Chicken and egg diagram representing the relationship between thoughts and emotions
I found myself in a client session scribbling down pictures of chickens and eggs, drawing stars and arrows as we discussed the difference between my holistic approach to psychotherapy and my client’s previous experience with purely cognitive approaches. At the heart of this is a question I return to often in my work as an integrative counsellor: what is the real relationship between thoughts and emotions in therapy.
In modern therapy, particularly within more structured approaches like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), there is often an emphasis on the idea that thoughts drive emotions, suggesting that by changing one’s thoughts, emotions will follow.
While this can be effective in certain contexts, it’s not the full story. Many clients come to me after trying such approaches, unsure why they didn’t quite ‘work’ for them, even though they helped them reframe some of their thinking.
How Instincts, Emotions and Rational Thinking Shape Our Mental Health
Most clients arrive with the expectation that they can think themselves out of the box they have trapped themselves in. I try many ways of exploring with them how survival instincts and emotional responses are also part of the equation. The quote below is often attributed to Albert Einstein.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Unfortunately, our major institutions of medicine, mental health, and education have all fallen foul of the “thought first” mentality. Is society uncritically embracing this mindset without considering its implications?
To understand why this disconnection between thoughts and feelings persists, we must consider how the brain has evolved to handle both.
The Evolution of the Brain: How Thought and Feeling Developed Together
Our human brains still incorporate parts inherited from creatures who preceded us in the evolutionary cycle. Traditionally, it has been seen as three distinct parts, which I will lay out below.
Recent neuroscience research, particularly PolyVagal theory, has shown clearly how the brain is highly integrated. The Triune brain model helps us see this in an evolutionary context but does not clearly explain how the modern human brain functions.
Reptilian
The part of the brain operating our survival instincts is often called the reptilian brain.
The reptilian brain governs our most basic survival functions, including instinctual behaviours like the fight-or-flight response and essential drives for eating, sleeping, and reproduction.
Limbic System
Next in the evolutionary cycle is the limbic system, a region we share with all mammals. This part of the brain regulates our emotional responses, bonding, and social behaviour, playing a key role in feelings like fear, pleasure, and affection. It also helps to form memories and influences how we experience the world emotionally, guiding our interactions and shaping our ability to connect with others.
Neocortex
Building on this, humans developed the neocortex, the most advanced part of the brain. The neocortex is responsible for higher-order cognitive functions such as reasoning, abstract thinking, language, problem-solving, and decision-making.
It enables us to plan for the future, reflect on the past, and engage in complex social interactions. It is also where creativity and logic reside. It allows us to develop culture, technology, and intricate societal structures, distinguishing us from other species in the evolutionary chain.
In a modern context, have we let rational thought dominate to the exclusion of emotional and instinctual intelligence?
Polyvagal Theory
To truly understand the human experience, we must consider how our physiological states influence our emotions and thoughts. Dr. Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory sheds light on this intricate connection.
It explains how our autonomic nervous system regulates responses to stress and safety, affecting our ability to engage socially, process emotions, and think clearly. By recognizing and working with these bodily states, therapists and educators can foster environments that support holistic well-being, integrating the mind and body rather than treating them as separate entities.
Why Cognitive Approaches Can Miss the Emotional Picture
Attitudes that prioritize cognitive thought over feelings and instincts have become deeply ingrained in our society. Just as our brains evolved to balance thought and feeling, our institutions should, too.
As someone involved in education since 1985, I’ve witnessed a fundamental shift in schools. Once vibrant, child-centred environments filled with creativity, passion, and collaborative problem-solving, they have gradually transformed into efficient yet dull and joyless production lines. The focus on true learning has been replaced by a factory-like approach, prioritising academic performance at the expense of emotional well-being, which correlates with the rising rates of mental health issues.
Given these shifts, it’s perhaps unsurprising that mental health issues among children and young people have increased significantly over the past 40 years. In 1983, it was estimated that about 1 in 10 children had a mental health problem, but by 2020, that figure had risen to 1 in 6 for children aged 5 to 16
These statistics reveal a growing mental health crisis linked to academic and cognitive pressures, often at the expense of emotional well-being. The heightened focus on academic achievement, standardized testing, and intellectual performance seems to correlate with this trend, as emotional health often takes a backseat in both educational and societal systems.
Backward steps in education are being mirrored in Therapy training
While training as a counsellor, I realized the same thing was happening in psychology. Over this same period, cognitive approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) became dominant in mainstream therapy. These approaches emphasize changing thoughts to influence emotions and behaviour, often sidelining deeper emotional or instinctual processes.
While effective in certain contexts, the over-reliance on cognitive methods has mirrored the societal focus on rational thinking, potentially neglecting the role of emotions, the body, and the spiritual aspects of healing.
It’s important to ask whether this cognitive-heavy approach is fully serving the emotional complexity of adults and children, especially at a time when mental health struggles are on the rise.
Holistic and Integrative Therapy: Bringing Thought and Emotion Together
To live fully as a human being, we must harmonize emotions, thoughts, the body’s physical needs, and the soul’s purpose, ensuring balance in all aspects of our being. Holistic and humanistic approaches to psychology embrace this truth, recognizing the essential connection between all aspects of our being.
The messages we receive from our bodies, emotions, and instincts are vital signals guiding our decisions and shaping our thoughts. Yet, today, we are increasingly taught to dismiss these messages in favour of rational thought alone.
As we face a future dominated by artificial intelligence, many are rightly concerned that machines lack access to the emotional and instinctual systems that define human experience. And yet, paradoxically, our own institutions, particularly the education and medical systems, seem to be systematically severing us from these very human sensitivities.
We are being trained to operate more like machines, disconnected from the emotional and instinctual wisdom that has guided humanity for millennia. In doing so, we risk losing touch with what makes us uniquely human: our capacity to feel deeply, intuitively, understand, and engage with the world in a meaningful, embodied way.
If we continue on this path, we may end up not only building machines but becoming more like them ourselves.
Thoughts vs Emotions: Which Comes First, and Why It Matters
Like with the question of the chicken and the egg, the answer is neither. The two have evolved together. Chickens cannot exist without eggs; thoughts cannot exist without feelings, and vice versa. In both cases, it is cyclical.
There is a constant feedback loop between thoughts and feelings, and this is the human experience. Our body cannot exist without our mind, and our mind cannot exist without our body. It’s important for educators and psychologists to explore how integrating emotions and somatic experiences can enrich the human experience.
Reclaiming Instinct and Emotion: A Case for Balance in Therapy
True education should involve creating connections. It is not just about learning a body of knowledge but also about learning how to survive in a world where that body of knowledge exists.
