Rachel’s Conversation

A conversation with Rachel 29/6/11

N- I’d like you to reflect on or tell me the story of any therapeutic work you

have done and you can do it in a general sense of your approach to therapeutic

work generally or you can talk you might want to refer to specific examples.

But I don’t really want to know about the work that you did its more what your

felt experience was [okay] in terms of your relationship with colleagues, time

pressure, um your emotional relationship with the people that you were

working with um anything like that really good things, bad things, um how you

make the choice to do it that kind of thing.

R – Ok Umm well I guess that when I first became, when I was training to be an

EP one of the things I was looking forward to developing was

N – Sorry I’ve forgotten to bring my consent form

R – Oh that’s fine I give my full consent and all of that and I know what your

thesis is and I’m happy with all of that and I can sign it when I see you next

N – Thank you - now there is just one question on that about whether you

want to be named or whether you want to remain confiden… private and you

can change your mind any time up to Christmas [right] so that is just to let you

know that so if you want to have a .. talk to me at the end of the session or

when I reflect back that’s great [okay ]

R – Okay so I practised some techniques during my training and it was brilliant

during training as you do have lots of time and the two placements. I had, I

was very specific that I wanted to have an opportunity of working

therapeutically in both of them and both were fine with that. So it was easier

in that and I was very tentative about how it would fit into the day-to-day work

as an EP whether you could actually have that sort of therapeutic relationship.

And when I first started one of the first meetings I had with one of my

secondary schools, I had a discussion about how I was going to work with them

and there had been some changes, which I think actually helped me greatly, in

that we were stopping doing exam concession and things like that as a Service.

So we are not doing testing any more: “There will be opportunities and they

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may be tests, but that won’t be our prime role and these are the things I can

do instead”. So I talked about what I could do instead. “I can do training, I can

work with individual children, I can work with groups of teachers, I can do

support”. And we discussed all the ways that I could work. And I was also

looking at the person before me, who had been super empirical and her

reports, I couldn’t understand them, school couldn’t understand them and

they were really ready for a change. And we discussed the youngsters in the

school who were causing concern and there was a year 8 girl who they were

really, really worried about. Her sister had been in a great deal of issues; there

were obviously issues within the family. She wasn’t attending or when she did

attend she just swore at everybody continuously and was violent and abusive

and they felt that they were failing her. So we agreed that if the young person

was happy with it I would work with her therapeutically. I was worried about

the time factor and so I thought about that a lot beforehand and because I was

new to the job I decided that I could commit to two sessions a half term. Now,

I realised that that would give her three weeks in between, so my idea was

that in between every session I would send her a letter so there was a sort of

therapeutic relationship and at the end of each session, anything that she was

happy for me to share with staff I would share with staff and they would

continue that therapeutic relationship. And it was, I mean she was fantastic

and she was one of… you know when you read something that is so unlike you,

she was just unbelievable. Yes she could be quite abusive and but when she

talked about it you could see what was happening for her. At the same time,

she wasn’t a vulnerable child at all; she was running quite a lucrative old

motorbike business, buying old bangers doing them up and then flogging them

[year 8!]. Yes she was just phenomenal and it turned out that there were a lot

of things that she really did love doing and that she was very good at. She

showed shire horses and she helped friends with horses and loved that sort of

thing. But there were issues for her - she wasn’t a girly girl and in year 8, she

felt that there was this huge chasm appearing between what she was expected

to be as a girl and what she was. She also, and this was something that got

unpicked after a long time, she thought she was thick or stupid and that was a

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lot of the issues which were in school. So the first time we met, and you know

it was one of those moment in your life when you think “oh God I really made

a difference”, umm I’d gone in and spoken to her and it was a sort of general

getting to know each other sort of encounter, and I’d said that she could call

me Rachel and we had quite a good, a really, really good discussion. And I think

we built up quite a good relationship very quickly and we went down into the

“XXX special centre” and the teaching assistant who runs the special centre

was there and she was really, really excited and she said “Oh we’ve been

talking about this and Rachel has said this and oh by the way Rachel has given

me permission to call her Rachel” and I thought “This is the girl who calls

everyone an F’ ing C” [yes yes] (laughs) and it was just that I felt that straight

away it made a difference to her. And it made a difference that I wasn’t from

school and it made a difference that I wasn’t anybody that knew her and it

made a difference that we had a different relationship and that I was special

for her. And when I went into school, I was in school a couple of weeks later

and I’d sent her the letter. Um she’d been in school every single day at that

time and she had been working mainly in the withdrawal centre which was

what she had requested and I’d thought that is was better for her to be in

school than not. And the TA said that when she got the letter she’d started

bringing it out really slowly in lessons and she’d say “Ooh what’s that?”

