Category Archives: consent

The biggest issue we face: #WorldMentalHealthDay – Monica Cassani

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

The biggest issue we face: #WorldMentalHealthDay Click on the above link to visit Monica’s site http://www.beyondmeds.com for this piece she published last week on ‘World Mental Health Day’. Her perspective and ours at this service have lots in common. Both … Continue reading →

Posted in actualizing tendency, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, autonomy, consent, cultural questions, cultural taboos, Disconnection, empowerment, ethics, growth, healing, iatrogenic illness, internal locus of evaluation, Monica Cassani, non-conforming, objectification, paradigm shift, perception, power and powerlessness, psychiatric abuse, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, shadow, transformation, trauma, violence | Tagged affordable counselling exeter, alternative mental health care, alternative psychiatric care, attending to the body, authoritarianism as violence, authority as violence, authority over others is violence, autonomy, breaking down, breaking through, can madness save us, care for psychosis, Chris Cole, coercion in medicine, coercive mental health treatment, coercive paradigms, coercive psychiatry, collective caring, coming off psychiatric drugs, community mental health, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, drug free recovery, emotional pain, everything matters, faith, finding a safe space, finding support, forced psychiatric treatment, forced treatment, having well being, healing journey, health and well-being, helping professions, holistic health, iatrogenic injury, improving well being, Jiddu Krishnamurti, learning to live well, loving the body, loving your body, low cost counselling exeter, medical adherence, medical compliance, medical model, medically induced injury, meditation, mental distress, mental health and eating, mental health system, mental health treatment, mental illness system, mental pain, mentally ill, Monica Cassani, needing a safe space, no measure of health, non compliance, non conformity, Open Dialogue, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, paying attention, peer support, person centred counselling exeter, personal agency, personal sovereignty, presence, pro choice in psychiatry, professional retraumatisation, professional retraumatization, providing sanctuary, psychiatric drug withdrawal, psychiatric harm, psychiatric labels, recovering and thriving, resistance to treatment as sign of health, retaining agency, Robert Whitaker, self care, self empowering, sick culture, sick society, state of mental health care, support in growth, support in healing, supporting others, supporting vulnerable people, systemic oppression, trauma, trusting your own process, using practice, vulnerability, well adjusted, wellness, withdrawal syndrome, www.beyondmeds.com, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

On the Wildness of Children – Carol Black

Posted on September 19, 2018 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children Click on the link above to visit Carol’s website for this well written and profoundly important article. Gratitude to Embercombe for alerting us to this piece via their Facebook page. “But as Odawa elder and educator Wilfred Peltier tells … Continue reading →

Posted in autonomy, awakening, boundaries, Carol Black, child development, cognitive, community, conditions of worth, conflict, consciousness, consent, creativity, cultural questions, Disconnection, education, ethics, fear, growing up, human condition, meaning, natural world, paradigm shift, parenting, political, power and powerlessness, rewilding, teaching | Tagged #resist, absorbing culture by osmosis, adapting children, ADHD and modern schooling, affordable counselling exeter, alienation, Aodla Freeman, basic human needs, biodiversity, Carol Black, child centered learning, child centred learning, childhood and freedom, childhood and lack of freedom, children and wildness, children as products, children staying indoors, children with freedom, children’s disconnection from the natural world, children’s instinct for dissent, clan, coercive education, coercive learning, collaboration and learning, complex social structures, confining children, conscious parenting, conscious schooling, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, creativity and education, desire based learning, developing a sense of self, disconnect from nature, disconnection from the natural world, dissent, eco literacy, education and compliance, education and confinement, education and conformity, education and control, education and cultural norms, education and ethics, education and social control, education and social enforcement, education and social engineering, education and submission, education and suppression, educational theory, effect of freedom on children, effect of school on children, efficiency, Ellwood Cubberley, environmental education, ethical principal of consent, ethical principle of non interference, factory education, fear based culture, fear based education, fear based mindset, fear based schooling, fear mindset, fear of wildness, forgetting as coping mechanism, forgetting as resistance, forgetting as strategy, free child, free child outdoors, free play, free thinking, freedom from violence, fundamental human needs, home education, home schooling, how children learn, human relationship and consent, importance of community, importance of connection, importance of consent, importance of relationship with natural world, importance of wildness, inattention as coping mechanism, inattention as resistance, inattention as strategy, indigenous wisdom, institutionalisation, institutionalization, Jack Turner, John Taylor Gatto, land based societies, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, learning and attentional states, learning and consent, learning appropriate species behavior, learning skills, low cost counselling exeter, meaningful responsibility, measurement as a value, mindfulness, Mini Aodla Freeman, mixed age extended family, modern schooling, nature and man, nature and spirituality, nature of man as spirit, non conformity, non-conforming, obedience, open attention, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, orderliness, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, patriarchy, Paul le Jeune, person centred counselling exeter, person-centered, person-centred, play as learning, punctuality, rebellion in children, rebelliousness, relationship with the natural world, right of self determination, right of self governance, rural life, savage, school and confinement, schooled kids, self preservation, self protection, separation from the natural world, shamanic wisdom, social checks and balances, socialisation, socialization, species nature, standardization, strategies of resistance, student centered learning, student centred learning, supporting creativity in children, Suzanne Gaskins, teaching children about nature, The Abstract Wild, the past is never dead, Thoreau, unforced learning, unmet needs, unreleasable, use of force, village to raise a child, Walking, wild being, wild mind, wildlife rehabilitation, wildness, wildness and civilisation, wildness and civilization, wildness preserves, Wilfred Peltier, William Faulkner, William Torrey Harris, withdrawal as coping mechanism, withdrawal as resistance, withdrawal as strategy, wounded culture, www.carolblack.org, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Spinning Straw – Tracy Cochran

