Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

But everyone is an individual! – Behaviour in Groups
Have you ever had the experience in your team or staff room people where complain about a situation, rule, or person? Then you meet in a bigger group: you voice the complaint that you know others hold but they remain silent. The group ends with no addressing of the complaint. The complaint continues unabated in the team or staff room.

What is it about groups that silences people? Is it a fear of being exposed, ridiculed? Do groups of men and women act the same? What about groups of UK people? Groups are in our DNA: we are born into a group: even if it is just a child and carer: a group of two. Families are groups and act in unique ways.
Are English people in groups dominated by the stereotype of the English person being an emotionally repressed one particularly around anger. Is it in the 0 or 10 anger factor?
0 being a repressed anger which remains invisible; and 10 being a leopard type leap anger attack? If these are the only two options having a mood score of higher than 0 is dangerous.

Not rocking the boat, keeping your head down, acting fairly so that nobody takes up too much time in the group are the unwritten rules of English behaviour: which outside cultural groups find difficult to understand.
When one of the group fails to attend without informing the group, the group is left holding the anxiety wondering what has happened. Have they had an accident? Has the group done something to upset them? How can these group paper over the cracks of anxiety? When the person returns, the group becomes divided: those who are upset at being let down, while others not able to tolerate the disharmony explain the absence away as an advantage, or learning opportunity –  which it might be.
When the group is interrupted by a disturbance or lateness, and a complaint is voiced other group members metaphorically scrabble to alert with their yard wide brushes to sweep up. Please: no mess, no discomfort, no anxiety.
Group behaviour is impossible to predict but maybe two big influences in the rainy UK are gender and class, and how anger is dealt with. Men and women in groups act differently, particularly when one gender dominates the group over the other. Class – well it is Wimbledon week: a quintessential event of the UK Calendar: white uniforms, lush green grass, strawberries and cream. [I cannot resist mentioning the general public queuing for tickets while the corporate audience is waved through to their booked seats.]
An event run by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club which is a private members club!

To have any opinion exposes our prejudices, about men and women and how they behave in groups. The landscape in 2012 is dominated by the individual’s rights and needs. Thinking about groups and stereotypes and how they behave is risky: the ubiquitous final get out clause is released: but everyone is an individual!
But everyone is an individual! – Behaviour in Group

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only. This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

Fun at Funerals
Funerals are traditionally perceived as unpleasant affairs where people try to avoid being upset. Endings are difficult, but the end of a life is particularly painful. Then there are the circumstances of the dying: age, type of death and the mourners’ relationship to the person.
In many other situations such as work, social life, and holidays an inevitable eventuality would be planned for, so not to spoile the occasion.

People plan financially for their own death but it is rare that any emotional plans are put in place. In 2012 with the help of medical science and the prevalence of people dying of cancer there is an opportunity like never before of predicting death, and having some time to prepare. A wonderful example of this is Tuesdays with Morie. The dying man invites friends to his house to speak about life and death. They have a wake for him while he is alive! But it seems this is so rare that it might as well be fiction!

Talking to dying people who know they are dying is a revelation into one of the central human dilemmas: dying, and character of the dying person. From the denial that nothing is happening, through some sort of inevitable fateful occurrence, to acceptance, sadness and regret! Depending on the attitude of family and friends, mixed with the attitude of the dying person the dying process becomes an opportunity or a burden. It might be an opportunity to reconcile and examine our own attitudes towards the dying person and death itself, or the opposite – having to keep up a pretense to avoid feelings which the dying person cannot cope with. People comfortable with feelings, and people avoidant of feelings is a challenging mix.

This mix feeds into the funeral. If there has been an opportunity for emotions to be spoken out loud before the funeral it can be more fun, a celebration, if not the funeral can be a lifeless, formal occasion. The funeral can also be a release for people to celebrate and have fun without the limitations of the emotionally avoidant dying person being there!
Culturally there appears to be greater and lesser emphasis put on the funeral, and what happens afterwards. There might be a meeting, a party, or everyone going home! A little booklet of the persons’ life is a summary and talking point of a life, to be referred to in the future. Singing songs, dancing along to a DJ set, and making informal speeches by anyone who knew the deceased add life and colour to the celebration.
The funeral day is an opportunity: what sort of opportunity is an insight into the family and the person who has died.
Fun at Funerals

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

Kim Kardashian at the Zoo
What’s all the fuss about? A young woman posing provocatively in underwear on the front page of a magazine? Isn’t there a page every day in the Sun newspaper with a pretty girl with no top on at all?

So what is the problem? Is this morally wrong? Is this sending a bad message to young men and women?
Presumably up until now Kim Kardashian has been seen as a positive role model. She is attractive(?), a rich business woman, famous for nothing, except for being one of the stars in her family TV show! At the risk of boring you the Blog reader I return to the market place. Whatever Kim Kardashian is: she is a brilliant sales woman. She is selling herself in the market place. A woman selling herself can be associated with prostitution: another part of the market place since civilization(?) began.

Perhaps it is the old english perception the selling yourself in business was like selling yourself for prostitution? These days they are much closer together even entwined? There appears to be less of a boundary now between women selling themselves to promote their business, and selling their bodies for sex. The difference is that a woman selling herself to make money on all her other associated products branded with her name, is not literally selling her body?

And men are catching up. The market has trained women to appreciate men in the same way that men have viewed women for centuries: the way they look. The way people look sells. It is part of our DNA: it is how we are all here: two people liked the way each other looked, and created us!

The market place has always used sex to sell. The market place in the UK came of age in the Thatcher years. It used to be that being a sales person was a grubby profession that you would not like to admit to. The rise of the City, and the demise of the manufacturing industries, turned the value of work upside down. The value of working and being paid to produce something was replaced by betting on commodities: doing less, producing nothing and earning much more.

Value has changed: it became broken away from what humans produce, to what humans can bet against and sell. Some hold onto the idea that a value of a human life does not have a monetary price. We can have the market place in all aspects of our lives: yet still remain as people beyond a monetary value. The person is unique: and therefore priceless. The Kardashians are showing us that as the power of the market dominates this idea becomes increasingly problematic.
The hope is that this is the beginning of the end of the market as we know it in the 21^st century: not the end of the priceless value of people.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

The new C Word
Cancer is the new c word. New? Perhaps it has been the new c word for a while now? Apparently over 345,000new cases of cancer will be diagnosed by 2015 in the UK. Out of a population of 65 million: this is 0.53%! Is the fear of cancer like fear of crime greater than the reality?
Not for the families and friends of people who die from cancer every day.

Yet there appears to be something about cancer that really seizes on our fearful nature. It easy to see why! First there is the discovery of the ‘lump’ or ‘growth’ in the bathroom, or   at a GP visit. Then there is the trial of waiting to find out if it is malignant or not. If it is – then a course of treatment is prescribed ranging from chemotherapy, radiation or depending on its stage of advance- no treatment. Treatment cannot be guaranteed. If the growth is not malignant seeds of doubt have been sown. Family medical histories become more important. Is there something waiting to strike further down the line?

As described in previous blogs the element of fear feeding modern market economies, makes cancer the perfect illness. Fear drives market economies: if you believed the hype you would think it is only in a crisis.

But in reality fear is the key to consumption. Fear of not keeping up, not having the right house, car or bag. Fear of not being happy, fulfilled and creative! It’s all there in the fear! But the fear of  exposure to the rampaging market is most effective with its cure of security: particularly financial. The least exposure you have to the rampaging forces of the market, the more protected you are from it! Send your child to private school, get a good career, earn more money!! Pay for life (death) insurance, redundancy insurance, insurance against old age (pension) or insurance against loss of a loved one.

