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2020 Vision

It has been another fantastic year of growth and development here at Elsie over the last 12 months. We have seen the Centre grow to accommodate more clients, with more counsellors, and have managed to maintain our founding principles of open ended psychodynamic therapy which is both affordable and timely for our clients. The team are dedicated to delivering a valuable service for the local population, and the community feel around Elsie gets stronger and stronger. I would personally like to thank each and every one of the team for their hard work throughout the year, as well as recognising the courage and tenacity shown by everyone who chooses to enter into a therapeutic relationship in the hope of changing their personal circumstances for the better.

Our student numbers continue to grow year on year, and I am delighted to say that all of our first cohort of Diploma students have either completed, or are about to complete, their course requirements – they are our first group of homegrown counsellors and I am delighted with their progress, development and achievements. Really well done to each of you. The second and third cohorts are working very well at their different levels, and we are confident that each one will grow into being resilient, thoughtful, compassionate counsellors in the future. Congratulations and thank you to our former placement and volunteer counsellors who have fully completed their external training, well done! We have begun the process of applying for our Diploma to be accredited by BACP, while LCPC is applying to become an organisational member of BACP too.

We have developed a range of training events and a Counselling Skills Course which remains very popular, and our first Infant Observation in association with APPCIOS is due to start early next year. Please check our events page for more details.

We are looking forward to the New Year and the prospect of developing further trainings, particularly in collaboration with other local counselling agencies, in an effort to continually improve the therapeutic services available to everyone throughout Leicestershire.

Enjoy the Christmas break, and Happy New Year

Jay

Founder, LCPC

 

 

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All Ears – Kate’s Kounselling Fundraiser

Leicester Centre for Psychodynamic Counselling are hosting an open house event to raise funds to help Kate Rose Geraghty (a pupil at the centre who within weeks of giving birth to her first child was diagnosed with cancer) to spend as long as she can with her new daughter, Ivy.

The open day will include:

  • Museum exhibition outlining different theorists from Freud to the present.
  • Rooms dedicated to understanding Self Care and Mental Health
  • Children’s Games room where families can come together and play old fashioned board games.
  • An auction of prizes donated by local businesses
  • Vintage tea and cake room

All funds raised will go to the Kate’s fundraising appeal https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/rebecca-storer

Please RSVP here

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Experiencing Freud

As I walked into the living room of 20 Maresfield Gardens, I felt a sense of being connected. Linking with such an important time in the history of Psychoanalysis, in the study and consulting room where Sigmund Freud connected with his patients. Now the Freud museum, this house is dedicated to the life and work of Sigmund and Anna Freud.

With an understanding of how important this work is in our role as counsellors, the experience of the museum was that of entering into the Freud world. Imagining being sat in the extensive library, wondering about the significance of the extraordinary collection of antiquities, of ancient figures that decorated the house. Walking on the ground of a piece of history that helps us to understand our roots as therapists.

This reminds of how we work as Psychodynamic counsellors. Just as we can feel the ground of the roots of our work, we can really feel the ground of the memories of the past and how they shape the present. Exploring, as we did the house, in a safe and containing environment, connecting with our clients, just as Freud still connects with us today. What a privilege it is to be able to work in this field.

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Lift Off!

As we move towards the end of August, “Elsie” reaches the 6 month landmark at No. 12 – 6 months which have flown by and have seen so many developments. We are delighted to have established a working community here – therapists providing counselling for the local community, a centre for delivering training and events for counsellors, psychotherapists and the general public, while also offering a counselling training course – our Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling, Our launch in July was a huge success, helping to make connections with other local services and to get our ethos and message out. We’ve been quite overwhelmed by the positive feedback regarding “the feel” of No 12.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the team at Elsie – a big thank you goes out to all who have contributed to, and supported, the growth of our community.

While we must give ourselves the chance to look back and appreciate what has been achieved, we must also focus on the next 6 months and ensure we remain committed to our vision. Alongside the growing client work – providing affordable and timely counselling remains our priority – we will begin our Diploma, launch a Group Process training course, welcome three Placement Counsellors from Leicester University, host a research conference and continue with our series of Film Nights and Book Club. In addition to this, we are hosting a workshop by Michael Jacobs in November, and are booking more CPD events to follow.

So, we will take some time to reflect on our achievements this week, and to look back at how far we’ve come in such a short space of time. It feels important to do so. But then we move on…..

Jay

 

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Community

It feels like it’s been a long week, with an awful lot going on from day to day, but it has been highly productive and energising too.