“nothing” (laughter) “oh it’s a letter from Rachel actually, would you like to see

it?” [yes ] and, and the TA said she had never seen this girl smile from her

heart before and it was a real feeling of “I’m special, I’ve got somebody

special”. And because I was working with quite a few children and know quite

a few children in the area, for her this was the best thing in the world. And…

we had a therapeutic relationship, she got back into school and things went

really, really well for her, she had a really successful year and I stopped.

Whenever I went in, I’d stop and have a chat and see how things were going

and then it deteriorated again when she was in year 9 and so I said, and the

school had never excluded anybody, it was a brilliant school and they were

really worried that they were going to have to permanently exclude her. So I

asked them if they would like me to make a home visit and bearing in mind the

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violence that this child had exhibited. She brought me in and “Would you like a

coffee, is that going to be comfortable for you, how do you take you coffee”

and then we had a conversation and I sort of said “Do you think you’re thick –

you know I can test that its one of the things I can do, I don’t think you are at

all”, and when I was doing the BAS with her she got a table and she moved it

“Is that alright there are you sure that’s going to be okay Rachel”. And it was

just, she was so respectful and so lovely and just an amazing personality in

those situations. She did actually end up getting excluded and it was the best

thing for her, because she got to work, she wanted to be a fire-fighter, which

was ironic as she had tried to set fire to the school on at least three occasions.

But she got a special placement with them and she is now doing brilliantly,

she’s got O’ Levels, well GCSE’s and I have seen her recently as she lives not

too far away and she’d got a job working in a hotel doing the washing up. She

said that they asked her if she wanted to be a waitress and she told them: “If

you want to lose all your customers, put me in front of them because I will

swear at them” [ yes] and again that self insight of “Yes I can do this and I can

makes lots of money doing this, but I can’t do that, I know myself” so it.. I

found the experience unbelievably moving. And it wasn’t just about the

relationship between me and this young person it was about how it changed

expectations in the school about what was possible and what was okay and

what they could do and what was useful and what wasn’t useful. And oh, I

think that it really did impact, it impacted on my relationship with the school

as well. And there is no way, I think I spent 6 sessions with her overall, and

they weren’t all a full hour they were probably about half an hour to an hour.

This first session was an hour. So actually when you look at the amount of time

I spent with her it was negligible. But the impact it had on her and the school

was enormous.

N – Do you think it had an impact on other children who had difficulties?

R – I think it did, I think it really did because I think… she was the street-wise,

hard-nut, and when you’ve got that child saying “Oh Rachel’s good to talk to”

that instantly, when you come into school to work with someone who is

disaffected and who was having a tough time, is really, really good. I remember

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coming into school to see a child who had super, super attachment difficulties

and was a runner. And I want into see him and he was off and the kids are

going “its Rachel, she lovely, come back!!!”. And I think it is just that notion of

the fact that this was someone who wasn’t in school, that would keep things

confidential, unless, obviously they were in danger, but would tell the school

things that they wanted to tell the school themselves. And it got to the point

where the school would ask me to send them the child’s letter, as they could

understand it more easily than the school’s letter. And you know I think that

said a lot as well. And I think it did make school realise that something that

costs nothing such as a letter from a teacher, how much that means to young

people. And I know I mentioned this yesterday, there was this year 10 lad

whose choice of reward for the half term was if he had X number of successful

sessions the head teacher would write him a letter saying how well he had

done. Which he could show to his Mum. And I think it was that notion of how

important it was to have a two way relationship between a young person and

you - and I think it really did change the ethos in the school. And ..

N – Are [sorry] are you still working with this school so that its an on going…

R – Unfortunately I - it is a real shame – when I started working at S. I had to

lose all of those lovely countrified schools. Umm and as a result of that my role

did in that school, change. It went from working with children to working with

staff, to working with individual staff to support them. I did still work with

individual children occasionally or go and visit children, but it did completely

and utterly shift what they wanted me for. And I know that they were

absolutely gutted to the extent that the head teacher did actually write to me

saying “Who has made this decision? Can I thump them?”, when I had to leave

and I know it made it very difficult as well in some ways for the following EP

because she said: “Rachel how did you work there?” because she felt that they

were so capable that she didn’t have to do anything [um], but I guess what I

did was that we set up a load of systems: “Right this is what to do with children

with speech and language difficulties, this is what to do with children with

dyscalculia. This is the system for someone who had got reading and writing

difficulties”. So they dealt with all of that and the only young people that I got

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involved with were super-sever and complex. And it meant that I had more

time to spend with each of those. Um or with the staff that were supporting

those children.