Schools must restore creative subjects to the curriculum and focus again on building a school community suitable for and in line with the interests of 100% of the students.
Therapy should not just be about changing your thoughts; it should be about understanding connections. It is not just about bullying yourself into more positive thought patterns. It is about learning to accept and understand all of your senses and feelings to create a grounded and balanced life.
What might it mean for you to recreate those connections? Is it spending more time in nature, fitting in a yoga class, writing a journal, or painting pictures that no one else may ever see? Could you join a choir or a drama group or anything else that could be seen as a waste of time to some but helps you make connections with yourself and with others?
Why It Matters to Balance Thought and Feeling
Most of my long-term clients acknowledge that they have made significant changes in their lives through the therapeutic process. They also acknowledge that some of those changes have happened without them being able to rationally explain why.
At that point, the chicken and egg diagram drawn on the back of an envelope can help them relax and let go, knowing that change is happening and will continue to happen and their rational mind does not have to track the changes every step of the way.
Part of our work involves rational discussion of their life issues, but the major work involves reconnecting them with their feelings as they manifest physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
They are living a more authentic life that fundamentally alters their life experience.
In my experience, I’ve seen the profound change that comes from integrating thoughts and feelings, and I believe we all deserve to live with that deeper connection.
Reconnecting with these different aspects of ourselves can, with or without therapy, help us experience greater well-being, expand our emotional intelligence, and strengthen our connections with ourselves and others.
You could start by prioritizing these connections, whether through time in nature, creative expression, or simply tuning into your emotions daily. Reclaim what makes us human.
Building Connections in a Disconnected World:
How Online Therapy Transformed My Approach to Healing
What I’ve learned after years of working with clients across the UK and Europe
My first-ever therapy client wasn’t in a room with me. It was March 2020. They were too frightened to leave their home following a traumatic local event, and the pandemic made meeting in person impossible. We worked by phone.
Neither of us knew if it would work.
Twelve months later, when we ended well, I knew something I hadn’t known before: the room isn’t what makes therapy real. The relationship is.
The honest answer: yes, with the right therapist
Online therapy works. The research backs this up, and so does my clinical experience. Studies consistently show outcomes for online counselling are comparable to in-person work across a wide range of concerns, including anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and trauma.
But the research also shows what practitioners already know: the single most important factor in any therapy isn’t the modality or the platform. It’s the therapeutic relationship. Whether you’re on Zoom or sitting in a consulting room in Cornwall, what heals is being genuinely met by another person.
Online therapy doesn’t change that. In some ways, it deepens it.
What changes online, and what doesn’t
When clients work with me online, I can’t read the room in the same way. I’ve learned to listen more closely to tone, pace, and timing. Small shifts in how someone is breathing. Hesitations. The moment someone’s voice changes.
The body is still present, even through a screen. And often, clients are more settled in their own body when they’re at home: on their sofa, with a favourite mug, with their cat nearby. Small things that help the nervous system feel safe. When safety increases, therapy deepens.
What doesn’t change is the quality of attention, the pace of the work, or the depth of what can be explored. I work with the same relational, depth-oriented approach online that I use in person. Psychodynamic. Person-centred. Attentive to how the body holds what the mind hasn’t yet found words for.
Who tends to do well with online therapy
In my experience, online therapy suits people who:
Have chosen their therapist deliberately, often after searching and reading carefully
Want to work without travel time eating into their week
Live somewhere with limited local options, as many people in rural Cornwall do
Feel more able to open up from a familiar environment
Are managing a busy life and need the flexibility
That deliberate choice matters more than people realise. When someone has searched, compared, reflected, and then decided to work with a particular therapist, they arrive already invested. That investment shapes the work from the first session.
What online therapy can’t replace
I’ll be direct about the limits too. Some clients need in-person work, at least to begin with. If someone is in acute crisis, or if their trauma responses are strongly somatic and they need to feel another regulated nervous system physically present, in-person sessions may be more appropriate. We’d discuss that in an initial consultation.
For couples, the picture is more nuanced. Online couples work is possible and I do it regularly, but the dynamics require careful management. I’ll always be clear about whether it’s the right fit.
A note on how I work online
Sessions are on Zoom. I don’t record sessions. If a client wants a written summary after a session, I can create one using secure, ethical tools, and only with their explicit consent.
I’m based near Bude in North Cornwall, and I work with individuals and couples across the UK and Europe. If geography has been stopping you from accessing the kind of therapy you’re looking for, it doesn’t have to.
The short version
Online therapy works because therapy has always been about the relationship, not the room. What matters is finding a therapist whose approach fits what you’re carrying, who you feel you can trust, and who will stay with you as the work gets harder.
If you’re wondering whether online therapy might be right for you, the best next step is a short introductory call. No commitment, no pressure, just a chance to see if it feels like a fit.
I am looking at my soon-to-be ex-wife. I don’t recognise her. She is describing a pain I have never heard before. The therapist gives her space to explain what is wrong in the relationship. The words seem connected to me but somehow from another dimension. I am sure there is truth in them, and I feel such sadness that they must be true.
The therapist turns to me. What are my feelings? I have no idea. I’m 23, completely lost in this moment. I am like a rabbit in the headlights. What am I supposed to say? What would someone normal say in this position? Who the fuck are you? Who the fuck am I?
I carefully craft a response as I have trained myself to do. Part of me is completely calm, and I begin to observe myself interacting with two other people in the room. I seem to be doing okay. I look sad but engaged. I look as if I am a part of this drama. My voice is calm and measured.
They don’t know that a part of me is surviving this ordeal by sidestepping away silently without leaving my chair. I am observing myself at a safe distance. Who is this person calmly reciting lines I am feeding to them? Saying things that will make me seem like I belong here?
But inside, I’m not here at all. I’m lost. I’m 23, and I don’t know how I got to this place, this moment, this marriage, this therapy room. I know this chaos is churning inside of me, and I know I can survive it like a puppeteer pulling strings and feeding lines.
The screen fades, and the faces of 40 people jolt me back into the present. My personal time machine abruptly ejects me into my office chair, and for a trice, I am disoriented, trying to ground myself in the moment.
The tutor is asking for feedback on the role-play I just participated in. I check back in with myself. I am back in my 69-year-old body, shocked at having just spent 20 minutes time-travelling. I had no warning this would happen, and I am committed to being part of this couples counselling course as authentically as I can.
I press the unmute button.
“Feedback from me is that I got triggered. I was married at 19 and divorced at 23, and the imagined scenario resonated too much with my own experience. I will be booking an extra session with my personal therapist.”
What just happened?
I emailed my therapist directly, with questions rolling around my head. What was that? Why did it happen? Can I time-travel? I got an appointment for the next day. I knew if I didn’t speak to her, it would disappear and bubble away in the background of my life until it was triggered again.
