Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

The allure of the wedding still holds. The ceremony to wed husband and wife, wife and husband.
Yet the statistics show that Europeans are less and less interested in the sanctity of marriage. Yet the immediate simplicity of falling in love with someone who you love in the moment and want to extend that love to a life time remains iconic. Unrealistic and naive perhaps but all the same full of hope and optimism.

But a royal wedding is something else. The glorious weather untypical. Giving the tourist and anglophile the world over another reason to romanticise an Olde Ye England. Kings and Queens, Green Meadows, Country Cottages all wrapped up in the biscuit tin of a Culture of Manners, Law and Order and Fair Play. And Brexit.

With an American mixed race Bride, and the history of the groom and his mother. An energetic sermon focused on human rights. The suggestion of modernity enters into the Royal Wedding. Finally the Royals catching up with the 21st Century.

But the Royals are clever. They bend and twist to flex into something they cannot be. As Head of State itself an anochronism the Royals must always be trailing modernity: following careers in the Forces, and heading up the State Religion Apparatus.

The allure of Le Football still holds. The sport creates an obsessive fascination for large parts of the population. A game won by a foul. The owner of the winning team unable to enter the country. Unsporting and corrupt. The sport shows itself to be Powerful, Rich, and Royal. The administration of Football theatens to modernise. But never does. 

The FA Cup Final on the same day as the Royal Wedding could not be moved. The Population would have been forced to choose. Royalty or Football?
Two parts of English Culture colliding on the one day.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

In May 1968 France was the closest that a western country in recent times has nearly had a revolution. The working class and students revolted against the status quo. The whole country and its bureaucracy came to a halt. De Gaulle the French President fled to Germany, dissolved the National Assembly, and called for new parliamentary elections.

50 years later without irony a couple of fashion houses have created an
ad campaign to celebrate the event. Young people and Revolution is sexy.
Great to sell stuff. Such is the consumption of culture to be re-sold back to us.

In a Freudian sense, if May 1968 killed the Father Figure (at least in the West), the offspring today is a multitude of neoliberal barbarisms, with defunct paternalist Capital opening the playing field to the brutality of hyper-concentrating global finance Masters of the Universe.

Today the most likely place for Revolution is from the mass immigration of young people from the East left to languish in poverty across the West. Would anyone today support them? Is there too much to lose? Mortgages, kids, tuition fees and loss of career? Perhaps this underestimates them. Younger generations have taken the full brunt of a life with nothing but the market place. Maybe not.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

Has Political Correctness Gone Too Far? For some not far enough.
It has paved the way for a culture that uses language that does not discriminate on the grounds of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion etc. PC is said to be the decent way to think, in an ever shifting world of more fliud identities. The plates of power are shifting. A new world order is possibly emerging.
Offensive PC

But what of the crusty losers? Where PC aims to protect the marginalised and disenfranchised, PC attacks the sections of the population hanging onto the old world order. With something to lose they hang onto this old world order hoping for a return to an older age.

And there is some truth in that if you change the language you change the culture. But it takes a while. A long while.
Unfortunately PC does not allow us our fears, prejudices and hatreds that we all have deep inside us. In the therapy profession when a client tells us of suicidal intention: we ask more about it. We try and bring it to the surface. So that it can be talked about and thought about with less likelihood of being acted out.

PC is not so flexible. It does not allow for our fears and hatreds: so where do they go? They stay repressed: frozen ready to be awakened: triggered by frustration and powerlessness. Brexit and Trump can be interpreted in this way.

Our society at this time does not cater for all of the human. Some have escaped the poverty of a primitive age to be saved by mass consumerism and capitalism. But has it gone too far. Humans work like a pendulum. A pause is only allowed at each extreme: the middle grey area is rapidly passed through.
Offensive PC

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

Humiliation is a punishment or act which is designed to attack the victims’ identity.
Embarrassment is self inflicted while humiliation is meted out by the perpetrator, or set up by an unfortunate set of circumstances. It is traumatic and lays down repressed scars in the psyche.
It is a part of our primitive brain which keeps the top of the heirarchy dominating those lower down. Being humiliated is linked to powerlessness. It keeps those lower down the chain in place. In torture it is a big part of the stripping away of the identity of the victim. 