N – So it sounds as if you got to work in a school which was wanting to work in

that way and was very receptive to that. Has that experience been mirrored in

other schools? And what do you do in those other schools?

R – Er. Right I’ve got another secondary school which is as far away as possible.

It used to have a school counsellor, which meant that they didn’t need so

much of that sort of work. However, and again we would try and work

together for the most complex children, but because of the nature of the

school and the demands on my time, they basically wanted me to see

everybody, which is obviously impossible, um it was very difficult to do any

sustained therapeutic work, unless the child was in extreme danger of

exclusion and probably “looked after” as well. So there were two children who

were very, very vulnerable who I did see, erm and we planned for three

sessions where I worked with them. But I think that the incidental thing that

that does, because you are in school quite often, you pop into the XXX XXX

Centre, or whatever it is called in the school, so you see everybody and say

“Hello” and it means that you can have that chatting and say “How are you

doing?” and I got really friendly with the person who runs the centre and we’d

give each other a hug and I think all that role modelling and positive support, it

really meant that children… I mean I can remember one child that a social

worker had asked me to see. She said “She won’t talk to you, she won’t talk to

any professionals” and I said I really want to see her on her own because if

you’re there it is going to be a completely different relationship. And I said if it

doesn’t work, then obviously we’ll… and I worked with the girl and we had a

chat and we did some BAS work and then we did something else and when I

wrote my report the social worker said “ How did you do that? how?” “Well

because she was having a good time and I was having a good time” and she

knew that I was a goody. And I think that that regular supportive role in school

with a range of young people, it gives the EP a really high profile in the school

as somebody that it is desirable to spend some time with. And in those

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situations it was very, very difficult to do anything which lasted longer than a

half term, because the school was so chaotic and it was shooting from the hip

the whole time and it was incredibly reactive, it didn’t matter what you did. I

mean I actually had a meeting with the whole of the senior management team.

Which was super scary, where we sat down in school and looked at the things

they did in school to support children with special needs and emotional

difficulties.

N – Did you ask for that or did they ask for that?

R – I asked for it and they were pleased because they were having a new head

and it was an opportunity to change things. And there was actually a lot of

good practice in place, but the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was

doing and there were no procedures. So it was whoever shouted the loudest

would get my time and sometimes I worked therapeutically with a child on the

verge of exclusion and we worked together to let school know what she

needed. I mean it wasn’t rocket science I have to say. And you knew that they

were bent on her going. You could see it coming and that was incredibly

demoralising to feel that you were working against, not with, the school. At

the same time, two sessions, when you have a good relationship with a young

person who has perhaps…. , I mean this particular girl had moved from mum to

dad to granny, to dad, to mum living abroad . When she came back from mum

when she was 7, having lived with five members of the family, she came home

to Heathrow on a plane, on her own, where she was picked up by a taxi driver

and brought to XXXXXX. She remembers… and I think that this does say a lot,

she told me everything about that taxi journey, it was like four years previous.

She told me everything. She told me what they talked about, she told me

about the bag of sweets. So anyone who says that a brief therapeutic

encounter doesn’t have a long lasting effect on a child. He was the person she

spoke most positively about. And the number of times at the end of a session,

someone will say something like “Oh it is so wonderful to have you to talk to,

it makes me feel so much better”. It happens every time

N – So how were you defining therapeutic with this. You talked about the taxi

driver being therapeutic

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R – For me.. it is difficult because sometimes.. I can think of the first girl I talked

about. At her request we did actually do the BAS. And that was therapeutic,

that was what she wanted and that is what she needed. So when I talk about

therapeutic cases that I’ve got I would be talking about somebody that I’ve

seen, probably more than 2 or 3 times and that the aim was to um help them…

feel better about themselves and cope in a difficult situation. It could be a

school refuser and school refusers … I’ll often spend 3 or 4 sessions with and,

it could be someone on the verge of permanent exclusion. It could be

someone, quite often it is children on the verge of permanent exclusion, um

because that is the school’s priority and actually, I think that can work really,

