Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

Mirror-Nuerons     Continue reading →

Alan Turing
Go to Sackville Park near to the Gay Village in Manchester. You will find a park with
a commemorative figure of Alan Turing sitting on a bench. He was a mathematician, computing pioneer, and marathon runner in the time of Chariots of Fire.

He worked at Bletchley Park & was pivotal in developing a machine that could find settings for the Enigma Machine. Prosecuted for being gay in 1952, he went through a series of experiments ‘to be cured’ rather than going to prison. He committed suicide in 1954.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014
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.

Go to Sackville Park near to the Gay Village in Manchester. You will find a park with
a commemorative figure of Alan Turing sitting on a bench. He was a mathematician, computing pioneer, and marathon runner in the time of Chariots of Fire.

He worked at Bletchley Park & was pivotal in developing a machine that could find settings for the Enigma Machine. Prosecuted for being gay in 1952, he went through a series of experiments ‘to be cured’ rather than going to prison. He committed suicide in 1954. Alan Turing

Existential Radicalisation
Radicalisation is an issue of the moment. Two young muslims from Cardiff  are described as intelligent and educated. They travelled to Syria for humanitarian reasons and then radicalised there. At face value two youngsters with a lot to look forward to. The lure of belonging to a group with a clear aim is powerful.

Group mentality has always been attractive especially to the young. Groups have always forced us into their ways of behaviour that surprise us. “What we might not do as individuals we may do so as part of a group. People may lose control of their usual inhibitions, as their mentality becomes that of the group” Existential Radicalisation

There is an existential sense of being lost in the West. Our lives are individualised and compartmentalised. Life is fragmented. We live lives trying to connect with others. Groups and gangs are an attractive way of feeling a sense of belonging and purpose. The radical group has a clear single purpose. With the added element of risk. Like a drug young people with no sense of purpose in their lives find solace in the group. 2^nd generation muslims can feel like they do not have a connection to the UK. Their parents have given up their homeland and taken the UK to their hearts. A natural way to rebel is to try to return to their roots.
With Existential Radicalisation the young muslim is able to re-assert his lost connection to his origins. And fight an enemy intent on destroying the muslim way of life. The truth of this does not matter. The over –riding longing is to find a life with a cause. A band of brothers under threat forces life onto a pin point of meaning. Life with an essence of purity and purpose.
Existential Radicalisation

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014
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.

Day Off
The Good Wife is given a day off but Alicia does not know what to do with it.
She tries to watch a movie at home while drinking a glass of wine. Buffering prevents her watching it. She then goes to her office to pick up her scarf and laptop. She is refused the laptop: she’s trying to work. Her mother rings to invite for her lunch. She refuses then thinks better of it. It is a day off. So she arranges to meet her mother when the mother’s boyfriend turns up early. Alicia leaves. She eventually has a meal with a man she meets at the court house.
US television is a powerful medium watched by millions – so what’s the message? A day off is boring and empty without work? If you don’t have work you have nothing. Working in an organisation is given on a plate to occupy and stimulate us. It fills the days with structure creating a way of life. Without it the day stretches ahead empty. So it has to be filled. Filled with distractions – TV, people, meals, anything.
The shock of redundancy  is not only about loss of income but loss of occupation and opportunity to socialise. The nature of time changes without work.
Alicia acted like she was redundant for the day. The message is without work we are useless. If we are not occupied life is empty and boring. Day Off.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014
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.

Grieving is everywhere. In the papers, on twitter, TV. People, friends, whoever cannot wait to get on the bandwagon. Grief is openly discussed. This gives the impression that we are all comfortable with it. The cult of celebrity fuels this desperate … Continue reading →

Nobody understands why Glasgow has such a low mortality rate.
The Glasgow effect is a principle nobody understands. The Glasgow effect in not explainable. It is unknown.
Glasgow Effect unknown

The Glasgow effect is the name for the explanation that accounts for Glasgow’s worst mortality rates in the UK and Northern Europe. Drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty, and a lack of employment contribute to this. But then other cities such as Liverpool and Manchester have similar problems, yet have a higher mortality rate.
The Glasgow effect is a definition used to describe what sounds like a scientific principle: but in fact describes scientists’ ignorance. Nobody understands why Glasgow has such a low mortality rate.
The Glasgow effect is a principle nobody understands. The Glasgow effect in not explainable. It is unknown.
Glasgow Effect unknown

Why is this news worthy? Because in the rational world it is not explainable. Anything that cannot be known is a threat to the world of the known. For something unknown is not easy to understand. In this world everything has to be understood.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s whereabouts is still unknown. This must be torture for the relatives. But it is also a mystery that was news worthy when there was a possibility that the plane and survivors might be found.
Now that hope has died the story is no longer in the news. Is it not in the news because there is no progress in the plane being found? Or is it because not knowing is unbearable?
Glasgow Effect  unknown.

Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014

Not Making a Difference
Today there is a fascination near obsession to making a difference.

Making a difference at work or at home, wherever. This is particularly expleted in the helping professions and charity sector. Who is helping who in the helping professions? Sometimes the people helping the disadvantaged appear to be more out of touch with their own issues than the disadvantaged they are helping. The charity sector
is a raging business orientated environment where services are funded short term on the whim of the funding criteria of the day. Services on the cheap. The touchy feely side of the charity world can seem lost in the present funding environment. But then the helping professions can make a difference: there is an intention to help people in their lives and often a success rather other professions where money is the aim.

