Mandy Gosling

Mandy Gosling is a UKCP and MBACP accredited psychotherapist, researcher and author, specialising in long-term grief experienced by adults who were bereaved as children.

 As a bereaved child herself, aged 9, Mandy completed a MA Research in 2016 to understand the long term impact of childhood bereavement.  ABC Grief – Adults Bereaved as Children, was formed from this research to share knowledge and resources for individuals, and professionals, in this specialist area of bereavement and grief.  Her central focus of private  practice is working with individuals who experienced childhood loss and she runs workshops in London.  She is the Clinical Lead at It’s Time Charity who support young adults with the experience of parental loss, and facilitates their group therapy. 

Mandy publicly speaks on this topic and is a contributing author in the anthology entitled My Mother’s Story – Gone Too Soon.  She has been published in articles for BACP Therapy Today magazine, and UKCP New Psychotherapist magazine, highlighting the long-term impact of childhood bereavement.   She has been interviewed on BBC Woman's Hour and has contributed to various podcasts to bring awareness to this topic.  Mandy is part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group  for Childhood Bereavement with the charity Winston’s Wish,  and is a subject matter expert for At A Loss Charity on adults bereaved as children.  She is part of their All-Party Parliamentary Group – Grief Support and the Impact of Death on Society. 

She is currently undertaking her  PhD at The University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, Netherlands, under the guidance of Prof. dr. Geert Smid.  This investigation is to add to the scientific knowledge of long-term grief in adults who were bereaved as children.   

For more information visit www.abcgrief.co.uk or www.mandygosling.co.uk  and social media platforms LinkedIn Facebook Instagram
 
 
 

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Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Therapist Connect podcast. My name is Dr. Peter Blundell, and in this month's episode I'm interviewing psychotherapist Mandy Gosling. Mandy is an integrative psychotherapist drawing on several modalities, including psychodynamic, humanistic, existential, and transpersonal. Mandy has a wide variety of interests, which include unresolved childhood grief, neuroscience, trauma, and childhood development, and we touch on a variety of these throughout this interview. It was an absolute pleasure to interview Mandy, and if you're interested in her work, we're gonna leave you some of her details in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoyed this episode of The Therapist Connect podcast, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform as it really helps us get the word out there about the podcast.

Dr Peter Blundell: 0:47

Hi, Mandy.

Mandy Gosling: 0:49

Hi Peter.

Dr Peter Blundell: 0:49

What made you become a therapist in the first place?

Mandy Gosling: 0:52

What made me become a therapist, I think it's a really interesting story and is that I don't think ISI didn't really s it wasn't like a, oh, this is what I'm going to do. It was never a I need to become a therapist. I'd always been interested in. Human behavior and I think really on reflection, I was probably interested in my own human behavior. Sometimes for the better and sometimes mostly not. Because I came from, being a bereaved child. My mother died when I was nine. And with that came obviously a lot of complexities. My father didn't stay around. I was then, went to live with my grandmother when I was 18, and then she died when I was 21. So really, I had three successive losses, even though they were all different by the time I was 21. I think I often say, I was crashing through life really, and, but I wanted to, there was always a desire to understand, why was I struggling in this and why was I struggling in that? And I, I never really set out to become a therapist. So my children had got to a point, and, I was in my mid forties and I thought. Is this it? Is this what I'm gonna do? Is this the meaning of life? The question that comes in our forties, who am I? And then I thought I'd always been interesting and I wonder, so what I did was I signed up for a years' foundation counseling course, and then. The person running it had trained at a place in London, the Center for Counseling and Psychotherapy Education. And I thought, oh, I quite liked that. It was interesting. And I literally went with buying faith. I didn't actually look anywhere else'cause I liked what she did in the initial training. So then I signed up for four years psychotherapy training there. And then. Either I had to do a project weekend or I had to do a master's. And for a bereaved child whose education was compromised in a way I never really believed that I could. I. Do anything that was stretching in that way, I'd always felt, not very clever. And it wasn't that I wasn't very clever actually before, when I was a young child and my mother was alive, I was actually quite a bright young child. But when she died, she was the sort of part of my life that was encouraging in that field. And then that disappeared too. So I think, my confidence in that space disappeared at that time as well. Thinking I dunno what to do and when you're not supported as a child, to be more it carries through into your adult life. I had a really good friend who encouraged me. He said, you can do the Masters. And I questioned myself and he went I'm doing it so you can do it. So that's literally how it came about. And then I was really well supported by the team of people who were running the masters and my own therapist. And yeah that's how it, that's how it came about. And then I did another year's training as a relationship therapist because what I understood was. People with early life loss had a lot of challenges in relationships, so it all just happened and unfolded. Weave together.