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

https://parabola.org/2017/07/30/spinning-straw-by-tracy-cochran/?utm_content=buffer9bcb5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer Click on the link above to visit the site for Parabola Magazine for this remarkable reworking of the Brothers Grimm. It is not long since we published a piece by Tracy – but the writer stumbled upon this at … Continue reading →

Posted in 'evil', abuse, acceptance, accountability, autonomy, beauty, blaming, boundaries, bullying, cognitive, compassion, compulsive behaviour, conditions of worth, consciousness, consent, core conditions, creativity, cultural questions, Disconnection, embodiment, emotions, empathy, empowerment, fear, feminine, good, gratitude, grief, growth, guilt, identity, interconnection & belonging, kindness & compassion, loneliness, loss, love, meaning, metaphor & dream, objectification, perception, power, power and powerlessness, relationship, resilience, sadness & pain, self, self concept, shadow, surrender, Tracy Cochran, transformation, vulnerability | Tagged abandonment, abuse of power, acceptance by the tribe, affordable counselling exeter, aliveness, aloneness, ancestors, armouring, Arthur Rackham, asking the impossible, autonomy, autonomy and acceptance, autonomy and belonging, bargaining, being in the shadows, being invisible, being left, being more, being unable to hold boundaries, betrayal, betraying love, betraying truth, betraying what you love, bitterness, boundaries, Brothers Grimm, causing harm, compassion, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, craving life, cut off from life, dare to be straw, deepest humanity, desecrated, desperation, diminishing ourselves, disconnection, divided, doing more, doing the math, ego mind, embodiment, empathy, emptiness, empty life, entitlement, everyone is special, everything is sacred, everything is special, evolutionary biology, existential emptiness, existential meaning, fairy tales, fear as a driver, fear of death, fear of loss, fear reaction, feeding people, feeling connected, feeling invisible, finding a place, finding balance, finding your reflection in another, folklore, fully alive, good enough, Great Mystery, guilt, having a place, having choice, heartfulness, here and now, holding yourself apart from love, holy work, how to live, humility, identity, inner smallness, internal division, invading boundaries, isolating behaviour, joy of connecting, joy of connection, keeping yourself alone, keeping yourself separate, knowing another, knowing each other, lacking choice, learning how to live, life is more precious than gold, listening without judgment, little rattle stilt, living experience, living fully, locating yourself, losing yourself, loss and grief, low cost counselling exeter, meeting needs indirectly, meeting needs obliquely, metamorphosis, metaphor, mind limitation, mind trap, mirror of another, mirror of love, mortality, myth, nameless, needing others, newborn, no such thing as magic, no-one is special, non possessive love, not good enough, not knowing yourself, not special, nothing is sacred, nothing is special, objectification, objectifying, ordinary and sacred, othering, otherworldly, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, power and powerlessness, power over, present moment, privilege, promises and betrayal, pure love, rage, reflection of love, relationship as transaction, remembering ourselves, resilience, responding and reacting, Rumplestiltskin, sacred love, sacredness, science and magic, science not magic, self acceptance, self armouring, self awareness, self betrayal, self concept, self denigration, self enclosed, self enclosure, self hate, self isolation, self knowledge, self limitation, self love, self rejection, self-structure, sense of sacred, shadow, small self, speaking unwisely, speaking wildly, spinning straw, spinning straw into gold, splitting, story-telling, stuckness, submissiveness, submitting, surrender, survival and acceptance, survival and belonging, telling tales, the first mother, The Heart of Oak Books, the wheel turned, the witness, Tracy Cochran, transformation, transience, trapped in your head, trying to explain, trying to save ourselves, trying to save yourself, turning wheel, unbounded love, unconditional love, using others, value of being alive, value of life, wanting approval, wanting closeness, wanting connection, wanting to be acceptable, wanting to be close, wanting to be known, wanting to be seen, wanting to belong, wanting to feel important, wanting to matter, wanting to please, web of life, what keeps us from love, wholesome work, without consent, without judgment, witnessing consciousness, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Do Psychiatrists Harm their Patients out of Stupidity? Michael Cornwall