Whatever it was, it had been deeply hidden for 46 years. I had never spoken about my first wife in therapy, disregarding it as something I had dealt with—no use ruminating on the past.
Reflections of Youth By the time I was 19, I had shared intimate moments with several girlfriends. I remember sitting in my mother’s car, staring out at the ocean, lazing away a sunny afternoon hidden in sand dunes, or sitting in my little den listening to Pink Floyd, trying to get as much contact as we could with our clothes on.
But the girl who became my wife was the first to take the time and care to spend a night with me and help me shake off my virginity.
With the intoxication of love, we moved in together. In the early seventies, living together was still not quite socially acceptable, so we got married to stay together. I was in heaven. A beautiful wife and the excitement of living in London gave me the freedom to explore who I was in relation to the world.
Four years later, I returned to my flat after work, and she was gone. I don’t remember a note. When I phoned her mum, I learned she had left and gone back to live in Italy. There was no forwarding address. A year later, she filed for divorce through a solicitor. I’ve had no contact since the day before she disappeared, leaving nothing but her annoying cat, which I soon gave away.
Imagine the confusion.
Both of us had reasonable office jobs. No arguments, no raised voices, no money problems — just two people who had once been madly in love but now found very little to talk about.
I remember one complaint: “You love your piano more than you love me.”
The role-play had opened a portal back to those zombified days. I didn’t know what I had done wrong and had no idea what I could have done to make things right. I sleepwalked for months, going through the motions of my job while trying to become a working musician.
My understanding of people has deepened with time, shaped by years of experience, introspection, and growth. The uncertainties of my younger self, once overwhelming, have transformed into quiet confidence, allowing me to hold space for others as they navigate their own struggles.
While the piano no longer supports me financially, it remains a vital part of my life — a source of joy and creative expression. The contrast between who I was then and who I am now is striking: once there was confusion, now there is clarity; where once I felt lost, now I feel grounded.
All images by author.
Awakening
Then, I sat at my computer desk involved in a video interactive training course, and all the feelings came flooding back and caught me completely unawares: the sadness, the feeling of complete helplessness, and the disorientation, taking me over like the ghost of my younger self coming back to haunt me.
For so many years, those feelings have been buried. Exiled to a part of me that rarely awakens.
In the role-play, I saw myself standing in the suit that I wore to my office job. It is ill-fitting, and my posture reminds me of my 5-year-old grandson when he knows he is not going to get his way. Shoulders slumped, arms hanging loosely, sad eyes. I was looking around for clues as to how I could escape this torture.
All I was hearing was that I was not doing it right. I should be doing more, I had abandoned my responsibilities. I had a moment before crashing back into the main room when I realised:
“This is not me! Not as I am now, something has been triggered.”
This realisation is absolutely what I have been training for. If a client triggers something in me, I need to be aware of it immediately, give it a nod of recognition, label it and pop it on my internal shelf of insights.
This 15-minute exercise prompted me to go straight to my therapist and dig deeper, leading to some major breakthroughs.
The Personal Therapy Session:
For the first time in my life, I was able to talk in-depth about my first marriage. I realised that for weeks previously, in our sessions, I had been working extensively on the feelings and challenges of my 20-year-old self, but not once had I mentioned my wife.
We had done deep work on me, searching for my identity and yearning for connection with others, but my wife was missing from the tableau. Now I could draw her back in, and the whole picture came back to life.
I realised that from the age of 10 until my late twenties, I had been trying to work out what role I should be playing. My authentic self had withdrawn from view so I could present something that I thought was more presentable. In the role play, I felt I was dissociating. Had I spent a whole chunk of my young life dissociating in order to survive?
All images by author.
Moving Forward
I now understand that at 23, my brain simply wasn’t equipped to handle the stress of a divorce. I was still growing, still learning how to manage emotions and make sense of complicated situations. No wonder I felt so lost. My brain was doing its best, but it just wasn’t ready to process the intensity of what was happening.
These insights have not only shaped my understanding of the past but have also brought me a new sense of freedom in my personal life. I realize now that the confusion I felt back then doesn’t need to define me or my relationships today. I’ve let go of the old narrative that something was fundamentally wrong with me or the way I handled things.
In my current relationship, I can recognize and communicate my needs without fear. I’ve become more patient, not just with others but with myself. I understand that it’s okay to be vulnerable and not always have the answers. My life now is not a role-play. There is no part I need to perform, no script to follow.
As a counsellor, this memory will stay with me, especially when working with young couples. It reminds me that their confusion or frustration isn’t a lack of effort or commitment — it’s often just a reflection of where they are in their lives and development.
I don’t have all the answers for them, just as I didn’t have them for myself back then. But what I can offer is space to explore, to help them see that confusion is part of the process, not a sign that something is wrong. In guiding others through that uncertainty, I’ve found a way to make peace with my own past.
Reaching out Reaching in — A digital drawing by John Walter 2024
This is a digital painting I have recently created, which partly came from conversations with my therapist about the struggles and successes of my teenage to 20-year-old self.
It represents a significant shift in how I view those years and how I choose to live the rest of my life.
I was and still am a vibrant, colourful, creative being. In my youth, I embraced this in myself, but as shown in my drawing, I seemed to be reaching out into a bland and monochrome world.
There is a sense in the image that my other arm is being held back by some invisible force.
The balcony overlooks a vibrant world of playfulness and energy — a world I felt too afraid to enter. By not depicting anything beyond the balcony, I symbolized my reluctance to even acknowledge that world’s existence.
I know I don’t belong in the bland, monochrome world of conformity and compliance, but I also fear I will be rejected by the creative world because I am not familiar with its rules.
Therapy and creativity go hand in hand.
I discovered how closely linked my creativity and emotional healing are through therapy. This connection became clear in the creation of ‘Jack,’ an embodiment of my inner child, captured in the following image.
Jack is screaming at the thrill of being hit by a cold Atlantic wave. Jack has been a creative manifestation of my inner child for the last six years.
Jack and the Wave — A digital drawing by John Walter 2022
He emerged when a student counsellor was working with me and tentatively suggested we do some inner child work. Guided by her supervisor, we worked carefully over several weeks. We talked during the sessions, developing a number of characters representing parts of myself, and I drew images at home and tried to bring the characters to life.
To take the rational mind out of the process, I was asked to draw only with my non-dominant hand and not try to refine or process the images, just keep them raw. The focus was on the emergence of the inner child from the subconscious rather than any artistic aims.
Images arose of Jack, who lived on the beach and was free and wild, exploring rockpools and the limits and possibilities of his physical body.