Dr Peter Blundell: 4:07

Yeah.

Mandy Gosling: 4:07

And just continued, I had no and I think I've now learned, through my own training is just, just follow what unfolds and, stay in your lane and keep on your path and see what happens. I think sometimes when you force it doesn't really happen and it's been a very organic process. And so after I did, after I did my master's, I realized, so my master's was understanding the long-term impact of parental bereavement from a psychological and spiritual perspective. So then I founded ABC Grief, which is a website, which is a resource website for people who ha, who are adults brief as children. That's why it's called ABC, Abbott Adults Brief as Children and Grief really. And so that's where it led me. And then through that, then, other doors, begin to open and then, you go to events and, more things occur. So really that's how I came to it. It wasn't necessarily a concrete plan. It was an idea that then captured my heart really.

Dr Peter Blundell: 5:11

And it sounds like we're gonna talk about some of the way ways you've built on that work. I was wondering whether is that your mainly the clients that you work with now is adults who were bereaved as children? Or not.

Mandy Gosling: 5:21

It is a main part of my area. So when I was doing, my training hours, I'd worked in a variety of places and I'd worked in a. In a homeless facility and I really enjoyed it, but a lot of that was very much childhood trauma. And again, I think I was just probably as you do, you understand yourself a lot more, with the people that you work with. And I actually did, I did begin to see people who were bereaved in early life in that facility. So I've always been. I think I like gritty work. And I always thought I would more lean towards childhood trauma in a variety of ways. But I guess there were other plans afoot, as I started to unfold a bit more. My, my training, all that aspect. And I, when you listen to yourself and what did what's my body telling me? And that felt akin to what I wanted to do. And I really enjoyed, I worked there voluntarily for four years. I really enjoyed it. And then, the natural progression, happens, you move as you move through, beyond your sort of training hours and then setting up private practice. And then I think by doing the research and realizing, not a great deal was understood about it, or there was limited res research there, I then became a bit of an activist in it. And that's really how it happened. And I thought people need to understand that this really is a thing, that childhood grief doesn't just disappear. That there are many of us, many decades later who have really quite prolonged and distressing symptoms. Because of course there are, there are support. Services now for children. There's still a way to go because obviously they're limited in their capability. But I wanted people to understand, and actually I wanted the individual to understand,'cause when I came to therapy and I can smile at myself, when, you turn up at your therapist's, door for the first time thinking I've gotta do four years of this. I have no idea what I'm gonna talk about. And realizing that there was a lot, there was a lot to unpack. And I, I'd been really well supported in therapy, in my training, supervisors that I realized what was possible beyond childhood grief. And how I could integrate the trauma part and how I could walk alongside it. And, I still walk alongside it today. So then like being that more sort of activist type. And then, I go to the European Grief Conference, meet people, then I meet my professor who then invited me last year to do my PhD. I'd done some preliminary work with him and I asked him to do some research.'cause again, I didn't, I was not on my radar. And then he said, actually, it's yours to do. So that's how it came about. Again, I didn't seek it out. It. It found me. And then through the European Grief Conference I met a child grief researcher in Denmark, and I now also work with the charity called It's Time, and they support young adults who've been parentally bereaved. And the clinical lead and I provide group therapy for their young adults. And in a way, I think, it's that's the next step, from the childhood space into sort of young adulthood and that emerging place where, there are more challenges to navigate when you are bereaved and what surfaces, with the sort of information I've gathered over the years, really. And we've just finished our. Third group. Our fourth group, the beginning of next year is full already. And it's a great charity for that age group. The and I help them understand, where they are. They obviously express where they are, but also I do what I call preventative grief measures so that they know that it isn't just going to disappear, that it will be part of their life and their existence, but they also, can have a life and have it walk along the side of them and, and some of the things to maybe expect. So it's psychoeducation and supportive and processing all in the 10 weeks that we spend together.