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/06/do-psychiatrists-harm-patients-out-of-stupidity/ Click on the above link to visit http://www.madinamerica.com for this accurate, perceptive piece by Michael about the ‘disease model’ of psychiatry, which lacks both an evidence base and humanity, and challenges basic common sense. Michael is writing in the … Continue reading →

Posted in abuse, accountability, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, borderline personality disorder, civil rights, client as 'expert', clients' perspective, cognitive, communication, compulsive behaviour, conditions of worth, consent, cultural questions, cultural taboos, dependence, diagnoses of bipolar, Disconnection, DSM, emotions, empathy, ethics, external locus, healing, hearing voices, Mad in America, medical model, non-conforming, objectification, Palace Gate Counselling Service, perception, political, power and powerlessness, psychiatric abuse, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, psychosis, RD Laing, reality, sadness & pain, scapegoating, schizophrenia, self concept, suicide, trauma, violence, vulnerability, working with clients | Tagged Abraham Maslow, abuse of power in psychiatry, affordable counselling exeter, alienation, An Alternative Understanding of The Nature of Madness, archetypal, Are Some Psychiatrists Addicted to Deference, arrogance, Big Pharma and psychiatry, blindly embracing stupidity, broadening perspective, Carl Jung, challenging authority, challenging dissent, challenging ideas, challenging psychiatry, clinical detachment, clinically detached, closed system thinking, cognitive dissonance theory, constraints of the disease model theory, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, creating distorted reality, creating self serving narratives, cultic echo chamber of convention, cultural alienation, cultural pressure to conform, cultural trauma, cultural traumatisation, cultural traumatization, culturally accepted range of emotional experiences and expression, culturally permissible range of emotional experiences and expression, curious specimens, Daniel Fisher, death rate of psychiatric patients, demystification, demystifying, Diabasis House, diagnostic labeling, diagnostic labelling, diagnostic labels, disease model of mental illness, disease model theory, disempowering psychiatry, dissident psychiatrists, distorting reality, DSM based funding, ECT, emotional distancing, emotional distress, emotional experience, emotional expression, emotional suffering, emotionally distance, Emperor’s New Clothes, extreme emotional states, extreme experiences, extreme psychological states, extreme states, failed disease model of mental illness, failed theory and practice of psychiatry, first do no harm, forced conformity, forced psychiatric treatment, forced treatment legislation, fundamentalist belief systems, gods have become diseases, harmful psychiatric interventions, heart centered approach, hegemony, hegemony of psychiatric belief system, hegemony of psychiatric power structure, helping people in extreme states, Hippocratic Oath, honoring the sacred, honouring the sacred, hubris of psychiatrists, human rights abuses in psychiatry, humane approaches to helping people, humanistic approach, identity degradation, If Madness isn’t what Psychiatry says, including spiritual experience, injured by psychiatry, invisibility of person in psychiatry, John Weir Perry, lack of compassion, lack of empathy, lack of psychiatric evidence base, legitimising, legitimizing, lifelong psychiatric conditions, logical fallacies, logical fallacy, Loren Mosher, low cost counselling exeter, low tolerance of challenge, marginalising dissent, marginalizing dissent, medicating children, medicating teens, medicating vulnerable seniors, mental health and life expectancy, Michael Cornwall, modern industrial society and alienation, modern industrial society and trauma, mystical, mythic dimensions, non pathologising approach, non pathologizing approach, oppression in psychiatry, ostracising dissent, ostracizing dissent, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, perceiving challenge as impertinence, perceiving challenge as threat, person centred counselling exeter, Peter Breggin, politics of oppression, power imbalance, protest against psychiatry, psychiatric belief system, psychiatric collective, psychiatric conditioning, psychiatric dehumanisation, psychiatric disease model, psychiatric human rights abuses, psychiatric indoctrination, psychiatric labeling, psychiatric labelling, psychiatric labels, psychiatric objectification, psychiatry as logical fallacy, psychiatry killing hope, psychic, psychosurgery, questioning authority, range of emotional experiences and expression, reductive psychiatry, relieving emotional discomfort, sacred experience, sacred manifestations, sacredness, schizophrenia, seeking deference, seeking power, self concept, self serving legitimacy, self-structure, shamanic, so called mental illness, Soteria House, soul, toxic economic factors, toxic social factors, Transpersonal, trauma responses, unquestioning conformity, what is madness, www.madinamerica.com, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