really well. I can think of one young person who I worked with, I think we had 3

or 4 sessions, and she had a lot of sessions with the behaviour support teacher

and I used to work with both to work out what sort of things we were going to

do. And she got through the year and she got through years 9, 10 and 11 and

she is now doing her A’ levels. So it can work and I think it can be a really

useful way to spend EP time. And the schools love it. The only problem is that

they then want you to do it with everybody and that is a dilemma. I mean I can

remember seeing a young person who was in care in a very antagonistic PEP

meeting. It was horrendous. And at the end of the meeting the teacher came

to me and said “Look Rachel, she can talk to you, she is about the only person

I’ve seen her be able to talk to” and the SENCo said “Look Rachel cannot do

that we need her for other things” and that is quite heart-breaking because

you’re thinking “ Yes one good relationship is going to make a difference to

that child’s life and it is really difficult to imagine young people who haven’t

got a positive relationship in their life and there is quite a lot that haven’t.

N – So what do you do with that feeling? [the feeling…?] the feeling of not

being able to do something that would help?

R – Erm – yes it is quite difficult, I think I don’t think I deal with it very well at

all. I justify it I think what I do is and it is very easy to justify cognitively, and I

know that that is not a problem, the cognitive justification is fine. There are

though, times when I think I wish I could… and I’ll come home and I’ll say: “Oh

I’d really like to start going to the youth club or B. Project” and T. will be like

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“No… you can’t do any more” and I think that is really, really hard, dealing with

that feeling, “I could make a difference, if I had more time”. And not being able

to do that sometimes.. it is really hard. Umm, but I think the way emotionally I

deal with it, I sometimes think, if I’m driving in my car and someone lets me in,

it makes me feel happy. A really tiny, tiny thing and I think that that particular

girl in that instance, yes I couldn’t work with her, but I made a difference for

her in that meeting. And I stood up for her and I was an advocate for her and

okay I couldn’t do the big business, but I could do that little bit and I

sometimes think it has to be .. that is all we ever can do anyway that little bit.

It doesn’t matter whether you have 6 sessions, or whether you have half an

hour, because in the great scheme of things it is facilitating other people in

school, or family, or friends, to give them that support, or space, or just to give

them permission to be that person that they are and that they don’t have to

be like everybody else. Especially in teenagers, I think that makes a…. so I think

yes.. and the other thing is that is can be very difficult to stop. I can remember

working with a youngster who had a very, very complex home life. Her mum

had abandoned her. She was brought up by her Aunty and Uncle, who brought

her up as if she was there own. Obviously the village knew and when she was

about 5 or 6 she found out that they weren’t her Mum and Dad. And then she

met her mum who basically couldn’t cope with her and didn’t want her and

that was very very difficult for her and when she was about 7, her mum, to all

intents and purposes, got cancer and they didn’t tell her because they thought

it would upset her. So when her mum died of cancer it was horrendous and

that, that was difficult, because I worked with her and after each meeting I

would work with dad. And dad’s grief was horrendous, and I found dealing

with that really, I don’t think I have ever seen, felt, experienced such a strong

emotion. That loss and that desperation, not, not not knowing what to do with

an 8 year old girl and feeling completely useless. And it was, I began working

with her on, I think that would have been every other week and it was really

difficult, because I was containing that, for the school and for dad. And at the

end of that to say: “Actually I’ve done all I can, these are the things I’ve done

and these are the things you need to be doing with her”, was really hard.

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Because in a way I was handing that grief back to the head teacher and to dad

and that was really, really, that was probably the hardest. But on the positive

side, when she moved to secondary school she did as I would have predicted,

as anyone would have predicted, have significant behavioural difficulties. But it

made it much easier, because I had worked with her therapeutically, to then

support the school in working with her and in fact the person, who through

consultation, we selected to be her mentor, was probably not the person I

would have thought of unless I’d known her so well. And being able to support

them to work with her because of my in-depth knowledge of her, really made

a difference, cos now she is doing absolutely brilliantly, because she has this

particular person in school and it is literally a quick “Hello” in the morning and

a quick “Hello” in the afternoon. But she knows that somebody cares.

N – So I’m noticing several themes in this that are to do with you and that you

found that piece of work really difficult [yes]. So I’ll mention both so I keep

them in mind. One was to do with your support and the other thing I wanted

to reflect on which I have also picked up from this week is that I know from

doing psychotherapy training, that when you are working with loss the ending

is always difficult and it is going to be because that is what the whole thing is

about. And although it is a little death, there is the little death of the ending of

the sessions that sort of brings back to the fore the loss that you are working

with [absolutely] and it is always going to be really tough and has to be [yes],

you can’t avoid it, by prolonging the session. As all of the work will be about

the ending [yes] and I just wonder whether there is, if you feel supported by

the training that you had to understand that without giving yourself a hard

time.