Did it play a part  in the Brexit vote? A section of the community who feel marginalised and humiliated hit back. The anger and hurt popped out in a way which was unrelated to the original hurt. 
Even if it is sabotaging and detrimental to that part of the community. The helpless anger triggered by the impact of the humiliation was the bigger force. Maybe this explains the idea that Brexit was not a vote against Europe. But an expression of pent up anger of the humiliated. 

After WW1 Germany was punished and humiliated. The anger and shame of this humilliation created a rage fuelling WW2. The study of humiliation shows that it plays a big part in war conflict across the world.
Humiliation is a part of us: how we are made. But its consequences are dangerous. 

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

How can Windrush happen? The UK moved from unregulated mass immigration to a crackdown on immigration to Brexit. A hostile environment was created to meet unrealistic targets to reduce net immigration. One thing the prime  minister does is stick to a target.
How long has this being going on with it not becoming an issue? Has the Brexit vote neutralised any humanity the UK has towards its Commonwealth citizens?

Again it is a culmination of all these factors. What it demonstrates is that modern media prevents us from joining up the dots. The news being brief and sensational it never gives us a complete picture. We struggle to make a historical time line which leads to events unfolding with many influences.
It can appear that events erupt on the day, with little thought or reflection.

Blair is blamed for the opening of the UK borders. The Left opens and the Right closes?
Yet the impact on individuals lives of the Windrush Generation can never fully understood and appreciated.
Then maybe it is just racism. Institutional. Political. Governmental. Populace. Popular. Personal. Individual.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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 difference between wise compassion and idiot compassion is that idiot compassion is easier.
There is no risk of confrontation, anger or hurt.
Idiot Compassion backs up other peoples’ neurosis under the guise of you being nice or good.
People might need to be given a hard time, but it is seen as impolite or rude. Being wise compassionate in a culture of manners is challenging.
Keep the peace, don’t rock the boat, be quiet.
Idiot Compassion 

To practice wise compassion demands intelligence and courage. Causing harm and pain is not the same thing. Causing harm is long term while the immediate pain prevents confrontation and the long term harm continues.
Whether what you say is true or not depends on its benefit, and if it is pleasing to others or not. The major point is that whether it is pleasing or not pleasing is irrelevant. This is not part of the decision of whether to say or not!
In other words how the truth will be received is not part of the decision as to whether it can be said!

Bhuddists see idiot compassion as enabling. Or giving people what they want because you cannot bear to see them suffering. In this way you are giving people what they want, but really you’re doing it for yourself. So you can remain as being seen as nice. The person will not thank you for wise compassion. They maybe upset and threaten the relationship. But the intention is to avoid long term harm. Even though it might cause short term pain.
Good Luck with Your Wise Compassion
Idiot Compassion

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

For much of history sexuality has not been divided up into fixed categories. In Ancient Greece being gay was seen  as a practice not as part of a person’s identity. The invention of the term homosexuality was recorded by Karoly Maria Kertbeny to right an injustice against a gay man.
Define Sexuality
In the Ottoman Empire there were three genders and two sexualities. The genders were Men, Women, and Boys and the sexualities the penetrator, and the penetrated. Sexuality was more fluid, not defined. Sex was seen as what people practiced not identified.

Towards the late-19th century, relationships between men and boys had fallen into disrepute. In a much-quoted document submitted to Abdülhamid II, sultan from 1876 to 1909, the historian and statesman Ahmed Cevdet Pasha wrote:
Woman-lovers have increased in number, while boy-beloveds have decreased. It is as if the People of Lot have been swallowed by the earth. The love and affinity that were, in Istanbul, notoriously and customarily directed towards young men have now been redirected towards girls, in accordance with the state of nature.