The older teenager emerged on a balcony built into the cliff. He was trapped with no way out. He lived alone in a single room lined with books. He read about marvellous worlds and explored the creative world of the mind but would not stray beyond the confines of his balcony.
I began to see these two characters as parts of my authentic self. Both had difficulty connecting with societal expectations. They were strong-willed and protective of the freedoms they embraced but not so aware of the limitations they placed upon themselves by exercising those freedoms.
Societal expectations and Authenticity
As I reached secondary school age, societal expectations began to show up. I was expected to wear a uniform, sit still, and learn all the things I needed to know to get a job and be productive in this world.
My teenage self managed this by masking every day. For my teachers, I did my best to behave; I took on the things that interested me and daydreamed through the rest.
For my peers and family, I allowed my creative self to thrive. Drawing, reading, writing, and playing music were daily activities. They tolerated my obsessions with rock music, songwriting, obscure poetry, existentialist writing, intricate pop art, and art nouveau drawing.
This is how my authentic self managed to survive. Although my parents found it difficult to understand why I didn’t want to follow the path of stability and a steady career, they supported me in pursuing a creative life.
It is only very recently that I have been able to separate those two things. I had long believed I was an outsider in my family and school. Now I realise that school as an institution always leans towards compliance and conformity, and only some of us manage to escape its stranglehold and live creatively.
Rediscovering my creative voice.
I am 70 years old, and reclaiming my creative voice has been a long journey. It has not been linear. At times, I have been living a life I love, and then I can sink into periods of depression where all my creative juices seem to disappear.
There has been constant fluctuation between creative expression and productive employment. Sometimes linking, at others pulling against each other.
Image created by the author for this article.
After some major life traumas, I seemed to have settled into a period where creativity and productivity could coexist. Recognising the two parts of myself, as imagined above, has played a major part in this sense of stability without compromise.
Honouring my creative spirit.
Creativity is my self-care and therapy and part of expressing my authentic self. My adult functioning economically and socially in the world is also part of my authentic self.
I have learned that balancing the two has brought me the fulfilment I have sought and a deeper understanding of my whole self.
My Invitation
Do you feel your creative child and responsible adult are in balance? Is your path harmonious or filled with tension?
I invite you to creatively explore these aspects of yourself. Where might your journey lead?
See where it takes you. Maybe explore places you have been afraid of entering, Moving in ways that give you freedom even though that freedom may be accompanied by fear.
I would love to hear your responses to my journey and how they might resonate with you.
All images were created by the author with traditional and AI tools.
Many of us have moments or ongoing feelings that we don’t fit in. It can be the way we think, look, feel in our bodies, eat, and react to situations, smells, or noises. Maybe you can’t concentrate or sit still for as long as others or get overwhelmed with anxiety while others sail happily along.
For far too long, anyone who looks, behaves, eats, acts, dresses, talks, thinks, moves, plays, walks, or has sex differently to some arbitrary norm has been hidden from view, imprisoned, institutionalised, medically or psychologically abused. The list could go on. I think you get the picture. I am pretty cross about this.
The binary way of looking at people suits the white patriarchy. If you roll your eyes at this statement, just think about it. Slavery would never have had any traction if there wasn’t binary black-and-white thinking from white men. This thinking gave them control, power and money.
Queer acceptance
There was a death penalty against Gay men from the reign of Henry VIII until 1835. After that, Gay men were imprisoned or given invasive medical or mental health treatment.
The noted computer scientist, mathematician, and war-time code-breaker Alan Turing (1912–1954), convicted in 1952 of “gross indecency”. Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce his libido. He accepted chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections
The message was clear: there was something wrong with homosexuals, and they needed to be executed, contained or cured. This attitude is very pervasive and still held by some. Since the year 2000, there has been legal acceptance of the gay community, but we still have a way to go for social acceptance.
Transgender individuals are still persecuted. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association updated the DSM-5, replacing “Gender Identity Disorder” with “Gender Dysphoria,” reducing the pathologization of transgender identities. However, in the UK, conversion therapy remains legal, and the government continues to restrict individuals’ rights to transition.
Neurodiversity acceptance
Dr Temple Grandin was diagnosed with autism at age 3, and the doctor recommended she be taken away from the family and institutionalised. Her mother had other ideas. Temple Grandin is now sounding the alarm on education systems that fail to recognize neurodiversity and may let visual thinkers like her fall through the cracks.
Temple and her mother accepted that she was different. Temple discovered her strengths, particularly in working with animals, and went on to become an internationally known speaker, writer, and academic.
Historically, society has treated anyone showing signs of diverging from the norm in thinking or behaviour as a pariah. They have been shut away from society because they go against deeply ingrained expectations and challenge the prevailing social order.
In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association revised the diagnostic criteria for autism. This greatly broadened the spectrum. It now ranges from brilliant scientists, artists, and musicians to an individual who cannot dress himself or herself. Over the years, the diagnostic criteria have kept changing. It is not precise like a lab test for strep throat. Labels such as autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder or learning disability are often applied to the same child. In older children with no speech delay, the diagnosis sometimes switches back and forth between autism and ADHD.
It is time to accept there is no normal. We are all unique individuals and need to be accepted as such and accept ourselves. This would allow us to stop looking for cures and fixes and give everyone the space to live their lives as they see fit.
My journey of acceptance
I was — too touchy — too sensitive — can’t sit still — too anxious — a romancer.
I was diagnosed, given the label of having anxiety and heavily medicated.
This was medical abuse. It worked for society, but it didn’t work for me.
Then, the school stepped in with canings for being too rebellious.
I shut down and switched off but didn’t lose my soul. Looking back, it occurred as a going inward. Society wanted me to go to University and get a nice, safe job in science or engineering, and I was having none of it. To begin with, I strung them along, but around age 16, I’d had enough.
I was very clear that I wanted to work in the music industry. I didn’t make any effort to play along with the science courses I’d been forced to take in the sixth form, but I was imprisoned. Outside of school, I thrived writing songs, winning talent shows, and learning to sing in choirs.
Reaching 18, I was free. I left for London with £30 in my back pocket, and a week later, I had a job and a bedsit. Now, my education began. I could choose what to study, where, when, and at what pace. Given this freedom, I discovered a hunger for learning that has served me well.
As I hit my twenties, I accepted that I would be unlikely to fit into a standard job or career, and I created my own, which has changed with the wind over the past 50 years but has given me great contentment and satisfaction.
The importance of embracing identity and nurturing acceptance rather than seeking cures or fixes cannot be overstated. Our societal norms have long been dictated by a binary perspective that suits the white patriarchy, marginalizing those who don’t fit into these narrow definitions, classifying them as sick, disabled or criminalising them.