R – No not at all. I think I was extremely lucky when I went into training. I had

taught for almost 20 years, in some really, really difficult situations and during

that time I had taught some incredibly needy young people and so I had had a

lot of support from behaviour support teacher and all sorts of different

professionals. And I had learnt that is was okay to say that I can’t cope, which I

think is really hard. And I think well for me, was extremely hard and I think that

without having had those experiences I would have really, really struggled.

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Plus I have had several bouts of psychotherapy and I think really, I think that

that makes an enormous difference. I think that if you are going to do this sort

of work properly, I think you either need to have had that sort of experience so

that you know yourself, or you have to have had access to some sort of

therapy yourself to help you. I am very lucky at work in that we have a peer

support system. Some people have group support I’m actually in a pair. We

give each other a lot of support for those, for that sort of issue. And its lovely,

actually, cos we know each other cases so well, that we will actually ask each

other: “Oh how is so and so going?” And it is just knowing that somebody

knows that makes a big difference, and somebody who knows you will say:

“You have got to stop this now this is not doing anybody any good at the

moment”. Or: “You’ve done a brilliant job, you can’t do any more for that

school, you can’t do any more for that young person”. And we spend a lot of

time talking like that so and I think in my first year, when we didn’t have the

peer support, the people I shared an office with were brilliant. They were

absolutely, and I think that incidental, whoever happens to be in the office is

just as important. And I mean the admin staff at our place, there is just a

couple, who will say: Oh so and so was on the phone are you okay?” to… they

will just check things out with me.

N – So you feel it is a supportive environment because people care?

R – Hugely

N – In exactly them same way as what you were saying, what was important

for the children was that somebody cared and not necessarily that they were

skilled in….

R – And they don’t have to know everything either. They just have to know

that this is a tough situation, that is a tough one, and there are some cases that

you know that but some cases just touch you as a person, for whatever reason

and just knowing that someone knows, you know “oh you’ve been out to

school x, oh how did it go? Oh you poor thing” that’s it, yes I think that is

important, well I think it is vital. And I really noticed that earlier this year I had

an office of my own and it was horrendous. And I didn’t realise at the time how

horrendous it was. I thought it was nice because it was quiet. I got loads of

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written work done. When I was on the phone I didn’t have to worry abut how

loud I was or how long I was on there. But it really, really affected my mental

health, it really did. And talking to another newly trained EP she said in her

second year as a trainee she was on her own and she said exactly the same

thing. So when she came back to work after 3 or 4 weeks they put her in with

everyone else and suddenly everything was ok and I think we greatly

underestimate how important the smile, the hello the “how are you doing”,

even if you give the trite “oh I’m fine” answer, it’s important. So I think the

people that you‘re working with you can’t, that’s where your biggest support

comes from.

N – And you feel supported whether they are EPs or not?

R – Oh absolutely yes

N – It’s just the human contact

R – It is the human contact

N – Positive human contact

R – And most of it is the EPs, sometimes it will be other professionals as well if

you know you are working in a multi-agency team. And we do tend to look

after each other as well. Which is really, really lovely and I do feel very sort of…

I do feel… oh what’s the word… blessed that I just have such a wonderful

group of people that I work with and it means if you have got a school that’s

tough and I have got a couple of head teachers, which are completely and

utterly obnoxious, but it makes it bearable, cos everybody knows (laughs).

[yes] because they have spoken to them on the phone and they’ve said: “My

gosh she’s a bit.. isn’t she… oh you poor thing going off there” [yes]. And

people will say: “I can’t believe you have booked to go into that school last

thing on a Friday afternoon. And suddenly you’ll think “oh yes that was a bit

stupid wasn’t it”. So I think that’s enormous, but being open about it as well.

And I can remember the little girl who I was saying whose mum had died.

I was sharing an office with somebody and I was talking about the work I would

be doing and she just said: “I couldn’t do that”. Cos she’d got a little girl of the

same age and she said: “I couldn’t go there”. Um and that was right for her.

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N – And have you ever turned down any work that would be too close to issues

for yourself?

