#TherapistsConnect Podcast looks back at 2023!

In this brief episode, Dr Peter Blundell shares the details of the # TherapistsConnect's fourth birthday events on 6th January 2024. 

Watch all the interviews and discussions via the #TherapistsConnect YouTube account after this date. 

#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
Website: www.Therapists-Connect.com
Twitter: @Therapists_C
Instagram: @TherapistsConnect
Facebook: @TherConnect

Origins of #TherapistsConnect

Transcript

Dr Peter Blundell: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the final release of the therapist connect podcast for 2023. Unfortunately, we don't have a brand new episode for you today. I just wanted to drop onto the podcast and tell you a little bit about the therapist connect birthday. That's happening the first week of 2024 on January the sixth. So if you didn't know, each year we host a selection of events that bring together the therapists from. Around the world. Talk about some interesting topics, as well as have a handful of lifetime achievement interviews. Specifically for therapists, who've made a big contribution to the counseling and psychotherapy profession throughout their lives. So this year, we have an interesting discussion between two private practice experts, our very own Caz Binstead who in conversation with her guests. Jane Travis discusses how to build your private practice through blogging. We also have a lifetime achievement interview for Andy Rogers. He authored the book first steps in counseling and introductory companion with his coauthors, Pete Sanders who we sadly lost recently and Paula Williams. This book was an update to this introductory textbook for counseling students and other helpers. Andy is a well-known and well-liked activist and campaign in the counseling and psychotherapy community. So please check out that interview when it gets released. We also have a lifetime achievement interview for Dr. Linda Finlay Linda is an existential relational centered integrative psychotherapist and supervisor who is based in York. She is an international speaker and also best known for her publications, textbooks and articles on psychotherapy, occupational therapy, and also qualitative phenomenological research and reflexivity. She's currently the editor for an online open access journal called the European journal for qualitative research in psychotherapy. Linda's work is extensive, and we are glad to be able to honor that as part of our best day celebrations. We also have a discussion with the editors of a new book called Therapists challenging racism and oppression, the unheard voices. Caz Binstead interviews Neelam Zahid and Rachel Cook who got both the editors and a book chapter authors All those interviews will be uploaded to our YouTube channel to be viewed on the 6th of January or on catch up. If you don't have time on the day. AS I say, we don't have a new episode for December, but I just wanted to highlight some of the guests we've had on over the last 12 months. So we started the year with a special episode of the podcast where three therapists reflect on their use of social media and how this integrates with their psychotherapy work, Kim and Ngozi and Vanessa reflect on the tensions between using social media to advertise yourself as a therapist. Whilst also trying to keep your privacy. So there's a really popular episode from January, 2023. So, if you haven't listened to that, go back and check it out. Sarah Matthews chatter to me back in April. And she shared about her understanding and experience of working with grief. Sarah is really passionate about how society handles grief and loss and the impact that that can have on people and why that sometimes brings them into counseling and psychotherapy here's a brief clip of Sarah from that episode.

Sara: 3:09

One of the things that I feel really strongly about is that how grief and loss and death sits in our society and how we are about all of that. And that I think is reflected often in people's bereavement, that they feel ashamed about what they feel. They feel like they're doing it wrong, that there are rules. And actually there are some rules. They might not be explicit, but there are, there's certainly rules that people trip over around not getting over it quickly enough for other people's taste.

Dr Peter Blundell: 3:37

If you haven't heard the episode where I interview Sarah at advice to go and check that out. And we had other guests over the year. So Fraser reflected on starting up in private practice and how autonomy was a really important part of his decision. Whereas William. Talked about his reasons for setting up in private practice and setting up his dynamic running therapy, as well as launching his own app. Diane discussed her new book, check your sort your life depends on it. And here's a little bit of a clip of her talking about her motivations for writing that book.

Dianne: 4:10

I was on a walk one day and I live in the countryside. So I'm surrounded by loads of farms. And as I was walking, I saw one side of the road where there was a farm with meticulous planted. Rows of corn and it looked so beautiful. And the other side was an unkempt land with bushes and everything, a medley of plant of plants. And so I couldn't, it was just something I had seen and I had seen them so many times, but on this particular day, I couldn't get what I had seen out of my mind. And it wasn't anything extraordinary, but I was struck by it. And I realized the reason it struck me was because the other side of the land that looked so meticulous was to do with the part of me that seemed so put together and, flawless. And the other side that was so unkempt.

Dr Peter Blundell: 5:08

And if you'd like to hear more about Dianne's book, you can go back and listen to that episode from earlier in the year. We've even had one with the therapist, connect volunteers on the podcast. Maxine came along and opened up about her own experiences. As a therapist, working in Ireland, Maxine runs our Twitter account on a Monday, and we are so grateful for all of our volunteers that help our social media platform run every single day of the week. So, if you want to hear a little bit more about how the therapists connect, volunteering works, go and check out. that episode with Maxine. For our final episode of the year, Dr. Mish Seabrook brought reflected on her journey towards the PhD and setting up the supervision institutes. Uh, it was a really great episode. Um, and Mish has got her own podcast as well around supervision. So if you want the links to that, check out the show notes for that particular episode. But I'll leave here with this clip from March where Maria, a therapist living and working in Ukraine, came onto the podcast to discuss her work. She offered some really personal reflections about what it's like to live in a war-torn country whilst also trying to work. If you haven't listened to it, then go back and please check it out. Thanks for listening to the podcast and we'll be back in 2024 with some more guests

Maria: 6:23

in a way, it's. Given up on hope, the war is not going to end like this, even if it will, the action will end. We will still have consequences. We will still have to rebuild, uh, make opportunities for people to work, to come back to something. A lot of things will have to be done. And at the same time, it's building that hope that after this, there will be something else. So it's one hope, forget about it, new hope, pretty much on the daily basis.

Dr Peter Blundell: 7:06

Thanks for listening to the therapist connect podcasts throughout 2023. We look forward to connecting with you. For more podcast episodes in 2024.