Emphasizing the Importance of Acceptance:
It is time to recognize that there is no “normal.” Each of us is unique, and our differences should be celebrated, not cured, punished or hidden away.
Embracing identity means acknowledging and celebrating our differences. This allows everyone the freedom to live authentically.
By accepting ourselves and others, we create a society that values diversity and fosters true inclusion.
Embrace your identity. Celebrate diversity. Reject the binary and nurture acceptance.
I trained as a teacher in 1984. Now, 40 years later, I can reflect on how Orwellian Newspeak, described in the book 1984, has progressed, particularly, though not exclusively, in the world of education. I will refer to it as SchoolSpeak, a new language of conformity, uniformity and compliance built by hijacking words and concepts from progressive thinkers and repurposing them.
Since Margaret Thatcher’s interventions in the education system in the 80s, aims designed to raise educational standards through standardised assessment and rigid curriculum have been critiqued for reducing educational breadth and creativity, emphasizing rote learning and test performance over holistic development.
Words such as Resilience and Empowerment have been repurposed as part of a narrative that stresses individual responsibility for success within a highly structured and competitive system rather than genuine efforts to enhance individual educational experiences or adapt to diverse learning needs.
Respected bodies like the National Education Union are calling for the abolishment of OFSTED, which has been integral to regulating this shift from holistic education to punitive and rigid regimes affecting the mental well-being of children and teachers.
NEU members have made their feelings very clear: Ofsted causes more harm than good and we need urgent and fundamental reform.
The five Words
Here are five words or phrases which have been manipulated by the educational establishment in a way that their original meaning is in danger of being lost. Teachers trained in the last 20 years have probably never heard these words used in their original context, and so the brainwashing is complete. In many cases, words that originally aimed to empower, free, inspire and encourage children are now being used to force compliance and adherence to a single-focused agenda of conformity.
Resilience
Creativity
Positive Mindset
Empowerment
Innovation
How the words have changed
I first noticed the drift when I returned to teaching after a 15-year break. Still working in education as a successful freelance creative workshop provider, I saw that my services were no longer in vogue, so I closed the business and found some short-term supply contracts to keep me busy.
My language of child-centred, problem-solving education, seeking to empower children to become active in their own learning process, seemed to fall on deaf ears. Teachers seemed to have been trained in a pedagogy completely alien to mine. Empowerment was achieved by shovelling knowledge down children’s throats, which were coaxed open by a heady mix of threats and rewards.
I didn’t last long in this new Orwellian world of education and have since retrained in psychotherapy, where, for the present, I feel I can work with integrity and authenticity. However, I can imagine writing an article similar to this about the world of mental health in maybe ten years. The creep of regulation and uniformity is relentless. Schoolspeak and Psychspeak are the most obvious, but where else has language been repurposed to fit political narratives?
SchoolSpeak
Here goes my top pick of 5 repurposed words or phrases for the 40th anniversary of 1984.
Resilience
The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness, the ability to bounce back from challenges and adversity.
True resilience involves creative thinking, innovation, and emotional strength in the face of adversity. Being able to deal with and adapt to challenges in ways that foster personal growth and learning.
Schoolspeak has a different interpretation, which is more about conformity than creativity. I found this quote on an educational website that illustrates this. I won’t name and shame, but it was specific advice for building resilience in the classroom. This was an example about giving specific praise to build confidence.
“you’ve not gone outside of the lines once in your colouring sheet” is specific praise instead of “that’s a great picture”.
To me, that says it all. This is training teachers to focus on conformity rather than creativity. You praise sticking to the rules and colouring within the lines rather than painting outside of the lines and creating your own piece of art that expresses something about yourself. You are not building resilience in the original sense of the word. You are training children to shut down parts of themselves that question and explore, to be creative within the very narrow lines you have drawn for them.
The most common use of the word resilience I have witnessed in schools is around children who have sensory issues and become overwhelmed in a busy school environment. Resilience in this context is used to get children to mask, deny they are having difficulties, and comply with arbitrary behaviour norms.
Schools seriously wishing to develop resilience would partner with students, assessing their needs and finding ways to accommodate them. Resilience is a two-way thing. The school’s behaviour regime may be challenged, and resilience there would be shown by flexibility in the rules to accommodate individual pupils’ needs. The pupil’s difficulties and sensitivities would be acknowledged, and things would be adjusted accordingly.
2. Creativity
the ability to think about a task or a problem in a new or different way, or the ability to use the imagination to generate new ideas
The problem with a broad, expansive vision of creativity for educationalists is that they cannot measure it. So, SchoolSpeak has dumbed it down to meaning only using established bits of knowledge or traditional methods to solve problems or create work. This approach discourages truly innovative thinking, where students may challenge existing frameworks or come up with completely new and untested solutions.
Ken Robinson had a lot to say about creativity.
You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.
That view comes from the assumption that we are all born with creative and imaginative minds and that, in the current educational environment, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.
Creativity and creative outlets are essential for our well-being. Narrowing this down to testable nuggets is doing a disservice to our children. Education should expand horizons and stimulate imagination, not limit children to narrow intellectual pathways.
3. Positive Mindset
Approaching life’s challenges with a positive outlook. It doesn’t mean ignoring or discounting negative thoughts; it is more about seeing the positive and negative together and creating a balanced view that leads to positive solutions.
SchoolSpeak oversimplifies this concept by promoting constant positivity and disregarding valid emotional responses to challenging or unfair situations. This reinterpretation risks invalidating students’ real feelings of frustration or discontent, which are natural and can be constructive if acknowledged and managed thoughtfully.
4. Empowerment
Feeling capable and prepared to take on life’s challenges, engage with complex issues, and navigate the world as informed, responsible citizens.
This can be watered down in educational contexts in several ways. Overarchingly, the educational establishment has a distorted view that giving access to their carefully chosen selection of testable curriculum items and training children in a narrowly focused, linear direction is empowering in itself.
Many people within and beyond education think the opposite. Education in its present form disempowers children because it fails to prepare students for real-world challenges. Children are not empowered by achieving qualifications if those qualifications are seen as mere rote learning exercises. True empowerment fosters critical thinking, encourages autonomy, and allows students to influence their own learning processes and environments.
5. Innovation
Innovation in education means fostering environments where new pedagogical strategies, technologies, and curricular designs are developed and implemented. It encompasses encouraging students to think creatively, solve complex problems, and engage in interdisciplinary learning that pushes the boundaries of traditional education.
Often, “innovation” is simply used as a buzzword. Educational establishments may refer to themselves as innovative while merely creating approaches that foster compliance and adherence to a curriculum aimed at passing tests. True innovation should challenge existing paradigms and promote a culture of exploration and genuine learning.
