-intuitively we seek neglectful adult relationships. Brought up in a family with no capacity to understand or process feelings. Children bring this lack of capacity to adult relationships not understanding what they are feeling, and why they are acting like they do. Overwhelmed and wanting to get the feelings away, we act to reduce our pain by inflicting it on others.

A way through is to risk feeling. A feeling truth can be used as a framework to better understanding of what we suffered and how we might intergrate the hurt and pain into ourselves.

Our memory of the truth creates a barrier to protect us. This is our brain’s main focus. Self-protection and continuation. The brain doesn’t care how.

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Sidney Poitier First black actor to win the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Lillies of the Field in 1964.
His acting roles broke boundaries in a time of ignorance of issues of difference and race.

He was in his twenties in 1950s America. Martin Luther King Jr. was asking for brotherhood and integration. Segregation in public schools was ruled unconstitutional in 1954. Rosa Parkes refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1955. Segregation on buses was lifted in 1956.

The 1960s brought race riots in Harlem & Philadelphia 1964, Detroit & Plainfield in 1967, and in 1968 riots against the Death of Martin Luther King. In 1964 he won his Oscar. Amazing times where he forged his career as a Hollywoood Actor.

Sidney Poitier, 20th February 1927 – 6th January 2022

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Whether you love or hate the present prime minister he is in place due to charisma, a straight talking politician, a showman with a common touch. But he is not the first, and perhaps something of a turned down version of a previous prime minister Lloyd Geoge.

Lloyd George was described as a “cavorting charlatan”, a “bully”, a “rogue” and a “scoundrel”, who “would not recognise truth,” He was ruthlessly ambitious, and didn’t mind who knew it.
The population joked that Lloyd George had a child in every town.

Similarly he was untouchable for a while. Whatever he did: he got away with.
But when a charasmatic leader loses his shine. He’s dealt with quickly.

And then followed by a more traditional boring politician.

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

April Ashley  had gender reassigned therapy male to female in 1960.

Anyone can barely imagine the level of prejudice and hatred against transgender at this time.        
Born in Liverpool and one of nine children she went to sea as a teenager.

She became a model only for a short time as a newspaper outed her.
She was married to an aritsocrat, but at divorce the marriage was anulled, and she got nothing.
She opened her own restaurant, had a heart attack and retreated from the public eye.

A life masterclass on how to survive judgement and prejudice.
April Ashley 29 April 1935 – 27 December 2021

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2022
All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Back in the day hundreds of American psychologists flew into city psychology conference centres. On the first day  they were asked to silently mingle around the conference hall and to pair off with another person. The criteria would be if you liked the look of the person, or they felt familiar.

Then they were asked to sit down & talk about their childhoods. Suprisingly or Unsurprisingly they identified similar strong themes, events, & traumas. The idea being that we send out secret silent messages of criteria we need to connect to another. We have little choice of who our partners and friends are. We just repeat what was imprinted early on.

Take the dating couple, worn down by a series of first dates. An immediate connection born of familiarity and comfort. Later discovering the early loss of their fathers. The trauma bond. Then moving into the woman’s flat. The block building which unknown to them both was originally an orphange for Fatherless Girls.
Fatherless Children Coincidence

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2021
All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique