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Photo by Warren on Unsplash Being cast out by a community is a particular kind of wound. It doesn’t only hurt socially. It can feel as if something much deeper has been disturbed — as if the circle that once held you has closed its gates, leaving you standing outside, trying to understand what has happened. In Jungian terms, this is the territory of the exile or the outcast. Although that can sound bleak, it is worth remembering that, in myth and fairy tale, the one who is sent away is rarely at the end of their story. More often, they are at the beginning of an initiation. When you have been banished, scapegoated, misunderstood, or pushed to the village's edge, it may be because you are carrying something the group cannot yet bear: a truth, a difference, a sensitivity, a disturbance, or a new possibility. This does not make the pain acceptable. It does not romanticise rejection or excuse cruelty. But it does suggest that more may be at play than simple exclusion. Sometimes the community casts out the very thing that sustains life. The work, then, is not necessarily to force your way back in or to spend a lifetime begging to be understood. The deeper work may be to ask: What part of me was exiled with me? What did I come to believe about myself when the group turned away? What truth, gift, or tenderness needs to be gathered back now? From a transpersonal perspective, belonging is not only about belonging to a group, family, school, church, profession, or tribe. There is another belonging too — belonging to the soul, to the Self, to the earth, and to the mystery of being alive. When human circles fail us, we may need to remember the older circle: the trees, the breath, the body, the ancestors, the night sky, and the quiet presence within. There is a belonging that no committee can withdraw. It cannot be voted away. It does not depend on approval. The wound says, I have been rejected. The soul may eventually answer, But I have not been abandoned by myself. A simple inner exercise Imagine yourself standing outside the gates of the community that cast you out. Not to plead. Not to argue. Not to make a case for your innocence or your worth. Simply to witness. Then notice who, or what, is still standing there. Is it the ashamed child? The angry one?The loyal one?The bewildered one? The part still waiting to be called back in? Now imagine walking towards that part of yourself and saying: You do not have to stand here any longer. You do not have to keep proving your worth to people who cannot see you. You belong with me now. Come home. You might imagine wrapping that part of yourself in a cloak — a cloak of dignity, warmth, and protection — and leading it away from the gates. Not back into the old community, but towards an inner place of refuge: a fire, a garden, a chapel, a forest clearing, a shoreline. Somewhere the soul can breathe again. Being cast out can leave you feeling ashamed, contaminated, or somehow wrongly named. But banishment is not the same as truth. The group may have rejected you. That does not mean your soul rejects you. The group may have falsely named you. That does not mean your true name has been lost. But another threshold may be opening — quieter, deeper, more honest — where belonging is no longer bought at the price of self-betrayal, but grows from becoming more fully who you are.

Some symbols arrive quietly, like a feather found on a path. The peacock is not one of them. The peacock enters like an opera singer in full costume, having apparently missed the memo about humility. It does not sidle into the symbolic imagination. It fans itself open. It shimmers. It says, in no uncertain terms: look at me. And that, of course, is where the trouble begins. Because many of us are deeply uneasy about being seen. We are taught, often very early, not to show off, not to take up too much space, not to be “too much”. We learn to tuck our brightness away. We trim our colours to fit the room. We become experts in being acceptable, useful, and manageable. Then along comes the peacock, dragging behind it a fan of blue, green and gold, asking: What if your beauty was not a problem? At one level, the peacock is a symbol of display. It is associated with vanity, pride and self-importance. To “peacock” is to show oneself off, usually with a touch