Moving beyond SchoolSpeak
It’s clear that the educational establishment has often repurposed these five words – resilience, creativity, positive mindset, empowerment, and innovation – to fit a narrative of compliance and control.
This redefinition undermines the broader, more transformative meanings these words once held. By critically examining and reclaiming the true essence of these terms, educators, parents, and policymakers can work together to create an educational environment that genuinely fosters growth, creativity, and resilience in students.
Let’s strive to move beyond SchoolSpeak and re-embrace these words’ original, empowering meanings. Only then can we truly prepare our children for the complexities and challenges of the future, nurturing their innate potential and encouraging them to become innovative, empowered, and resilient individuals.
All images created by the author using traditional and AI tools.
I once made a seemingly irrational decision that puzzled everyone, myself included. It wasn’t thought through or premeditated, and there were no logical justifications, but it changed the course of my whole life.
The moment comes back to me on many occasions, particularly on my self-awareness journey through therapy. It was a peak experience, and I chose to step away. Why would I do that?
I have worked with several clients who cannot decide what they want to work on in therapy. I suddenly realised that what they needed to work on was obvious. They were unable to make decisions. They knew something was not right but had no idea what it was. Their body was screaming out to them to make a change, but they could not access what was causing them pain.
So, I will tell my story and see if it helps me to help them choose—to decide something for no reason, to choose because not making a choice consumes vast amounts of energy and keeps us in a place of stagnation.
Choosing to step away from my career as a musician.
I walked into the Green Room after the best gig of my life. I was playing a duo gig with someone who became an International star. An audience of over 1,000 people were still clapping us. I had been playing an exquisite Grand Piano, and Andy soared alongside me on tenor and soprano saxophones.
We danced through our set of spontaneous improvisations held together by pieces I had composed. I wallowed in the care, integrity and undivided attention Andy was giving me through the music. I recently attended one of his concerts with his European Trio, and I went straight back to that place, reliving those extraordinary feelings by observing him interact with his current musical collaborators.
My wife greeted me with glowing smiles, and we hugged around our one-year-old daughter, who was strapped to her front and sleeping peacefully. She poured a cup of chamomile tea from the silver Thermos, knowing I would need something to bring me down from the giddy heights I had been scaling.
We shared with her our mystical experience of feeling as though the audience was guiding us as if a greater creative force had swept through and was playing the music through us. She handed me a doorstep sandwich of some kind as if she were the only person on the planet who knew exactly what I needed at that point.
It was then that I made the decision. On the surface, I decided to stay with my wife and daughter and drink herb tea rather than ride this adrenalin wave and run around the City bars chasing further excitement. I can see it was much deeper than that from a distance of nearly forty years.
The Build-up
I left home at the age of 18 and went to London to become a Rock Star. It didn’t work out. I became obsessed with improvisation and jazz music, which was already declining as a popular art form. I found top London jazz musicians willing to give me piano lessons. I wallowed in the jazz scene, frequented clubs and pubs, and spent many nights at Ronnie Scott’s.
I worked in a 10-piece function band to earn some money from music. My relationships were a mess, and I was drinking too much. My soon-to-be wife rescued me from all this and drew me to Bristol.
I went back to University to train as a teacher, and I loved being part of the Bristol Jazz scene playing wine bars and hotels, teaching courses in jazz improvisation and helping set up a jazz club.
Eventually, I began teaching and started a family. Soon after that concert, I accepted a job in a residential therapeutic community for boys with serious behavioural difficulties. By accepting that job, with long hours, including evening and weekend work, I had made it impossible to continue any Jazz career.
The legacy
I eventually found my vocation in therapeutic work, although it took me on a roundabout route until I qualified as a psychotherapeutic Counsellor thirty-five years later.
Jazz composing and piano playing are still regular hobbies. Teaching music became my main career thread in many manifestations, and I have mostly been living the life I love.
At first, I felt resentment that I had given up on my jazz performing career, but I found creative ways to make a living from music that fit better with family life. Now, I have nothing but glowy, warm feelings about the way I have woven music into a stable career.
That night forty years ago, my heart was giddy with emotion and potential, yet I could listen to my inner voice. I embraced my intuition and ignored my excited, rational mind, which was screaming at me to go with Andy to meet promoters and soak up the praise and acknowledgement that was sure to come my way.
At the height of what could have been a bustling International music career, I chose the warmth and stability of family life. This decision, made in a heartbeat over herb tea and a comforting sandwich, was a pivotal moment defining my future.
It wasn’t just about choosing to stay physically present with my family that night; it was about choosing a life where I could continue to be emotionally present for my loved ones.
How Music and passion has driven my personal growth
Music never left my life. It transformed from my profession into a way of being in whatever I chose to do. In therapeutic work and teaching, I have deeply intertwined those principles I loved in music — Spontaneity, improvisation, sensitivity and unscripted connections with others.
Personal growth often requires us to forgo immediate rewards for deeper, more fulfilling sustenance.
Embracing the Intuitive Leap
It is not always easy to listen to your intuition and connect to that inner voice that whispers quietly behind the incredible racket of the rational thinking mind, but that moment of quiet reflection can shape your destiny as it did mine.
From that moment, I crafted a life rich with fulfilment and purpose, balancing passion with responsibility. If you stand at a crossroads, unsure of which path to take, weigh up the logical chattering of your mind and the whisperings of your heart. Sometimes, the best decisions we make are those we cannot explain. We cannot put our finger on the logical reason why, but we know we have been guided by our intuition.
Great leaders make smart decisions, even in difficult circumstances. From Albert Einstein to Oprah Winfrey, many top leaders ascribe their success to having followed their intuition. New research shows how going with our gut instincts can help guide us to faster, more accurate decisions
Life is unpredictable, and I hope my journey inspires you to ride those unpredictable waves spontaneously. Know that following the pathway that is yours exclusively, following unexplainable currents, and sometimes drifting in the unknown can lead to profound personal growth and unexpected happiness.
All images created by the author using a variety of editing and AI tools.
We live in a quick-fix culture, from fast food to having access to instant gratification of our sensory needs. Music, videos, and art are all becoming available at the touch of a button. Instant solutions to every need are prized above putting in the work to experience these things in greater depth.
One of my greatest pleasures is cooking a Sunday roast for my family. Occasionally, when time is very limited, I may get a takeaway from the local curry house. Both approaches to family mealtimes have their place, but cooking a Sunday roast has so many more layers of pleasure for me and is much more likely to create lasting memories.
As with the choice between fast or home-cooked food when it comes to mental health, quicker is not always better. Why bother with months of expensive therapy when you can get everything you need in six sessions? Some therapists even offer single-session treatment.