Dr Peter Blundell: 9:34

I feel like you've done a lot in your career, haven't you, so far, in terms of, and also it feels very, like you've been intuitively drawn to different spaces. Yeah. And then something's come from that.

Mandy Gosling: 9:49

Yeah, I think I, I do, I think as a brief child, we kind of wanna control things and I think through my training as a, integrative therapist with a transpersonal end I learn that it, if you keep going, it will come. And I think it's, allowing to use what I learn in my training to intuitively know which path to take. And of course, sometimes we go down paths and they don't quite, I. Work out. And, but also that's part of it is no, that's not where it, that's not what aligns with me. Yeah, I think I do work intuitively. I work intuitively, but also probably live my life quite intuitively now. A and that's literally through therapy.

Dr Peter Blundell: 10:29

You said there that you're integrative with a, did you say transpersonal?

Mandy Gosling: 10:32

Transpersonal. So CCP is a in integrative training but it's a transpersonal int intricate. So part of the research that I did was collecting dreams, so I collected my own dreams, so as part of the Dream Research Institute. Yeah, and that was, and creative methods as well as the more kind of. Normal therapeutic trainings.

Dr Peter Blundell: 10:53

And so does that's what you were trained in, is that still, now, still inform your approach now?

Mandy Gosling: 10:59

Yeah I think it depends on the person that you sit with. I. It's been useful as a toolkit, to draw upon all the different methodologies. Some people want to work creatively, some people don't. And so it's adopting into whatever somebody needs. And from that also developing kind of the ABC grief part and working with adults, brief his children and looking at. Through CPD, where I could expand on certain areas that I would need to, develop that side a little bit more.

Dr Peter Blundell: 11:35

Changing the tact I suppose a little bit. I was wondering how do you see the wider therapy community and how connected you feel towards the therapists?

Mandy Gosling: 11:44

I think it's been mixed over the years, to be honest, Peter. I think when I started out, you're part of a big community when you're training and then, what do you do after that? You stay in contact with maybe a few people from your training which I have done and I still continue to. But I think being in private practice is quite a lonely, it's quite a lonely road. And so it was like that, it was like that for a while, but. My specialty has given me so much more. And it's not maybe in the, I'm part of a team in, a therapist, hub or somewhere, but I. I get to speak with therapists in different capacities, maybe in charities maybe other people who are similar to me. And it's really developed, that sort of what I've created my own community in a way with my specialty. And I think that's been very helpful. And I think it can be helpful for therapists, we might, I think many of us might have a leaning towards a particular area of work that we like and, resonates with us. And I guess I've made it so where I. I develop those relationships through my specialism.

Dr Peter Blundell: 12:58

And it sounds like your sense of community is international as well, in terms of, because of those different connections that you've made.

Mandy Gosling: 13:05

Yeah. It is. I mean was at the European Grief Conference as they lost. Two weeks ago, and you know that although it's called the European Grief Conference, it's actually an international conference. There were 400 people from 34 countries. And it's so heartwarming, particularly working in the grief arena. I mean it's, sometimes not considered the most joyous space, but it is really because you are supporting people probably in some of the most darkest moments of their life. But there's people right across the world that attends that. And so yes it is an international community. And then that sort of translates into kind of, LinkedIn and being able to keep building those networks, to provide, therapeutic support probably globally. I think since the pandemic we have become more global as opposed to just in our community. Previously I would just generally see people, in my local community. That's flipped on its head since COVID. And I actually think that's a pretty good thing if I'm honest, because that allows client choice a whole lot more, if they've got somebody who has a particular specialty. And lots of us do have particular specialties. Then the client gets the choice of who they have in their specialty as opposed to just who is local. And I think that furthers, client care really, I.

Dr Peter Blundell: 14:32

Absolutely agree with that. And I think it's accessibility wise as well, it's made be it more accessible to lots of different people who maybe don't have a lot of therapists in their local areas, say for example.