too much confidence and perhaps a jacket no one asked for. We all know that version. The inflated self. The person who cannot quite leave a room without making sure everyone has noticed their departure. But symbols are rarely so simple. The peacock also carries a deeper message about visibility. Its magnificent tail is not merely a decoration. It is a revelation. It shows what has been hidden. It fans out the inner world into colour and pattern. In dreams, myths and inner life, the peacock may appear when something in us is ready to be seen. Not the polished persona, not the performance, but the deeper radiance of the self. The part of us that has survived shame, comparison, criticism and the long, grey education in self-doubt. There is also something extraordinary about the “eyes” in the peacock’s feathers. They seem to look back at us. In symbolic language, eyes often suggest awareness, perception and consciousness. The peacock may therefore speak not only of being seen by others, but of seeing ourselves more fully. This is not always comfortable. To truly see ourselves is not simply to admire the attractive parts. It is to recognise the whole pattern. The beauty and the awkwardness. The longing to shine and the fear of being judged. The genuine gift and the temptation to use that gift for applause. The peacock asks us to notice where healthy self-expression ends, and performance begins. In this sense, it is a surprisingly useful therapeutic symbol. Many people arrive in therapy with their colours faded. They may not describe it that way, of course. They might say they feel flat, anxious, invisible, stuck, or strangely disconnected from themselves. But somewhere, often hidden beneath years of adaptation, there is a lost brightness—a way of moving, speaking, creating or loving that has been subdued for too long. The peacock reminds us that healing is not only about reducing distress. It is also about recovering vitality. There is an old spiritual association between the peacock and transformation. In some traditions, it is linked with immortality and renewal, partly because of the way its feathers are shed and regrown. Symbolically, this gives us another layer. The peacock does not merely dazzle. It renews its splendour. It knows how to lose and regrow. That feels important. Because the beauty we recover in later life is often not innocent. It is not the untouched brightness of childhood. It is something more weathered, more truthful. It has passed through grief, disappointment, embarrassment, ageing, loss and the occasional deeply unflattering photograph. It is not perfect. It is alive. And perhaps that is the real teaching of the peacock. Not vanity, but permission. Permission to unfold a little more.Permission to stop apologising for the colour in us.Permission to be visible without becoming inflated.Permission to recognise that modesty, when overdone, can become another hiding place. Of course, there is a balance. The peacock can warn us against empty display. It can ask where we are performing rather than expressing, seducing rather than relating, dazzling rather than connecting. But it can also challenge the opposing wound: the belief that we must remain small to be loved. So, if a peacock appears in a dream, an image, a sudden fascination, or even on a cushion you find yourself oddly drawn to in a shop, it may be worth asking: Where am I hiding my colours? Where am I afraid to be seen? What part of me longs to unfold? And where might I be confusing visibility with vanity? The peacock is a flamboyant teacher, admittedly. Not everyone’s preferred guide. Some of us might prefer a wise old owl or a discreet little robin. But symbols do not always arrive in the outfit we would choose for them. Sometimes the psyche sends a peacock. And when it does, it may invite us to stand a little more openly in our own lives. Not to strut, necessarily. Though on a good day, why not? But to remember that the soul, when allowed its full expression, is rarely beige. As I explore in The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth, healing often begins when something hidden finds a form: a word, an image, a gesture, a dream, a symbol. The peacock, with all its impossible colour and beauty, reminds us that what has been folded away may not be lost. It may simply be waiting for the right moment to open.