Looking at it from the perspective of fast vs. home-cooked food, you get a quick hunger fix that requires little effort or engagement with fast food, but the satisfaction is fleeting and often leaves you feeling unsatisfied in the long run. Similarly, short-term therapy might seem efficient, providing a quick fix to psychological issues, but it often only scratches the surface of deeper emotional needs.
In contrast, long-term therapy is like preparing a home-cooked meal — it takes more time and effort, but the process itself is deeply satisfying and nourishing, often leading to more profound self-awareness and lasting emotional well-being. Just as a home-cooked meal can foster connection and create cherished memories, long-term therapy offers a space to deeply explore and understand one’s life, building emotional resilience that sustains through all life’s challenges.
Where quick-fix therapy has its place
Some psychological needs only require a brief intervention, and plenty of approaches are available to meet that need. CBT, EMDR, Hypnotherapy, and others are great for addressing a single identifiable issue.
Like medicalised approaches, quick-fix therapy is about symptom management and does very little to avoid recurrence or deal with causes or deeply embedded emotional issues.
The deeper journey of long-term therapy
A wide range of therapeutic approaches could be described as “Depth Therapies” and it is impossible to list them all here. They largely fall under the umbrella of Psychodynamic, Humanistic and Holistic therapies. Behavioural approaches are mostly but not exclusively quick-fix.
In my Private Practice, I use an integrative approach, which means I have experience working with many modalities. As I work with a client, I bring in what they need. It is usually evident in the first session whether the presenting issues can be dealt with over a few weeks or whether many layers obscure deep underlying problems.
With agreement, we delve into all areas of an individual’s life history, their belief systems and how they began, their relationship patterns and a timeline of their emotional landscape.
Through this process, clients begin discovering the root causes of their psychological unease. We lay everything out, unearthing a long-buried overview of their life patterns. This process can facilitate transformational insights and enable the integration of complex emotions.
Client X (fictional) hadn’t left the house for three months. We worked over the phone for a year with no change in this presenting symptom of agoraphobia. It finally shifted through identifying undiagnosed autism, which gave a clear insight into their life choices, which had led to isolation and a solitary lifestyle. This transformational insight enabled the client to seek specific support and accommodations, eventually leading to re-entering the world of work and a richer social life.
Entering into a therapeutic relationship
The key element of most modern long-term therapy is the relationship you build with your therapist, and this will always take some time to develop. It is an essential element in the healing process for you to develop trust and feel safe to explore your innermost concerns without fear of judgment or criticism.
In long-term therapy, the counsellor slowly helps you build a psychological map of your inner world through the relationship. When you have developed an overview of your life-long patterns and emotional journey, you can work with your therapist to develop bespoke strategies to facilitate a transformation in the way you live your life.
One client used the metaphor of a spider web to describe how the relationship worked for them.
“When I arrived I was anxious about everything. I was only aware of a tiny section of the spider web where I sat cowering. If a leaf brushed past the web the whole thing would vibrate and I had no idea what it was causing the vibrations. I shrunk back further into a tiny limiting space. Over time in therapy I developed an overview of my whole life. I could see the whole web and how things interacted. The anxiety just disappeared by becoming aware of the causes.”
Sustainable Change and Personal Growth
The changes clients go through in long-term therapy are not predictable or the result of targeting specific issues. A sex addict may begin therapy thinking their addiction is the source of all their problems. Soon, they may become curious about why their obsession has diminished, but all the other issues in their life and relationships persist.
This realisation could prompt a much deeper dive into their underlying emotional landscape and past traumas. As they peel back the layers of their behaviours and motivations, they may discover that their addiction was merely a symptom of deeper unresolved conflicts. This exploration can lead them to confront painful memories and challenge entrenched beliefs about themselves and others, which have shaped their relationships and self-image for years.
In the safety of the therapeutic environment, they can begin to reframe their identity, moving away from seeing themselves solely as an addict and towards a more holistic view of themselves as a complex individual with unique strengths and vulnerabilities. This shift often brings about a profound transformation, not just in how they manage their addiction but in their overall approach to life and relationships.
This is the opportunity long-term therapy gives you. Changes made on a deep level will endure and evolve over time. You have not just managed some anxiety; you have set in process a phase of personal growth that is irreversible. Persistent depression is not just alleviated. You have opened up a doorway into self-awareness where you can make significant life choices more freely.
Making the choice for personal growth
If you view your challenge as a specific problem that needs solving, a short-term, targeted approach might be sufficient. However, if you recognize that, despite your best efforts, you are still limiting your own potential, exploring long-term therapy could offer substantial benefits.
What are you seeking — immediate relief, a profound transformation, or perhaps a blend of both? Do you envision yourself grappling with the same issues five years from now, or can you imagine a future where you are free from the constraints of your past? How do you balance the need for immediate results with the desire for deep, lasting change?
Remember, the first step on any journey is the most difficult. By taking that first step, your unique pathway will begin to reveal itself, leading you toward not just immediate solutions but sustainable, transformative growth.
How One Psychotherapist’s Self-Discovery of ADHD Challenges Conventional Diagnosis and Celebrates Neurodiversity
All Images created by the author using a variety of drawing, editing and AI tools.
Neurodiversity has only been a concept since the turn of the century and has been commonly used by professionals since 2010. This suggests that most education or mental health professionals have had to and, to a large degree, are still playing catch-up.
The only training they will have had will have been firmly rooted in the medical model of diagnosing autism, dyslexia, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions in order to treat, cure or mitigate the symptoms.
The professions have had to make a massive shift in their thinking to embrace the neurodiversity model. As with any paradigm change, there will be dinosaurs and pioneers.
Some pioneers may have had their wings clipped by being taught by dinosaurs. Some major educational and mental health institutions are still controlled by dinosaurs, who may well temper the enthusiasm of new recruits flushed with pioneering spirit.
Before sharing my personal journey, I will outline a research conversation I had with ChatGPT, OpenAI’s language mode, which clarified how and when neurodiversity appeared as an idea. I asked questions regarding the history of the term Neurodiversity.
Before 2000, the professional training regarding neurodiversity, particularly in fields such as psychology, education, and healthcare, was primarily influenced by a medical model of disability. This perspective framed neurological differences — such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurodevelopmental conditions — as disorders or deficits that needed to be treated, cured, or mitigated. The focus was often on identifying symptoms, diagnosing conditions, and implementing interventions aimed at helping individuals to adapt to societal norms or to “overcome” their differences.
The medical model has existed for around a century and still persists in some sectors despite a huge shift in understanding and research.