The perception is that there are some people who are more exposed to this than others. People who have money are more protected? Could this be understood in terms of class or opportunity? Perhaps less so than any time before: but money and influence is still perceived as being something belonging to the elite. After all our present cabinet is mostly made up of privileged public school boys!

David Cameron’s argument of “we’re all in this together” was perceived as a rallying call to the people of the UK to stick together and pull through times of austerity. The fact is that it has been exposed as a section of the media confirming its support for his own ideology and political party.

But then cancer does not care about anything about this.
It is the agent of the great leveller – death. Anyone can find a growth. It is random.
Left to chance. There is no protection from it.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012 All rights reserved Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

The Unknown and the Jubilee
The Jubilee Celebrations are making the Queen more popular than she has ever been. Gone is the day that she misread the public mood around the death of Diana. Then the monarchy looked like it was chasing its tale to catch up with the 21st Century. Now with Diana’s modern outward looking children and wife, they have attained fashion and cool. Why has this changed? Is it just the up and down of public mood? Any excuse for a good party? To reclaim Britishness from a culture that is struggling with its identity and multi ethnicity?

Why is it that this distant, wealthy woman still manages in some parts of the UK to be revered? Apparently it is the groups in the lower social classes (C1, C2, DE) where the Queen remains most popular. The Queen does not have much power, and does not wield that power in a dictatorial manner. There is nothing overtly wrong with the queen. All her titles are ceremonial and constitutional. She makes a lot of money for the UK through tourism. The same with the class system in the UK. There are some who believe that is long gone: Lord Sugar from the East End did it: anyone can! This is the 21st Century!

So why does this matter?

It is only awareness of the unknown that brings a different perspective to the Queen. She is generally perceived to be at the top of something: which suggests a pecking order or hierarchy. This in turn suggests that there are some people at the top, some in the middle and some on the bottom. At this point the argument has lost the Royalists: they are intent on tradition, pomp, & spectacular pageants. The queen is not a part of a hierarchy: and her people (subjects!?) do not belong in one. Even if she was they would argue, she sets a tone of consistency, continuity and safety.

Like the abused child who grows up into an adult, knowing intellectually that abuse is wrong and avoids it: yet as they go through adult life they are unknowingly attracted, and find themselves in abusive situations? Perhaps the UK and the Queen are similar.
The UK knows that it does not want to be put down, judged or thought of as less because it is being judged by others who have more money, status or education. But the UK has a strong aversion to change, is deeply conservative, and prefers to live in a hierarchy. To not live in this way which the UK has done for over the last thousand years is deeply unsettling and unwanted. This hierarchy has served the UK well. It has placed the country at the forefront of western culture: a place set in history, having a past, with a population knowing who they are, and having an unprecedented, disproportionate influence in the world compared to its size and population.

But is it still a population who knows who they are? Some would say not. The concept of Britishness was once clear, but now is more muddled and confused. The most powerful forces are internal rather than external. Perhaps this identity crisis, which is forcing the UK to ask who it is, will bring about the exposure of hierarchy. Painful introspection and self- examination is a potent force. The scrutiny of the unknown makes it known. This might create a more informed debate, with more pragmatic solutions, resolved and detached from a hierarchical past.
Have a good bank holiday on the Queen!
The Unknown and the Jubilee

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012 All rights reserved Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

Me-ness is the fifth basic assumption, adding to Wilfred Bion’s three basic assumptions of psychoanalytic group theory .
The idea of me-ness is that the individual finds the reality of the external world so stressful that they retreat from the group experience to a personal inner reality.

Me-ness does not recognise the group: the group does not exist because it is only the individual that exists. Me-ness breeds individuals who are only aware of their own boundaries and how to protect themselves from external disturbances. The threat is that if the group emerges the individual will be lost. Private issues are paramount, public issues are irrelevant.

The Me-ness individual presents a feelings snapshot to satisfy the group that to show they are concerned with the groups’ feelings. The reality of this snapshot is that it is a dead report not to be contaminated with feelings.