Photo by Curology on Unsplash The toilet may not be the most glamorous symbol in the gallery. It does not have the majesty of a tree, the mystery of a snake, or the poetic shimmer of a river. It is unlikely to appear on a greeting card alongside the words “follow your dreams”. And yet, symbolically, the toilet has a great deal to say. In dreams and the inner life, toilets often appear when something needs to be released. Something old, unwanted, toxic, embarrassing, private, or simply no longer useful. The toilet belongs to the part of life we prefer not to put on display, which is precisely why it can be such a powerful image. It may speak of the need to let go. Old shame. Old grief. Old resentment. Old stories. Other people’s expectations. Emotional material we have been carrying for far too long, possibly with the same determination we use when refusing to throw away a drawer full of cables that fit nothing we own. Toilets are also about privacy. We need a safe place to deal with what is most basic, bodily and human. So when toilets appear in dreams, especially if they are exposed, dirty, blocked, missing a door, or impossible to find, they may point to feelings of vulnerability, lack of boundaries, shame, or not having enough private space to process what is going on inside. In therapy, the toilet might invite us to wonder: What am I ready to release? What am I still holding onto? Where do I need more privacy, dignity or space? And what has become blocked because I have not been able to let something move through me? A blocked toilet is rarely subtle. Symbolically, it may suggest that something is backing up. Feelings, needs, anger, grief, fear, perhaps even words that have not been spoken. As with all symbols, the meaning is never fixed. For one person, a toilet may feel comic. For another, shameful. For another necessary cleansing, exposing, or oddly liberating. This theme of releasing what no longer serves us is also part of the deeper work explored in my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth. So perhaps the question is not, what does the toilet mean? But: What am I ready to stop carrying? What needs to be flushed from my life? And where might I need a little more privacy, compassion and decent plumbing? @routledgebooks#TheSecretLanguageOfSymbols#TheSeedsOfChange#HowTherapistsCultivatePersonalGrowth#TranspersonalPsychotherapy#InnerLife#SymbolsAndMeaning

Photo by Sarah Penney on Unsplash The mirror is a tricky little object. At first glance, it seems to tell the truth. There we are, apparently: hair doing whatever it has decided to do, face slightly more tired than we had hoped, expression suggesting we may need either a holiday or a decent cup of tea. But symbolically, the mirror is rarely just about appearance. It is one of the great images of self-recognition. In fairy tales, myths, dreams and the inner life, the mirror may reveal what has been hidden. It may show us the face we present to the world, but also hint at the face beneath the face. The self we know. The self we avoid. The self we are becoming. A mirror can be reassuring, but it can also be unsettling. Most of us say we want self-knowledge until self-knowledge actually turns up, takes its coat off, and starts pointing things out. In therapy, the mirror may invite us to wonder: What am I ready to see? What am I avoiding? What image of myself have I mistaken for the whole truth? And what might be reflected back to me through my relationships, dreams, symptoms or longings? The mirror can also speak of projection. Sometimes what we see “out there” belongs partly “in here”. The irritating person, the admired person, the feared person, the envied person, may all be carrying something of our own unlived or disowned life. Annoying, but useful. A good mirror does not flatter us, nor does it shame us. It helps us look with honesty and compassion if we cooperate. That is often where healing begins. This movement towards deeper self-recognition is also at the heart of my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth. As with all symbols, the mirror does not have one fixed meaning. For one person, it may suggest vanity. For another, truth. For another, reflection, illusion, intimacy, ageing, identity or the longing to be truly seen. So perhaps the question is not, what does the mirror mean? But: What is being reflected back to me? What do I find hard to look at? And what part of me is waiting to be seen with kinder eyes? @routledgebooks#TheSecretLanguageOfSymbols#TheSeedsOfChange#HowTherapistsCultivatePersonalGrowth#TranspersonalPsychotherapy#InnerLife#SymbolsAndMeaning