Perhaps not making a difference is an idea to keep us well behaved, or to target the genuinely nasty people in the world. Is this necessary? Most people are averagely well behaved, decent, flawed individuals trying to move forward with their lives without hurting anybody too much.
Of course we all need to be recognised and loved by those close to us. To not be recognised for who we are can cause mental health issues, and is a way of driving humans mad as Winnicott knows.
Yet in this narcissistic age of the thrusting individual has it gone too far?

Not making a difference would be to focus inwardly not outwardly. To admit that whatever difference we make might not be that big. How can we be happy with this? Whatever we do it does not seem reasonable to think of ourselves as mere speck of dirt in the universe, or being insignificant in the cosmos. This is existentially and emotionally challenging. It needs thought, down time, reflection, stillness to process and digest.

None of these practices is fashionable to day. The 21^st Century so far is a century of avoidance and altered states. Reality is too mundane, unexciting and difficult. Avoiding avoidance would challenge the Big I Am. Yet we all have to live through the minutiae of our lives minutes, hours and years. So is it not surprising we are a little self-obsessed?
But making a difference?

Not making a difference

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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.  Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014

Millionaire Matchmaker

Patti Stanger is the millionaire matchmaker. She is working in Los Angeles, home of the young and free to find suitable dates for her registered millionaires. She is tough: particularly around the older men wanting younger women. A lot of her time is spent trying to convince guys that they do not want a girlfriend who is under 30yrs old when they are in their late 40s.

Why would they want to go on to the millionaire matchmaker show to do this, and have this prejudice aired across the nation? Is it their firm belief that younger is better? What sort of conversation do they expect to have with their younger date? Are they on the show in the first place because they are men who really want a younger woman as a trophy? Do they have opportunities to date women of their own age in their normal lives: but not younger women who pass them up? Is Patti being set up to be an older man’s agency for dating younger women?

Patti the millionaire matchmaker is no fool and sniffs this out a mile away. The millionaire has everything. Home, cars, toys and lifestyle. A woman is the final accessory, who is a human not an object.

The show comes across as an advert for women’s liberation through Patti’s sassy no bulls**t approach of matching men with women through connection, intelligence and desire. And/ or a sleazy attempt to satisfy the need of millionaire men and women who have bought everything, and now want the final prize to complete the set.
This is entertainment in 2014.

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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.
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014

The definition of ‘lost’ is unable to find ones way, not knowing one’s whereabouts, unable to be found.
This state of ‘lost’ in the 21^st Century of knowledge, certainty, and the ability to buy insurance to protect the future, is unwanted. To be lost is to be nowhere. To be lost is an accidental place you find(!) yourself in where you have to escape from as quickly as possible.
Yet today in modern capitalist cultures it seems we are more lost than ever before. Perhaps this is why the state of being lost is so vilified. Getting what we want but unable to get what we need creates a sense of unease and being lost than never before.

Finding yourself is the antidote. Sex, marriage, work, religion, politics, & hobbies are all meant to decrease our chances of being lost. The modern world is full of distractions to take us away from ourselves, to escape feelings of being lost.
Yet to escape these feelings means there is no learning. No crisis. No being forced to take stock. No creation of new opportunities that at the time are unknown to us.

To be lost is to be a pariah. You are not wanted. Not loved. Outside the pack. Not part of the tribe.

To embrace being lost, is to be at the centre of ourselves. What we see as our failures send us to the place of being lost, to make see ourselves in a different perspective. Then we can look at ourselves afresh, which might lead to us to a path that we would never have thought of.

To be lost is to be human. To suffer the pain and uncertainty creates other possibilities. Possibilities we would never know possible without the state of being lost.

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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.
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014

Finding yourself is the antidote. Sex, marriage, work, religion, politics, & hobbies are all meant to decrease our chances of being. The modern world is full of distractions to take us away from ourselves, to escape feelings of being .
Yet to escape these feelings means there is no learning. No crisis. No being forced to take stock. No creation of new opportunities that at the time are unknown to us.

To be is to be a pariah. You are not wanted. Not loved. Outside the pack. Not part of the tribe.

To embrace being, is to be at the centre of ourselves. What we see as our failures send us to the place of being, to make see ourselves in a different perspective. Then we can look at ourselves afresh, which might lead to us to a path that we would never have thought of.

To be is to be human. To suffer the pain and uncertainty creates other possibilities. Possibilities we would never know possible without the state of being.

Death
Billy Connolly hosts a TV programme on death.

It is a clever deceit in making entertainment out of the way people react to and cope with death. It is mainly focused on the US: some of the examples are comical and ridiculous. Ever heard of a plot broker? Yes –  you too can buy a burial plot like ‘real estate’! Hit the good times? Why don’t you dig up your relatives and upgrade them to a more fashionable location?
Some of the scenes are genuinely moving. Young men celebrated in death the victims of AIDs in the 1980s. Touching photographs of them sitting with partners and family. The whole theme of the programme is that death is a part of life. We should get used to it. The more familiar we are with death the better we will cope with it.

It is what is said as an aside that contradicts the main theme of the acceptance of death. Connolly talks about being overwhelmed by the funeral of a man he had never met. “It kind of weird these feelings that come over you”. He then explains that you need work to stop thinking about stuff. When you have time off you have time to think; to contemplate. “You can’t do that to yourself. You have to go to work” says Connolly.
This brings in the quote by Colin Murray Parkes  “In order to avoid thinking about something we have to think about it.” Is Connolly trying to contradict this?

This is the age old dilemma of how humans deal with pain. The automatic response is to shy away from the pain. To avoid. To distract ourselves from the pain. Unfortunately this never works. To avoid is to risk being taken over by feelings triggered by others pain who we might not even know as Connolly experienced.
To be familiar with death takes time, effort and energy! It takes time with yourself and your thoughts to work through the pain of death.
Death

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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.  Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2014