In 2012 there are many external disturbances to deal with: terrorism, recession, austerity, and the breakdown of institutions including the church, the family and financial systems. Market forces dominate western culture creating the singular wealth and power of individuals unfettered by the weakened collective, and unaccountable to the policies of organisations and governing boards.
This environment leads to an emotional insecurity, a perception that security has been lost: instability and randomness is the backdrop to our lives.

How we as individuals perceive and deal with threats is deep in our psyche. What one person perceives as a threat another welcomes as an opportunity. To avoid the threats we seek security. The selling of security is a sly trick in western capitalism. Insurance, pensions, the lottery?
Are we less secure now than we have been before? Or is it perception? Who could blame us?
The selling of the security has never been an external transaction but an internal one. The selling of security heightens our expectations of gaining security, which makes us insecure when it is not achieved.

Politicians, governments, the City, celebrity all subscribe to Me-ness. Their behaviour can be self- serving with a snapshot of pretend feeling (philanthropy / charity work).
In Me-ness avoidance of feelings is key! As written in previous blogs the market thrives on a lack of feeling to remain depressed, and maintain the urge to consume to compensate.
Me-ness and capitalism are mates. Feel the antidote!

Experiences in Groups – Wilfred Bion 1961
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only. This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

LOL DC – PAY ATTENTION!
The prime minister signing off texts with LOL DC is funny on two counts. Firstly that as a man in his 40s he is out of touch with text protocol assuming LOL meant lots of love, and secondly there is hint of the unguarded man who is still prime minister doing something unexpected, and perhaps even a little bit naughty. The bigger picture is that he was texting the ex-Chief Executive Officer of News International. But is it really that surprising?

Margaret Thatcher won her first election in 1979 partly due to the Sun for the first time in its history encouraging its readers to vote Tory. The power of the press has always been formidable, particularly in politics.
If the power in politics is to be in government, then the press can have influence on the choice the electorate makes. With all the political parties becoming more indistinguishable from one another, the electorate is more undecided. Power is a force. The nature of power is that it teams up with other power to increase and consolidate its own power. A politician sidling up to the press to bolster their influence is unsurprising.

But yet it still surprises! Perhaps it is the extent of the closeness of the relationship? Or that it is a relationship to a press that a public is titillated by, but at the same time regards in horror?
Is it the press doing it to the press? The Guardian breaking the story on the News of the World.
The broadsheet press catching the tabloid press out?

Let us not forget that the Leveson inquiry set up by the prime minister in 2011 was only going to examine the relationship between the press and the police. The relationship between the press and the politicians was notably absent. If someone somewhere had not been paying attention this might not have been addressed: but for how long would this have been possible?
Perhaps the lesson here is that when powerful forces are at work, nothing appears as it seems, and we all have to pay attention.
LOL DC – PAY ATTENTION!

North London Counsellor Blog

The Social Care Bill / Consumption
The Social Care Bill is not going tobe on the agenda for the next Parliament. Adult social care in this country is in crisis: particularly for the elderly. Care workers are employed by companies providing contract work paid for by cash- strapped Councils. Care workers under time pressure  can do nothing more, than make brief visits to the old person, doing essential tasks then have to move onto the next appointment. This is the option for most people who are not able to afford private care.
The explanation for this omission is that the economy has to be the focus of the next parliament. The performance of the economy is directly linked to votes and the coalition winning the next election. Working and earning money wins the day?
At first glance this seems a logical explanation. Earning a living takes people off benefits, gives people and families respect, hope, and a future. This also creates tax revenue for the Exchequer. But another concern is the underlying lack of extra money for people to spend to consume.
In a market economy consumption is the drug. It gives us a high feeling at point of sale but then depresses our feelings. It can make us feel unworthy if we do not have the latest car, gadget or clothing accessory. So to compensate we buy something else, and so the cycle continues.
To remain depressed is the underlying aim of the market economy. To feel cynical, apathetic, isolated and helpless is the psychological state the market economy wants its population to be in. This begs the question what it would be like not to have a depressed population?
Energy, liveliness, an interest in others, and perhaps most importantly – anger. Anger has a bad press: we are all familiar with what is wrong with anger. What is a good about anger is energy. Energy to be ourselves, to question, to be curious about the world and our place in it. In short to have feelings that are not depressed. This is the biggest threat to a market economy. Being depressed prevents us from experimenting with alternatives to the market economy.
The Social Care Bill / Consumption