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash The snake is not always the most popular guest at the symbolic table. For many of us, it arrives with a certain reputation: danger, temptation, poison, something lurking in the grass that we would rather not meet while wearing sandals. And yet, symbolically, the snake is one of the great images of transformation. It sheds its skin. It knows when an old covering has become too tight, too dry, too small for the life moving underneath. There is something deeply powerful in that. The snake does not attend a weekend workshop on personal growth, buy a new notebook, and make a list of intentions. It simply sheds what it can no longer live inside. In dreams, myths and the inner life, the snake may speak of instinct, sexuality, healing, fear, wisdom, danger or renewal. It belongs close to the earth, to the body, to what is felt before it is explained. It may appear when something old is being outgrown, or when a more instinctive part of the self is asking to be acknowledged. Of course, not every snake should be stroked. Some symbols come with both a warning and a message. The snake may ask us to notice toxicity, deception, or other aspects of life that need careful handling. In therapy, I might wonder: What old skin am I ready to shed? What instinct have I ignored? What frightens me, and what might it be trying to show me? Where is healing trying to happen, even if it arrives in a form I did not expect? The snake reminds us that change is not always pretty. Sometimes growth looks like discomfort, exposure, and the awkward business of becoming someone we have not yet fully met. This theme of growth through difficulty is also at the heart of my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth. As with all symbols, the snake does not have one fixed meaning. For one person, it may feel threatening. For another, sacred. For another, powerfully alive. So perhaps the question is not, what does the snake mean? But: What is stirring close to the ground of my being? What am I afraid to feel? And what must I shed in order to feel renewed? @routledgebooks#TheSecretLanguageOfSymbols#TheSeedsOfChange#HowTherapistsCultivatePersonalGrowth#TranspersonalPsychotherapy#InnerLife#SymbolsAndMeaning

Photo by Daniel Arroyo on Unsplash A river rarely moves in a straight line. It begins somewhere hidden, as a spring, a source, a small stirring beneath the earth. Then it gathers itself. It widens, deepens, bends, rushes, slows, floods, dries, and somehow keeps finding its way. Rather like us, really. Symbolically, the river can speak of feeling, change, grief, longing, surrender, and the deeper current of the unconscious. We may like to think we are in charge of our lives, sitting neatly at the steering wheel with a sensible packed lunch and a five-year plan. Then life happens, and we discover there is another current moving underneath us. Older. Deeper. Less interested in our diary. A river can soothe and nourish. It can cleanse, carry, restore and bring life to dry places. But it can also feel frightening. Too much feeling can be like water rising. We may fear being swept away by sadness, anger, love, loss, or the sheer force of change. In therapy, the image of a river might invite us to wonder: Where am I flowing freely? Where have I become dammed or blocked? What am I trying to hold back? And where might life be asking me to loosen my grip on the bank, even if only by one finger? The river also reminds us that change is not always dramatic. Water wears away stone by returning, again and again. In the same way, healing often happens slowly, through repeated acts of attention, honesty and compassion. That patient movement through difficulty toward growth is also at the heart of my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth. As with all symbols, the river will mean something different to each of us. For one person, it may feel peaceful. For another, dangerous. For another, full of memory. So perhaps the question is not, what does the river mean? But: What is moving in me? What needs to flow? And what might happen if I trusted the current a little more? @routledgebooks#TheSecretLanguageOfSymbols#TheSeedsOfChange#HowTherapistsCultivatePersonalGrowth#TranspersonalPsychotherapy#InnerLife#SymbolsAndMeaning

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash The tree is one of the great symbols of the inner life. Rooted in the earth, reaching towards the sky, it holds together two worlds: the grounded and the spiritual, the visible and the hidden, the life above the surface and the life beneath. Its roots may speak of ancestry, belonging, memory and the places from which we come. Its trunk suggests strength, steadiness and the capacity to remain standing through many seasons. Its branches reach outward, seeking light, connection and growth. But a tree is not always a symbol of ease. It may also carry the story of what has been cut back, weathered, bent or scarred. Some trees grow around wounds. Some lean towards the light. Some survive in places where little else can take root. In therapy, the image of a tree may invite us to wonder about our own rootedness. What nourishes us? What supports us? Where have we grown strong? Where have we had to adapt? This theme of growth through difficulty also sits at the heart of my book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth. As with all symbols, the meaning is never fixed. The deeper question is not simply, What does the tree mean? But rather: What kind of tree am I? Where are my roots? What am I reaching towards? And what in me is quietly beginning to grow? #TheSecretLanguageOfSymbols#TheSeedsOfChange#HowTherapistsCultivatePersonalGrowth#TranspersonalPsychotherapy#InnerLife#SymbolsAndMeaning