Mandy Gosling: 14:43

Yeah. And also time-wise as well. And I think sometimes, there's. There's falls and against for all types of therapy, whether it's online, whether it's in person, whether it's outside, and I always say to people, they can have a blend of whatever they want, if they want to come in person and do some at home, that's absolutely fine if they're in the local vicinity. But if they want my specialty, then it doesn't matter where they are, they can still access that. And that. I think with the podcast that I've done before that opened up a lot more as I started to speak about being a adult who was bereaved as a child. Then suddenly then that became a kind of national and international phenomenon. It's oh, somebody's actually speaking about this. Oh, I. Someone gets it. And so I think the podcasts have been really helpful. And I would urge anybody who's got a specialty to come on your podcast so that people can understand. Where they might signpost or where they might even be inquisitive themself as a therapist, to work in particular areas so that we don't also feel so alone. In our co in our therapeutic community.

Dr Peter Blundell: 15:54

And I think there's something about the guests that come on the podcast who are able to. They talk about their specialty, but they also talk about that personal experiences led up to that. And I think that resonates with a lot of people in terms of, yeah why someone's interested in that and what it means to them.

Mandy Gosling: 16:10

Yeah I think it's more common than perhaps we, realize why are we so interested in a particular topic? I think often it comes through, say, personal experience and I, and it's not that we would bring that into the room per se, but I think sometimes I think therapists got. Certainly, I'm publicly known through my podcast and that, and some people say it happened to you, so you understand it. And whilst my experience will be different to anybody and everybody's experience is different, I think it can be also really beneficial. I remember reading, I can't remember what the topic was about, but it was in the BACP magazine. Somebody wrote about disclosure. And I was curious about, what to read and she said that she found it helpful and or people found it helpful to understand because there was an in immediate empathic resonance. And I think gone are the days where. We are the blank canvas, that we are more human. And some of the topics we work with are more relational. And if people know, whether that's in the session or you can go, yeah, I can really understand that. Even if you say, I can really understand that they wouldn't, they would have a felt sense if you really understood what they meant.

Dr Peter Blundell: 17:32

And there's something about. If that helps the therapeutic relationship then it's very important for that person's therapy.

Mandy Gosling: 17:38

It is. No, I would I would definitely agree. And I think there's a little bit more flex in that these days where clients get a sense of understanding, more than say in. In another, I'm not saying that people don't understand, but there's a deeper level of understanding. Yeah. It's got a little extra context to it,

Dr Peter Blundell: 18:00

and maybe people connect on a deeper level with that shared knowledge as well. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think is the biggest challenge that the counseling and psychotherapy professions face right now?

Mandy Gosling: 18:10

I dunno if I'm gonna be popular saying this.

Dr Peter Blundell: 18:13

It's okay. Share your honest, authentic opinion.

Mandy Gosling: 18:18

I'm curious about social media. I, this is a podcast with the therapist Connect hashtag So this is social media.

Dr Peter Blundell: 18:26

Absolutely. And speaking to a network of thousands of therapists who use social media. No pressure man.

Mandy Gosling: 18:33

No. So I'm like, okay. Be kind to me, Peter. It be kind to me. I think I'm gonna talk at it from my lens. I think, and I think there's for and against for it, if I'm being really honest. I think there is some great things that happen on social media, like connection, like certain understandings. But when we are talking about, perhaps sort of things that may be more traumatic or people's experiences are more traumatic I think that's where trained individuals really come into, their utmost need to be honest, and of course. As humans, we're always searching for answers. We want to know, why don't, I was no different. I was searching for it in books, I wanted to know why I was dysfunctional in relationships, and I must, I can't begin to, they tell you how many books I read on it in my thirties. Why do I do that? What's wrong with me? So that, that. That human desire to understand and look for answers, and I think that's where the complexity lies because it isn't just, a picture, it isn't just a meme, it isn't just a 10 minute clip that is useful. Now, it may be in certain circumstances. But it may also not be in other circumstances. And I think that's where we need to keep maintaining, our professionalism and what we are there for. And, whether people looking for the answer through social media, when sometimes it might make it feel more hopeless. Rather than hopeful, or whether trauma can be integrated or whether there is a life to live alongside. So like for mine with grief as opposed to it's all really, terrible. You might as well, stop. I think that's where it's complex and. It's the world. We, it is the world we live in, and things like grief and, prolonged grief and delayed grief and complicated grief. It doesn't it needs professional intervention. If it's, sometimes you know, recent grief, then community is really helpful. Or, groups are really helpful. But if it's been present for many decades, that. That can be tricky. And I think sometimes it, it's not helpful. So I think, it di it is, it's differentiating where it's helpful and where it's not.