The decline of a more fluid view of sexuality was hurried in by the advent of Western-influenced heteronormativity in Ottoman society, and of the repression it inevitably entails. Ending up with homophobia being a powerful force in Turkey today. Define Sexuality

What is salutary is how we view the sexual norms of society today as being fixed and held forever. Our norms are just like any other. Fixed in a time and place. To begin and end. Seen over hundreds of years the fluidity is more apparent.
As part of global living perhaps we feel more threatened living with the others. So we have to have identities to make sure we can be amongst our own. And not some others. Also the rise of marketing demands categories so people can be specifically targeted and sold to.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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

How to Resist a State of Forgetfulness.
Is it possible to read natural appearances as texts? Drawing flowers can be seen as messages, which are not verablised or scripted. The aim to respond to different rythms and forms which have a text but not a wriiten one. Confabulations 

In this present world of financial speculation we are drowned by the media by distracting information which blinds us to what is real and a truth. The world is no longer dictated by politicians and politics. But a global cartel of financiers, bankers, and speculators. Politicians debate the issues as if they are in charge. They use words such as democracy, choice, freedom which have been emptied of meaning. Populations glance at their talking heads, as though it were a pointless rote exercise.

The Press deliver a constant stream of shocking events which pulverises the listener into a glazed numbness. There is no back story or complicated history. Just a stream of shocks focused on the unpredicatability of life.

Everything is quanitified numerically, stripping it of a sense of quality or individuality. GDP, percentages, profit margins. But nothing of people and their hopes and fears. This creates an amnesia or forgetting. We are being educated to live as suffering in an endless uncertain time in a state of forgetfulness.

While the state of people around the world becomes more threatened. Countries invaded, eating junk, the planet warming. To be an activist in this time needs fortitude, and courage. The ways to protest are at the moment unclear  and unavailable.

Rather than the digital binary state of existence on a straight line we are the centres of circles. The circles of us remind us of an age where texts were not addressed to us but witnessed by us. Symmetry exists with chaos. Not just chaos alone.
“that what is desired is more reassuring than what is promised.” Berger P.142
Confabulations by John Berger 2016

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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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

Roger Bannister the first man to run under the Four Minute Mile in 3:59.4.
He almost didn’t run that day due to the weather conditions – well high winds.
As it was – before the commercialisation of sport – he didn’t train much, snatching runs in his lunch breaks.

Remarkably he had a bad month training previous to the record breaking run. So he decided that he should go on a three day hike, to regain his mojo. Not a good idea: but it allowed him a break from the burden of breaking the record.
Having run the 3:59.4 in Oxford the burden was lifted from him. But the record didn’t stand for long.

Six weeks later the Australian John Landy beat his record by a second. At a rematch in Vancouver named the Miracle Mile, Bannister beat Landy by 15 yards.

This was the era of sport was not professionalised. Runing was an amateur sport with little sponsorship. Bannister squeezed running into his career as a neurologist. Apparently he was more proud of his career than his running.
Roger Bannister 1929-2018     Four Minute Mile 

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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

Men look at women in what can be described as the male gaze. Feminists believe that this is an objectification of women. The male gaze is not concerned with her personality. Her thoughts and feelings are subjugated to the dominance of male desire. For some men this is a right, for others an embarrassment that has to be repressed. It might be argued that for both groups of men it is subtly reinforced and sanctioned in a patriarchal age.

Freud talked about a deep seated male drive, called scopophilia: the sexual pleasure of looking. Cinema is used as a medium to satisfy male scopophilia. Perhaps a better description might be a hetrosexual masculine gaze.

To scrutinise the idea of the male gaze consider the female gaze. The stereotype would be that male gaze is visual, where as female gaze is more linked to the senses. But is the female gaze an equivalent to the gaze? There are many beautiful men to admire through media.
Yet if you believe in patriarchy – no. The male gaze exists in a power imbalance. Patriarchy encourages the sexual objectification of women.
Maleness oppressed by political correctness? Or the continuing oppression of women by men? 

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
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