Positive Change Psychology
Who do you work with?
There is a Latin line, "I am human and nothing human is alien to me." I speak to everybody and I welcome everybody.
I have spent part of my career focused on elite performers performing under high levels of pressure, whether that is acute or chronic pressure. But the principles of performing under pressure are broadly applicable. So everybody can learn from a Champions League final penalty taker, and everybody can learn from an Olympic gold medalist or a marathon runner. I wouldn't want to exclude anybody. Anybody who's interested in talking to me is welcome.
Even though I've worked in sport most of my career, I originally qualified as a counselling psychologist in South Africa, which is the most generic of the psychology fields in that it is dealing with ordinary people living ordinary lives and being subject to the questions, challenges, pressures, tensions and difficulties of ordinary life.
There are different times in life where people face different challenges. I've worked a lot with teenagers who face challenges around developing social networks, understanding how to operate in the world, being pressurised at school or in sport or in the early stage of their career. I've spent a lot of time working with elite performance, whether that's business people or athletes. And because I've been involved with teams, I'm very interested in relationships, so I've spent a lot of time working with relationships too, and that could include couples or families who are just interested in understanding roles and relationships and communication.
The kinds of people who are getting in touch are the kinds of people who want to be turning a problem into a challenge, who want to be supported with resources or who, sometimes just need a listening ear or a sounding board as they strive to turn something from a problem into a challenge.
Sometimes you are placed in a position of privilege. Pressure is a privilege because you have to earn your way into situations where you are challenged. You may have created a new environment, taken a step forward, achieved a breakthrough, driven some kind of change, or been the recipient of change. Either way, you are now facing something new. Your existing skill set needs to be upgraded because your level of challenge has been upgraded.
The kinds of people who reach out to me are people who are facing ordinary life challenges that could and will make an enormous difference to their life trajectories and overall well-being. I do work more in the space of positive change.
I believe that when you identify, experience, or encounter a challenge or problem, whether it is something you sought or something imposed on you, you eventually reach a point where you realise this is something you need to think about, reflect on, and learn a new way to cope with.
I really see myself as a partner in that process.
What theories and tools do you use?
Humans have reflected on humanity, on relationships, on themselves, on growth, development, and loss for as long as there have been humans. We are social creatures, emotional creatures, and intellectual creatures. This is part of our history and part of our culture.
I am drawn to truths and wisdom that have existed and proven themselves over centuries, or even thousands of years. I am also deeply respectful of modern research, which can sometimes provide insights that were not available before specific research methods existed.
Of the ancient ways of thinking that appeal to me most, Stoicism is probably the strongest. I think Stoicism, with its principles of acceptance, matter-of-fact thinking, and logic, leads into self-control. It also leads into the Stoic balance between taking responsibility and accepting circumstances. Stoicism had a significant influence on cognitive behavioural therapy, which became the foundation of the therapeutic modalities that have proven most effective in actually delivering the change that psychology clients are looking for.
And then there is positive psychology, which Martin Seligman developed as a profoundly powerful and useful approach. It understands that positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment are core to our health and well-being.
Another theory that I use is a theory of high performance, which is about understanding how to adapt your own motivation, confidence, and focus. I have theories of coping with pressure, around understanding the difference between fear and danger, and the difference between confidence and commitment. These are really about seeking to control what you can control. And then there is understanding the process of taking risk, and wanting to be more conscious about risk-taking, risk avoidance, and risk management.
What we end up talking about is how to perceive the external and internal world or how to perceive the challenge and the skill set more accurately so that you can devote the appropriate resources and adopt the appropriate strategy.
It is important to know the difference between the things that you can influence and the things that you can't influence, and that in itself is a skill and a source of comfort. And a huge energy saver.
In reality, it is fairly rare in life that you encounter a problem for the first time. The problems that warrant our attention are usually the ones that recur. But because they recur, we also have time to think about them and prepare for them.
There are many levers, and I would not say that I go into a conversation with the sense that, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I would want to seek to understand, seek to hear, and seek to listen. Sometimes, it is the act of listening itself where the power lies.
How does the working relationship unfold?
It is a conversation, a human conversation. I hope that the person would feel, first and foremost, respected, appreciated, and cared for. The consequence of that is that the person would feel listened to, and that there would be a desire to understand, and an attempt to understand.
Hopefully, there would be a sense that I have had many, many conversations with many people. I hope I can share some of that wisdom and experience, which is not mine alone, but has been shared with me. I can be a conduit for that wisdom and experience, and use it to help the client understand themselves.
There is also, I think, a determination that we want to influence our futures and we want to be more dynamic in the way that we pursue and achieve goals. And I think there would want to be a sense that we would work towards taking action that actually influences our fates.
The client does not have any responsibilities beyond coming to the session. The session is there for them, and they can use it as they wish, in the way they are ready for. The responsibilities are mine: to create the conditions, and to present myself in a way that comes across as trustworthy, committed, and competent.
People can contact me, and we can have a conversation on the phone, exchange text messages, or simply have a first session. Sessions can be in a consulting room or online. Most of the sessions I do are online. We can also do walking sessions, where we have a side-by-side conversation while walking, which is a very natural and human thing to do.
A counselling or therapeutic relationship exists for the benefit of the client, not the therapist. So, of course, we both have to assess whether I am the best person to support this individual. If that is not the case, I have a substantial network that I am able to refer to.
I'm a 54-year-old man with a particular life experience, and that life experience, as I said at the beginning of this conversation, I'm a human, and according to the Latin saying, I am human and nothing human is alien to me. But certain clients may feel that they can feel more comfortable with or can feel more understood, more immediately understood by other people, and of course it would be our responsibility to find out.
Sessions normally last in the region of 50 minutes. Sometimes clients prefer a 25-minute session, and that is also possible. Sometimes clients prefer longer sessions, but I prefer to book for a maximum of a 50-minute hour. In terms of frequency, we can sometimes work twice a week, sometimes once a week, and sometimes once a month or less frequently than that.
I find it useful to have a structured relationship rather than an ad hoc relationship because those tend to lose focus and lose effectiveness quite quickly. A structured relationship doesn't mean we have to see each other frequently, but we do have to see each other regularly or according to a set appointment.
Why did you come to see me? What made you choose to make contact with me? The answer to that question is really how we would evaluate whether or not we had been successful.
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