There are some symbols that seem to speak to us before we have had time to think about them. The door is one of them. A door is such an ordinary thing. We pass through doors every day without much thought. We open them, close them, lock them, knock on them, wait behind them, stand outside them. And yet, in dreams, myths, stories and the inner life, a door is rarely just a door. It is a threshold. It marks the place between one world and another. Inside and outside. Known and unknown. Safety and risk. The life we have been living, and the life that may be waiting. A door may appear when something in us is on the edge of change. We may not yet know what is changing. We may simply feel restless, uncertain, called, or afraid. There may be a sense that something has ended, but the new thing has not yet taken shape. In that in-between place, the image of a door can carry great power. It may ask: are you ready to enter? But it may also ask: are you ready to leave? Not every door is open. Some doors are locked. Some are hidden. Some are forbidden. Some are only slightly ajar, allowing a strip of light to fall across the floor. A closed door may frustrate us, but it may also protect us. It may represent a boundary that needs to be respected, a part of the self that is not yet ready to be known, or a mystery that cannot be forced. In therapy, I am always interested in the feeling around the symbol. Is the door inviting or threatening? Is it old or new? Heavy or fragile? Is it familiar, like the front door of a childhood home, or strange and unknown? Are you inside looking out, or outside wanting to come in? Do you have the key? Are you knocking? Is someone, or something, on the other side? These details matter because symbols are never fixed. A door does not mean the same thing for everyone. For one person, it may suggest freedom. For another, exclusion. For another, danger. For another, hope. A locked door in a dream might speak of something withheld, perhaps an emotion, memory or possibility that remains out of reach. But it might also say: not yet. The psyche has its own timing. It often protects us until we have enough strength, support or understanding to open what has been closed. An open door can feel full of promise. It may suggest welcome, invitation, or permission. But even an open door can be frightening. There is still the question of whether we dare to cross the threshold. Many of us know what it is to stand at the edge of change. To remain where we are may feel too small, but to move forward may feel frightening. A part of us longs for the new room. Another part wants to stay with what is familiar, even if the familiar no longer nourishes us. This is often how change happens. Not in one grand gesture, but at the threshold. We hover. We hesitate. We imagine. We retreat. We approach again. The door may also symbolise choice. Once we go through, something may be different. We may not be able to unknow what we discover. We may not be able to return to exactly the same version of ourselves. This is why doors appear so often in fairy tales and myths. The hero or heroine opens the forbidden door, enters the hidden chamber, passes through the gate, crosses into the forest, the underworld, the castle, the unknown. A door invites movement, but it also asks for consciousness. What am I entering? What am I leaving behind? What part of me is ready? What part of me is afraid? There is also something deeply intimate about a door. It suggests privacy. What happens behind closed doors belongs to the inner world. Our homes have doors. Our bedrooms have doors. Therapy rooms have doors. The door protects the sacredness of the space within. So perhaps a door can also ask: what needs a boundary? What needs to be kept safe? What needs to be opened, and what needs to remain private? In the inner life, the door may stand at the entrance to a forgotten room of the psyche. A place where old grief, buried anger, unlived creativity or childhood longing has been waiting. Sometimes we spend years walking past such doors, sensing something behind them but not quite daring to turn the handle. And then, one day, something changes. A dream comes. A symptom speaks. A relationship breaks open. A book, a conversation, a piece of music, a moment of silence, touches something in us. The door appears again. This time, perhaps, we pause. We listen. We place our hand on the handle. The deeper question is not simply, “What does a door mean?” The more useful question is, “What does this door mean to me, now?” Where in my life am I standing at a threshold? What door have I been afraid to open? What door may need to close? What am I waiting for permission to enter? And if I crossed the threshold, what part of me might finally begin to live?

