Very briefly..

I'm on the bus in an hour. Back to work in a town famed for its connections with racism after a week off. The charity I'm working for is like a beacon of kindness, and tolerance, in a sea of bullying that seems to start with teachers in the schools, and ends up as kids too scared to leave their homes, terrified of other kids, talking to a counsellor on the phone. 

Of course, the teachers and parents are bullied too - then what goes around comes around, it isn't good. 

I don't even think it is racism in particular, as the population is monochrome...its a culture, a part of this town. I am actually quite wary when leaving work in the evening. I guess our liberal attitudes to race, gender and sexuality are tolerated because we hand out free condoms?

Everyone understands condoms.

When I took the bus the other way to the city, many clients were like the kids in the small town; unable to leave the house, feeling bullied at work. Usually they were on their second round of doctor's notes, needing therapy to validate their new officially 'broken' status. But those people are not broken - just...the absence of kindness and tolerance creates such uncertainty and dread, and this really is a problem.

 Change, isn't a feeling, change requires action.

Therapy isn't the solution, but it must be a catalyst. All modalities offer support, but, in my view only solution focused practitioners address the issue? Change, isn't a feeling, change requires action. Then feelings will change. A person who needs that job, needs to feel OK about going back - until they can find a better job! Sometimes it is finding a way to support yourself when in a work culture that demands inhuman levels of commitment and ridicules people who don't seem 'able to take it'. Therapy is usually limited to six sessions. Talking about what has traumatized you to someone who understands will help. But it's only going to be six session. And is the problem only your view of what's happening at work, or is what's happening the true problem. Talking to colleagues will help, but if they fear losing their jobs, or don't want to hear your distress or worse, if they side against you? This is why going to therapy is a good idea, but unless you can also talk about the problem out there, rather than the problem inside you, therapy might not be enough. Because, it really might not be you that has to adjust.. If a person wasn't feeling ill at the thought of work before, and that has changed....it is unlikely that they have had a personality transplant and become someone else. 

And this is why organisations such as ACAS exist.

Meanwhile the reaction of people in power to those who they see as failing in someway, certainly has an effect!

So, I ask  'what do you think that they - the people who don't accept their role in your distress -  hope will change because you have come to therapy'? I ask, "What will they notice that is different about you that tells them that you are being the version of you they prefer"?  and "what will tell you that they are seeing you differently, in a better way?" Seeking resources - asking  'have there been any times when things have been better at work? What was it that made it good'?  and 'what small thing could make it safe for you to face all this?'  onwards onwards, always listening for the gold, the bits of information the client gives about their strengths, courage and capabilities, and the things that they love. So important to separate the person from the problem - this is an anti-diagnosis therapy - and an important part of this is making it clear that  from what I've heard, the problem is the system, as the problem with the small town is in the culture, but if you find a way to do the problem differently, you take back power and things will change for you. 

SFBT is an anti-diagnosis therapy.

The question about 'what do they - the teachers / managers - want to see different' acknowledges the power dynamic. There is a power dynamic, and it isn't going to be dismantled for the client with revealing the truth (aiming to prove who is right or wrong) because this can't be about justice. A parent is welcome to fight the fight to get justice, but me, I'm just talking to the person stuck in the middle. A child in school labelled as a problem, has to do what the teachers want to see - so my role is to hear how this can be possible. The truth is the game is rigged, there are winners and losers, and they (the child or the employee) have power enough to alter the teacher's or manager's  reactions, and this is meaningful (or can be) because this is a simple way to make their life improve.

Sounds like giving in?

The alternative is to get a diagnosis...and that can be a win, the family can get financial support, the child gets a pass to leave the classroom. There can also be comradery with other kids who have a diagnosis. Not sure what this looks like for adults. Many are OK with their meds despite the improbability of the drugs being any better than placebo, and the horrible effects they can have.

For adults things really start to go down hill with the disciplinary. Before then there would have been incidents when the employee would have done something in good faith, only to be told that they should  know better! Except, what ever they were doing 'wrong' had been welcomed by a previous boss, or been OK at a previous place of work. Or the working conditions are not safe and the person is on high alert all the time and unable to legitimatize their feelings, and as it is safer to blame oneself. Calling it a mental health problem kind of makes a person feel as if they now understand the problem - or rather they arrive to the session with the hope that the therapist will be able to tell them what's wrong with them, and how to get better.

Meanwhile, a disciplinary isn't the best way to have a discussion about working conditions. And when the employee is a try harder sort of person, and trying harder already...the disciplinary is the last straw.

Nor is a doctor's note the best way to tell the boss that work conditions are bad. 

In every case after hearing what has happened to a client, I've said 'are you sure that the problem is you - and not the way it has been handled'? As much as I'm a therapist, I'm also a mediator and truly, so much of counselling should be replaced with mediation! But, in mediation both parties have to agree that life will be better when they lose their fear of each other, and start to talk...And mediation can be expensive. 

Which brings us back to how power, the response to it, and the meanings made, create heaven or hell!

And why Kit isn't to 'blame' for any 'bad therapy.

Whilst at the same time he is culpable for causing unnecessary distress by failing to address the issues it has raised. 

Receiving 'Bad therapy'  has made me very aware of how power dynamics supress and distort knowledge, and prevent resolution...