By the 2010s, “neurodiversity” had become a significant and recognized term in discussions about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurodevelopmental differences, extending into fields such as education, employment, and mental health. It emphasizes the understanding that neurodevelopmental differences should be recognized and respected as a social category, akin to ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.
In my work as a psychotherapist, I am constantly aware of the friction between this medical model of dysfunction and the neurodiversity model of celebrating uniqueness.
On my own self-awareness journey, I have begun to recognise that there are parts of myself and my patterns of behaviour that could easily be interpreted as ADHD; however, these symptoms could also be interpreted as a trauma response, General Anxiety Disorder or a number of other diagnoses.
I took several online ADHD tests and consistently scored medium to high. It reaffirmed my suspicion that these tests were as reliable as gauging opinions over tea and scones with my mother and her friends.
While it wasn’t shocking to score high, I don’t feel the need for validation from a supposed professional. The whole process of diagnosis and labelling feels like it belongs to an outdated medical model when it comes to addressing mental health.
Image created by the author using a variety of editing and AI tools
Back in 1965, at the age of 11, I was taken to the doctor. While I was considered bright at school, I couldn’t sit still. I was hyperactive and found it challenging to focus during dull lessons. This was two decades before ADHD was recognised in the UK.
In the eyes of the medical model, my behaviour probably appeared to be some form of anxiety disorder. I don’t recall feeling anxious, but how else could they explain this restless, nervy kid? So, they opted to sedate me, a treatment that, in modern terms, seems completely inappropriate and verging on barbaric.
What’s even more astonishing, however, is that despite these traits now being viewed through the lens of neurodiversity, 60 years later, there are still mental health practitioners and educators who only possess tools aligned with that outdated medical model, which tends to pathologise people, including those who are autistic or neurodiverse.
Recognising uniqueness
The alternative approach to diagnosing, putting into boxes, pathologising, judging and dismissing is to recognise and celebrate uniqueness.
This has always been the case with humanistic and holistic counselling or psychotherapy. We treat every client as a unique individual. We help to uncover and celebrate the authentic self. Diagnosis has no part in this process.
Clients often come to us previously diagnosed by professionals aligned with the medical model. It can be useful for the client as it gives them some search terms for internet research, but there is also a danger that they might focus solely on the pathologised parts of themselves.
It’s like they have been stamped with a barcode for easy internet access, and they slowly morph into a walking, talking version of that barcode.
Or, a gardener gives you an extensive list of all the weeds in your garden but neglects to mention all the beautiful, thriving plants that are also there. Armed with their list, you get a weedkiller that will destroy all the weeds, and your treatment takes down all the beautiful plants with it.
How I preserved my uniqueness
Teachers saw my creative leanings as a bunch of weeds. At options time, they refused to allow me to do Music, Drama, and Art. I was forced to study science and academic subjects. The result was that I gave up trying and left school with a miserable handful of mediocre results.
Twenty years on, I taught myself jazz piano to a professional standard, became a music technology teacher, worked professionally as a performing storyteller, and began creating my business as a drum circle facilitator. Forty years later, I am earning money by writing about therapy, art, and creativity.
No matter how I look at it, the whole school system seemed designed to prevent me from fulfilling my full potential. It invalidated my creativity and passion in training me to comply with societal norms.
I am very grateful that my creative leanings and passion were supported at home and in the community through Drama clubs, Choirs, and youth Club talent competitions. We had a beautiful baby grand piano that I spent much time with, and my need to emulate Jimi Hendrix’s guitar playing was mostly tolerated.
So, free from the constriction of school, I was able to fly a little freer, but the legacy of that time was that I have always felt that society would frown upon my need to go my own way, create my own path, and ultimately be myself—until now, of course.
Embracing Neurodiversity: Celebrating Uniqueness and Unlocking Potential
In my work as a counsellor, I come across children and adults of all ages who are diagnosed, self-diagnosed, and undiagnosed with a whole range of things related to Neurodiversity.
They are all unique and have a clearly individual understanding of how their minds and bodies work a little differently from what they perceive to be the societal norm. They all also have unique and different perceptions of societal norms.
People often fixate on discovering what’s wrong with them. But when did we lose sight of what’s right? Imagine if we redirected that energy towards uncovering and nurturing our unique talents instead of striving to fit into an arbitrary ‘normal.’ Such a shift could propel humanity forward in a gigantic evolutionary leap.
Turning an ocean liner around.
Shifting paradigms from viewing people as problems in need of fixing to valuing their unique differences is a monumental undertaking. It’s akin to steering an ocean liner in a new direction — a slow, laborious task demanding patience, persistence, and substantial effort.
When trying to redirect something as vast and entrenched as societal perception, there will be challenges from all sides. In Mental Health and education, challenges persist, and outdated models have been engraved into the DNA of our mental health and educational institutions.
Where can we begin?
As with any massive process of change, we have to start with ourselves. Are you celebrating your own uniqueness or constantly trying to fit in? Once you appreciate what it looks like for yourself, you can begin to recognise environments where it is happening for others.
Is your local school an environment that nurtures creativity, individuality and diverse ways of thinking? Does it foster growth and success for all individuals or just those that fit in?
Does your workplace plod along a well-worn path of expectations, or is it open to flexible working patterns and accepting diverse approaches?
Our uniqueness is a source of strength
I hope I have been clear that I am not claiming to have ADHD or not to have it. I really am not bothered about the boxes the medical profession tries to force us into. I am not an advocate for getting or not getting a diagnosis that is entirely up to the individual.
We shouldn’t need a certificate to show that we should be accepted for our strengths and diversity. I can see a future where neurodiversity is fully embraced and individuals are empowered to thrive authentically, contributing their unique talents to a more inclusive and understanding society, but I can’t predict a timeline for that.
I caught a glimpse of this paradigm shift 35 years ago while working at The Cotswold Community, a therapeutic children’s home for boys. There, a child-centred approach permeated every aspect of care and education. Tailored programs were created for each individual, both in their daily care routines and academic curriculum.
I witnessed children flourishing in this carefully managed environment. The work was held fast by a highly skilled therapeutic team working on psychodynamic principles headed up by Barbara Dockar Drysdale. Any sniff of behavioural principles, punishment or reward was swiftly banished under her watchful eye.
Sadly I had to leave for family reasons and I have been searching in vain for a similar environment in the intervening time. I have seen behavioural approaches take hold in all sectors of education and mental health, often for economic reasons, and the results have been catastrophic for many.
My hope is that the neurodiversity movement is at the forefront of a period of profound change where the medical, evidence-based approach to mental health is eclipsed by humanistic, experience-based models where individuals are empowered to thrive authentically, contributing their unique talents to a more inclusive and understanding society.
Each step towards embracing neurodiversity brings us closer to realizing the full potential of every unique mind.