We began by welcoming Anne Edwards to LCPC, who has brought humour, energy and creativity to the team, and by Tuesday her room was furnished and finished, ready to receive clients. She has worked hard to make the room look really good, though I must give a special mention to Steve the builder for his expert conversion on the top floor – thank you Steve!

Amy and Ampy have been working away on our behalf for a few weeks now, improving the website, our communications and our events – this week has seen my comments on crushes (!) published in two magazines, we’ve had some wonderful photographs taken of No12 for the website, and we’ve taken an active part in Mental Health Awareness Week in a variety of ways, including hosting a Scandi style “hygge” lunch for local businesses on Friday, raising money for MIND in the process. We’ll be doing that again soon……. Myira has her profile in the new Therapy Today, introducing the BACP Board of Governors, and we’re looking forward to a range of events including our launch on 21st July, which has been confirmed as being at No12 from 6pm, then on to New Walk Museum from 7/7.30 for food, speeches and a guest appearance on the piano! We’re also excited about Michael Jacobs coming to deliver his workshop on Oedipus in November – book early as places are limited.

However, while all of this is very exciting, we are really clear that our clients are our priority – to make sure that we are being the best we can be with all of our clients.

We are working on building a community, and piece by piece this is taking shape.

Jay

 

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Free waffles this Friday!

Join us for free waffles and coffee at our ‘hygge’ style lunch this Friday 12 May. 12-2pm
Experience the uplifting benefits of the Scandi approach to everyday living as we come to the end of Mental Awareness week 2017
The simple ritual of gathering around a table, talking, eating, sharing (and enjoying!) food helps to develop a sense of connectedness, which studies have found is crucial to maintain happiness and a sense of belonging. It even raises oxytocin (the cuddle hormone) levels!
Social connectedness, whether hanging out after work or sitting down over a meal with friends or family, has been shown to increase happiness and alleviate depression.
We will be providing a Scandi style menu and as it is Mental Health Awareness Week we will be collecting donations for MH Charity MIND.
Please rsvp your attendance to
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Confidence

I’ve just been walking through the city centre, taking a few minutes to enjoy the sun and collect my bass guitar from the repair shop (it had developed something resembling performance anxiety, and had lost its voice completely….happily now restored).

Wandering through the streets and dodging people either fixed on their phone or with heads down, I was reminded of the confidence classes my colleague Becky and I used to deliver to students at Leicester University. We would discuss self-perception as a group – usually with an agreement that self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence among the participants were low, then explored the belief for many in the room that a) other people didn’t feel the same, b) that other people could see their low self-perception and c) avoiding eye contact and going “unnoticed” was generally the safest method to use when going from place to place.

We challenged these students to try something different and encouraged them, between that session and the next, to make eye contact with others as they walked to, around and from the campus, and to report back what they noticed in the following session. We were regularly amazed at the huge impact this simple technique had on the majority of students, who would be eager to tell us of what they found in the following session. The typical finding was “EVERYONE is looking at the ground or their phone, not just me!” and a realisation that their fears of being seen, exposed or ridiculed in some way did not happen.

This one simple technique had a huge impact on many students in the group, many of whom used it as their starting point to develop their confidence in themselves.

If you struggle with your own feelings of self confidence, next time you’re out and about – why not try it yourself?

 

#mhaw17 #confidence #community #lcpc #mentalhealth #counselling

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Surviving or Thriving?

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, with the theme of Surviving or Thriving. We’ve been thinking about this at LCPC, and we’re going to blog some thoughts each day, and then on Friday we are hosting a “Scandi Lunch” where staff from local businesses have been invited to eat waffles, drink coffee, relax and connect with others. If we have conversations about mental health then great, but what’s important are the conversations, the connections, the community.

For me, surviving is keeping your head above water, staying one step ahead, managing to cope with all that life throws at you. There is something to celebrate, but the sense of there being a struggle is implicit. Thriving, however, is different – defined as prosperous and growing, flourishing. So, how do we help our mental health move from surviving to thriving?

One crucial element enabling this to happen is our capacity for creativity, especially through our ability to “play.” That ability of young children to be able to lose themselves in worlds of their own making, where the real, outside world has no influence, seems to get lost once we grow into adulthood – things we like to do gradually give way to things we need to do. Survival, for many, becomes the priority. But I suggest it is this creativity and imagination which fuels our ability to flourish, to grow – which elevates us from merely surviving.

My thought, therefore, is to try to encourage as many people as possible to think about surviving and thriving – how much of what we do day in and day out is about survival? How much room do we dedicate to creativity, immersing  in an activity which offers temporary reprieve from the demands and stresses of life in general? It’s not easy to maintain and preserve the space required for being creative, but the benefits for mental health are huge.