Fear and Pensions
This week I have noticed fear and pensions. Pensions, particularly in the public sector are for the first time being cut. To step out of the political frame for a minute what is the fear here?
Pensions and the idea of having a retirement where you can be supported not work is a comparatively new idea. The formation of the Benefit state after the WW2 started the idea that we could be supported when we were not working from illness or job loss. Before this time there was no state system set up to do this. The end of retirement is near.

If your sole aim was to accumulate the biggest pension and have the maximum contributions added by your employer, working from a young age with a big salary in the public sector would be the best option. This takes a particular type of person: not everyone is interested in the type of work the public sector provides or feels comfortable in a hierarchical structure. Might there be a connection between the public sector and fear?
There is set up here: the public sector has been a safe and secure place to work – up until now.
Fear is a natural emotion meant to keep us safe, and out of harm, by identifying threats. But in the 21^st century the threats have changed. Job loss is a big threat in a market economy. In a recession our lives can become dominated by this fear. Fear of the future, and of the unknown. Fear of losing home and being destitute.
But perhaps the biggest fear is of ourselves and our feelings. These are close to us, difficult to avoid, yet alarmingly seem to be out of our control. They can make us feel happy and content, but can also make us feel dread and fear. To avoid ourselves a good prescription might be a life of work. Working in an institution, there is little effort to be made. It is set out for you. The team is waiting for you every morning to arrive and fulfill your role. Your work role is a part of you, but not the part that we are afraid of. It is familiar to us: predictable, ordered, and contained within a set of rules and regulations.

This setting out of a life time of work might encourage a lifetime of avoidance. Ironically this can catch up with you in retirement. A life of avoiding yourself with work, then a retirement with time to fill can catch people out.

The extent of depression in old age is just beginning to be recognised. Perhaps with the end of retirement, and an opportunity to be occupied by part time work until we can no longer work might be better for our overall mental health in old age.
Fear and Pensions

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.

Great Men
This week after watching Kevin Macdonald’s film Marley I noticed Great Men. They are recognised for what they do in the world. Greatness is heaped upon them. They are revered for the influence and reach over the globe, alive or dead. Macdonald said “There’s a reason why he’s on every student wall” Marley and Chee Guevara. They wanted to change the world and make it a better place: which is an attractive notion to all of us.
In our 21st century culture we make people like Marley and Chee Guevara into role models. Apparently we need role models?

But it seems that one of the criteria of a role model is the outside influence the man has on the world. What about the inside influence? What does this mean? The inner world? Intimate and family relationships? What appears to be a challenge for great men is to be able to both the outside and the inside. The inside is the one to suffer. Wives and children feeling left and abandoned as they cannot compete with a world audience. Perhaps it is the same as in the more mundane world of life and work that having a big career takes a lot of time and energy. An international career eclipses everything else. Another factor appears to be an early lack of recognition leading to issues of identity, to be compensated for by world recognition. Great men seem to want to make up for something.

What does it say about our world that we revere great men who excel outside, and not do so well inside? This idea is so well established that it is difficult to imagine any other way: such as people being revered for the inside. This seems so problematic and that it is not worth consideration. Great Men need the rest of the world to buy what they are selling. Perhaps the inside is done better by the rest of the world? Perhaps Great Men are not so great? What about Great Women?
Great Men

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.