Laura Delano on Feeling your feelings, empathy, compassion – & the shrink

Posted on June 2, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

Click on the above link to visit Laura’s Facebook page, for this moving, accurate, important post. We work outside the ‘mental health’/psychiatric system and terminology here. We choose our therapists for their willingness to do their own work and their … Continue reading →

Posted in abuse, acceptance, actualizing tendency, autonomy, awakening, civil rights, client as 'expert', clients' perspective, compassion, consent, core conditions, cultural questions, Disconnection, DSM, emotions, empathy, equality, ethics, fear, grief, growth, healing, identity, immanence, interconnection & belonging, kindness & compassion, Laura Delano, medical model, non-conforming, non-directive counselling, organismic experiencing, Palace Gate Counselling Service, perception, person centred, power and powerlessness, presence, psychiatric abuse, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, resilience, sadness & pain, self, self concept, self esteem, shadow, therapeutic growth, therapeutic relationship, transformation, trauma, trust, values & principles, violence, vulnerability, working with clients | Tagged abuse, affordable counselling exeter, alienation, aliveness, authentic being, authenticity, awareness, belonging, big feelings, biomedical model, biomedical reductionism, blaming, carrying collective shadow, carrying shadow for others, coercive conformity, coercive drug treatment, coercive psychiatric treatment, collective shadow, compassion based relating, compassionate encounter, conditions of worth, conformity, connecting in relationship, core conditions, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, crying frequently, cultural shadow, desecration, discrimination, disease and disorder model, embodied wisdom, embodiment, emotional awareness, emotional connection, emotions as wisdom, encounter, existential meaning, expanding awareness, experiencing anger, experiencing despair, experiencing grief, experiencing joy, external locus, fear, fear as motivating emotion, fear based behaviour, fear based paradigm, fear of self, fear of your own power, grieving process, holding sacred space, immanence, insecurity, intense emotion, intense emotional states, interbeing, interconnectedness, interconnection, intolerance, labelling people, lack of awareness, Laura Delano, loneliness, low cost counselling exeter, meaning, medical model, medical reductionism, medicalisation of distress, medicalization of distress, mental health labelling, mental illness, mirroring, modelling compassion, modelling love based relationship, modelling ways of being, mourning process, mystification, neglect, non-conforming, nothing is wrong with you, oppression, organismic experiencing, othering, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, pathologising distress, pathologising emotion, pathologising feeling, pathologizing distress, pathologizing emotion, pathologizing feeling, patriarchy, person centred counselling exeter, person centred relationship, personal shadow, power, power imbalance, power of being seen, power of crying, power of surrender, power of vulnerability, powerlessness, presence, psychiatric disempowerment, psychiatric drugs, psychiatric labeling, psychiatric labelling, psychiatric model, psychiatric reductionism, reclaiming your power, recovering from psychiatry, reductionism in biomedical model, reductionism in psychiatry, relational communication, relational connection, relational presence, relationship, relationship heals, sacred expression, sacred space, sacredness of feelings, scapegoating, scientific reductionism, self concept, self-structure, shame, shyness, social control, social isolation, therapeutic process, therapeutic relationship, too emotional, trauma, unresolved trauma, violence, wounded healer, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment

The Biggest Problem in Mental Health Treatment – Monica Cassani

Posted on January 7, 2017 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

The biggest problem in mental health treatment Click on the above link to visit Monica’s extremely valuable resource base at http://www.beyondmeds.com for this post – which accords with how we make sense of our work at this service:- ‘The biggest problem … Continue reading →

Posted in abuse, actualizing tendency, autonomy, client as 'expert', community, consent, core conditions, cultural questions, diversity, empathy, empowerment, encounter, equality, ethics, external locus, flow, growth, healing, interconnection & belonging, internal locus of evaluation, love, medical model, Monica Cassani, non-conforming, non-directive counselling, objectification, Palace Gate Counselling Service, paradigm shift, person centred, political, power and powerlessness, presence, psychiatric abuse, psychiatry, relationship, resilience, self, therapeutic growth, therapeutic relationship, transformation, trauma, trust, unconditional positive regard, values & principles, violence, vulnerability, working with clients | Tagged actualising, actualizing, affordable counselling exeter, authority as violence, autonomy, coercion as violence, coercive mental health treatment, coercive psychiatric treatment, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, diversity, effective support, egalitarian society, expert patient model, external authority, external locus, first do no harm, holding space, internal locus, low cost counselling exeter, medical model, mental health, mental health labeling, mental health labelling, mental health system, mental health treatment, Monica Cassani, never know first never know better, offering support, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, person centred counselling exeter, person-centered, person-centred, personal sovereignty, personhood, power in therapy, psychiatric coercion, psychiatric harm, psychiatric labeling, psychiatric labelling, psychiatric model, psychiatric system, psychiatric violence, sacred space, sacredness, safe space, supporting well being, therapeutic relationship, trusting own process, trusting the process, well-being, www.beyondmeds.com, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | 2 Comments

My Name Is Anneke Lucas & I Was a Sex Slave to Europe’s Elite at Age 6

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Palace Gate Counselling Service

https://www.globalcitizen.org/content/anneke-lucass-harrowing-tale-of-sex-trafficking-am/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=global&utm_campaign=general-content&linkId=32537951 Click on the above link for this painful and harrowing – also wonderful – piece from Anneke. This piece is remarkable in so many ways: for the fact that a human being – a child – can survive such … Continue reading →

Posted in 'evil', abuse, actualizing tendency, autonomy, blaming, childhood abuse, civil rights, consent, core conditions, creativity, criminal justice model, cultural questions, cultural taboos, dependence, empathy, empowerment, ethics, Gender & culture, generational trauma, healing, identity, immanence, internal locus of evaluation, objectification, pornography, power and powerlessness, resilience, sadness & pain, sexual violence, shadow, shame, shaming, trauma, trust, violence, vulnerability | Tagged addiction to power, affordable counselling exeter, Anneke Lucas, autonomy, awareness, Belgian pedophile network, brokenness, carrying shame, child abuse, child rape, child sex abuse, child sexual abuse, childhood sexual abuse, collective darkness, collective shadow, compassion, core conditions, counselling exeter, counsellor Exeter, counsellors Exeter, courage to heal, CSD, de-identifying, Dutroux case, egoic damage, empathy, energetic body, expanding awareness, feeling broken, feeling loved, feeling seen, harnessing survival strength, healing damaged ego, healing journey, healing trauma, humanity, humiliating, humiliation, identifying with your experience, Kali, letting go, Liberation Prison Yoga, loving your abuser, low cost counselling exeter, Marc Dutroux, mindfulness, moments of clarity, needing attention, needing love, neglect, objectification, objectifying, oppression, orende, paedophile network, Palace Gate Counselling Service, Palace Gate Counselling Service Exeter, paradigm shift, patriarchy, pedophile network, person centred counselling exeter, personal shadow, post traumatic growth, power addiction, presence, psychic wound, PTSD, recovering memory, recycling abuse, repressing memory, Seeds Beneath the Snow, self abandonment, self empowerment, self hatred, self healing, self worth, self-loathing, sex slave, shadow, shame, soul death, soul purpose, soul wound, speaking truth, suppressing memory, survival strength, survivors of incest, survivors of sex trafficking, survivors of sexual abuse, taking power, trauma work, trauma wound, trauma wounds, traumatic amnesia, traumatic stress, triggers, words of power, wounded feminine, wounded masculine, www.palacegatecounselling.org.uk | Leave a comment