As the year draws to a close, I offer you my first blog. What’s on my mind today? Love - and dogs. On Boxing Day my neighbour, his little Staffordshire terrier in its harness, ready for a walk, waved goodbye to a couple of Christmas guests in their car. As he strode off the dog turned around and stared, aghast, at the visitors’ car about to leave. His daddy gently tugged on the lead to encourage him to keep walking and the dog pushed his paws into the road in a Disney stop. “No!” (I voice-overed) “I thought we were all going together! I don’t want to go with just you daddy!”. No stiff upper lip. No promises of not leaving it so long in future. No “Phew, thank God that’s over for another year…”. Just genuine doggy remorse that his expectations were not met. Thirty seconds later, he was feeling better as he sniffed the local lamppost for new and interesting smells. The resilience! Today I’ve been watching dogs in the park. Not one without its tail wagging. Each and every one seemingly thrilled to meet new friends, old friends, two-legged and four-legged, it seems to matter not. Everything is a source of amazement, but not for long. Then they’re onto the next amazing thing with barely a backward glance. How much easier life would be if we could be more dog. Relishing the moment, throwing ourselves into relationships with complete abandon. Grieving endings briefly and then moving on to the next lamppost. I know we can’t. I know the human brain is more complex and it needs to reconfigure itself after a loss. I get it. But as I prepare to say goodbye to 2022, I’ll be looking for my own metaphorical new lampposts. Grateful to have had 2022 when so many didn’t make it through. Intent upon relishing 2023 with every ounce of my being. Wishing everyone who reads this a Happy New Year and leaving you with the words of Meher Baba (February 25, 1894 to January 31, 1969) Love is essentially self-communicative: Those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. True love is unconquerable and irresistible; and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches. Lynn

I wrote this in the Spring of 2012 and I can still feel the impact of the experience now. I thought I’d share it as I continue researching death, dying and grieving for my Matter of Life and Death workshops. The nest was eye-catching. Balanced on the rudder of a moored canal boat, twigs were woven together with rubbish - strips of blue, green and red plastic. A waterbird recycling project. Mummy and Daddy Coot - taking turns to sit on their five eggs - quickly became a canal-side sensation, with the birds growing accustomed to amateur photographers and commentators discussing the nest, its construction and the commitment of mother and father Coot to their eggs. Onlookers eagerly awaited the sight of the baby coots. In London, where etiquette discourages eye contact, the coots drew us together for a while. We gathered on the towpath to photograph the birds, their colourful nest and their eggs, to allow ourselves to be captured for a while by nature in the midst of a busy city. The prosaic became poetic, as we waited excitedly for an anticipated new life - beauty emerging from a pile of rubbish. How those little Coots and their five little chicks brightened the last few weeks of a dull, rain-sodden Spring. But today the nest is gone. I cover my mouth in horror. My breath becomes shallow and rapid. The adult coots are stamping on freshly-gathered twigs with their oversized webbed feet, determinedly re-building their vandalised nest. Of their five little babies, there is no sign, and as I frantically cast around hoping for a sighting, I hear someone say “Shame they nested through weeks of rain and then their chicks get eaten.” As if punched in the stomach, I exhale sharply, then feel a horrible soreness where my heart is. I wipe my tear-filled eyes with my hand and flee the scene as if distance will help. And as I trudge heavily back to work I feel the familiar sensation of shock as I wonder how I didn’t see this coming. How I never see it coming. "I learned that every mortal will taste death. But only some will taste life" (Rumi)

In the wake of the publicity around Prince Harry’s book ‘Spare’, and the allegation that Prince William accused his brother of being ‘brainwashed by therapy’, I’m tempted to say ‘if only!’ . On the other hand, I have some sympathy with Prince William’s alleged viewpoint. Let’s unpack this subject. Firstly, why do I say ‘if only’ ? I’m being facetious by saying if it were so easy brainwash our clients perhaps we’d save them a lot of time and money. It isn’t easy sitting for weeks, months or years at a time whilst a client purports to desire a change in behaviour whilst doing the opposite. But having attended therapy for years, I know my own changes were not easy. And I’m so grateful that my therapist never exhibited frustration at my resistance. Just as you wouldn’t push a little child into the deep end of a swimming pool without arm bands and lots of encouragement, nor would any therapist worth their salt try to crash through a client’s defences - developed for good reasons, usually in childhood - and attempt to force a change before they were ready. When change happens, it often happens incrementally. This is due to the nature of