Dr Peter Blundell: 21:11

And I think that's also quite hard to do, isn't it? If. Because it can be like a faray of information. And how do you make sense of all of these different people, possibly all therapists saying potential or different things in terms of how to cope or what to do or how to approach something can, how do you then navigate that? Yeah.

Mandy Gosling: 21:34

Yeah. And I think with therapy, we don't. I think sometimes, when we're, we all do it, we look for the elixir, the answer, and we look at the text. As therapists, we always look at the subtext, like what someone's saying is not really what they're saying. We have been taught to look beneath the surface and look for a variety of possibilities, not just the one answer to something. And I think that's where it becomes. Bit, a bit tricky. And yes, I think it is DI think it is difficult. I think it's just making sure that we continue to be present and we maybe we are present in social media and we might even name the, there are some things that social media is really useful for, but there's also some things where it's not. And I think when people get to that hopeless stage, that's when it becomes really tricky. There's no hope. And of course as therapists, we don't sit in that space. Give, we do give hope. Sometimes we hold the hope for somebody when they don't feel like there is any hope, because we know the possibilities. We know how things can be walked with, as opposed to, being crushed by, for example. I think at this time of year, as Christmas comes in and I still get triggered by it. Which is just a ridiculous one. But, we often get, please light a candle for your loved one, at Christmas, in, in the grief field. And do you know, I still find that really hard. I like, when I read it, I get a physical body response. It's yeah, it's like nobody understands what traumatic grief, can feel like. It'd be great if I could remember my mother, then I could light a candle for her. But that's not the answer. And of course then that elicits, there's something wrong with me, or there's shame around it, or there's, so that's what I mean when it could be more difficult if we don't understand.

Dr Peter Blundell: 23:24

Yeah.

Mandy Gosling: 23:25

Like what our target audience is,

Dr Peter Blundell: 23:28

and every well-intentioned post or bit of advice or idea or meme could also be quite painful. Yeah. Awful and upsetting for somebody. Yeah.

Mandy Gosling: 23:39

Yeah. I, I advocate hope beyond, probably the most traumatic loss somebody can experience, because, we deserve to have a life and we deserve to live, but we will also be managing our grief symptoms for the rest of our life in whatever way they arise. And sometimes they arise in, in tricky ways.

Dr Peter Blundell: 24:02

Thanks, Mandy. This has been a wonderful discussion. So I'm just wondering what's next for you? What are your future plans?

Mandy Gosling: 24:08

The PhD is gonna take a lot of work and. I've, I'm designing it so that I'm not taking the easy route, of course. That it hopefully gains maximum impact. So that's gonna take a lot of work. I'm still gonna do my clinical work because I. It's what I love most. Watching people stretch and grow and transform and be able to live more peaceful lives. I. Yeah, it's probably gonna not look too dissimilar. I think I will still just stay in that intuitive space and see what opens up. So like I, I have a newsletter, so I'm, I started that about six months ago. So to continue to do that I run workshops a couple of times a year, so that, I'm still gonna do that. So just keep really working in the field of, adults breathe with children and a, b, c grief and keep being an activist in that space as well as a clinician and a bereaved child myself.

Dr Peter Blundell: 25:13

There's so much there. Mandy to keep you busy and I feel like we could speak for another couple of hours exploring some of these topics, but we have come to the end of the podcast time and our on my questions. So I just wanna thank you for being an amazing. Guest and coming on the podcast. And we will put all your details and everything in the show notes so people can connect with all those organizations and groups and work that you've been doing.

Mandy Gosling: 25:37

It's been really lovely. It's been lovely to meet you, Peter. Thank you for inviting me.

Dr Peter Blundell: 25:41

You too. You're very welcome. And yeah, thanks for being such a great guest.