the brain and the ego (who we believe ourselves to be) and the ego’s astonishing will to survive intact. Making change is difficult. Period. Good psychotherapists put aside their own agenda and take the view that they don’t know what’s best for the client. The client knows what’s best for themselves. At some level they know. And although it might sometimes appear that wrong choices are being made, therapists must hold a position of humility and curiosity. We may wonder with the client what might happen downstream if they were to make this or that decision, and so on. But we need to remember that the client has a soul and that soul has its journey and what may look like a mistake to us might be the perfect healing journey that client needs to undertake in order to develop a particular quality or set of qualities to help them become more whole. To individuate. Gestalt therapy refers to the process of individuation (or becoming whole) as ‘selfing’. Selfing is a dynamic process. So, when we respond in the same old way to challenging situations (choosing to avoid confrontation, for example, or choosing full-scale confrontation as opposed to calm dialogue), we are in a very real sense avoiding our wholeness. When we take a leap of faith and choose a different way of responding to challenges, we are ‘selfing’ - taking a step towards becoming whole. So, back to Prince William’s alleged viewpoint - can therapists brainwash clients? Can they influence their clients? Of course! People can be influenced by many things - nature, nurture, our experiences, our friendship groups, what we choose to read and so on. So when we are in crisis and reach out and find a therapist in whom we place our trust - yes, of course there is the potential for undue influence. Psychotherapy training is about not influencing our clients. It’s about providing the right environment, holding space and allowing clients to find their own, best way forward. Ideally, we therapists are like Sherpa guides - we know the terrain, we have plenty of experience of the territory in all kinds of weather, we can to some extent suggest the best paths to take. But we don’t direct or decide. The route, the speed, the stops en-route, changes of direction - all these are the client’s decisions. We assist the explorer as best we can. In the therapy process, we do this by asking open questions (questions not requiring a yes/no answer) and allowing the client to explore their inner and outer worlds without interference from outside influences. However, some people are very receptive, searching for somebody authoritative to make decisions on their behalf. This can be alluring for some therapists and there’s a need to avoid being unconsciously recruited by clients wishing for this.

Each year, like many psychotherapists, I find myself carving out time not just to deepen my understanding or nourish my practice - but to prove that I’ve done so. Logging CPD hours, gathering certificates, listing webinars, copying receipts for books I have purchased, providing reasons for buying the books, and summarising the books. The process is supposed to ensure ongoing professional development. But more and more, it feels like I’m spending less time genuinely educating myself and more time just documenting that I’ve tried. Recently, I found myself summarising several books I’d read for reaccreditation - books I chose out of genuine professional interest and deep personal curiosity. Yet instead of reflecting on how they’d changed my perspective, challenged my assumptions, or informed my practice, I was caught up in turning rich insights into neat, countable units. Not for my clients. Not for myself. But for an external system that seems to prioritise evidence of learning over the learning itself. As therapists, we understand that the most meaningful growth doesn’t always fit into neat categories. It develops gradually through reflection, embodiment, and dialogue. Sometimes it occurs when we revisit a familiar text with fresh eyes, or when a passing comment in supervision sparks something profound. However, under the current reaccreditation model, these subtle, transformative experiences often don’t “count.” What does count? A ticked box. A dated signature. A record of attendance. All useful in their place, but not reflective of the depth and nuance of therapeutic learning. I wonder how many of us spend hours trying to articulate in a few lines what we’ve “learned” from a book - not for the sake of integration, but to have something to upload. And how often the time spent proving we’ve read something might have been better used to pause, reflect, discuss with peers, or even rest - because rest, too, is part of how we learn. This is not a call to abandon accountability or standards. It’s a call to reimagine professional development as a living, breathing process rather than an administrative hurdle. Could we trust therapists more to shape their learning paths? Could reaccreditation invite dialogue instead of documentation? I don’t want to become a better form-filler. I want to become a better therapist. And I suspect I’m not alone. I will be formulating an alternative re-accreditation proposal to put forward to the UKCP, and meanwhile, I would be happy to hear my colleagues' feedback on this article.