R – Not now when you first started talking about this, I realised that I have

worked with quite a lot of girls therapeutically haven’t I. And I think part of

that is that girls tend to be far more complex, especially at secondary age. And

they will go through the behaviour support system and often that’s enough for

boys, but I also think there is that element of – I don’t think I’d do it…. No

that’s not true - I have done it consciously, there was a youngster at the first

school I was talking about who had quite severe anorexia and I just knew that I

couldn’t meet her. I just knew that I couldn’t have done that. But not just her,

but the nurse at school needed support so what I said… I didn’t actually say: “I

can’t do this because I’m too close to this”, but what I actually said was: “Its

inappropriate for her to have another person”, which was actually right, it was

inappropriate for her to have another person [yes]. And it is very rare that I do

this. I tend not to do this, but we actually exchanged mobile phone numbers

[you and the …?] me and the school nurse. So if there was anything urgent,

because what would often happen with this young person was that she would

say something on a Friday afternoon like “I probably won’t get though this

weekend” or “I’m going to take an overdose”. And the nurse would have to

hold that. So I said: “Look anything like that you can always give me a ring”. So

that was the sort of support that I gave there. And there are occasionally ones

out of nowhere that just really upset you um, but yes consciously that is the

only one that I have turned down. But if I really racked my brain there have

been ones where I’ve thought I don’t think this is the most appropriate use of…

and also there are times, like this year, when I have done very, very little

therapeutic work and the one piece I did do, which was incredibly successful

and useful, um when I got back to work after being ill. I got so many emails

from this one particular mum and it just broke my heart reading them, so

much so, that the admin team said: “Rachel close those emails now”. And after

a few weeks I got back in touch with mum and everything was fine. But I think

there are times when you just have to say I can’t do that [yes] and I think that

also that needs to be a reciprocal agreement with somebody else. I remember

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a colleague who had an advice to write about a child she had worked

therapeutically with and it was really close to home so I said I’ll do it. We

agreed with the Principal that that was okay. And she reciprocated. In fact, she

kept nagging me: “Have you got an advice” and there is no way, it really, really

impacted her. .. Well she could have done it, but it would have absolutely

destroyed her. And I think that that recognition, that there are something that

can push our buttons to a point that is unacceptable. Well I had to disagree

with someone about critical incidents: “You will all do it” well I don’t think we

should all do it. At certain times you know. Well I did one where I went into a

school where the caretaker had died on the premises and someone had tried

to resuscitate him. And there was someone who was in a real state because

her dad had died in exactly the same way the week before. Now if it had been

my dad who had died, I would not have been the right person to do that job. I

could not have helped them at all. So I do think that is important to have

permission to say: “No I can’t take on this particular case”. And it is permission

from yourself, because nobody else is going to be there judging you. I don’t

feel so.

N – So the service you work for is clearly really supportive at that interpersonal

level, with psychological issues. Do you think that is always the case when you

talk to colleagues in other areas?

R – I don’t think it is the case at all. I think we are really really lucky. I think our

team is lucky.

N – Do you work at that? Do you think it is luck or have you worked at it?

R – It is worked at - it is really, really worked at. And I think there are some

people who work at it deliberately and will deliberately share things with

everybody when I am finding it hard. So they know it is okay to say they are

finding something hard or they’re finding a school hard. Umm and when I

started there, there was very much an air of: “Oh we don’t do anything dirty,

we don’t do anything messy, we don’t do consultation we just test children

and we are the experts”, and that philosophy has completely and utterly

changed. I’m not saying there is nobody who has that philosophy still, but I

mean I was really touched the other day. I was doing something at a

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conference and N. was off sick, so I had to do it on my own, and this person,

who previously would never acknowledge that they would find anything

difficult, came and asked me how I was feeling about it and was there anything

she could do. I nearly fainted. And it was just one of those moments when you

think: “Things have changed significantly” [um] and it was wonderful and I was

so touched. I really, really was touched. And afterwards she asked me how it

had gone and I think that. You do have to work at it and I think being open and

sharing, which I used to find really, really hard and I think part of that is age,

but I think that if you are around a lot of other people who do that it makes it

easier for you to do it. And makes giving permission okay so.

N – You said earlier that you haven’t done much therapeutic work this year. So

what have you been doing? I suppose what I am asking is what do you see as

the difference between your therapeutic work and your other work?

R – Yes I guess I haven’t done any planned you know “I’ll take that young

person on with..” I think part of the reason has been that I’ve only been

working 3 days a week and our service has changed in that we now get time to

do commissioned work and a lot of that has been supervision for family

interventions.

N – Commissioned work is that like traded services?

R – Yes, type of thing. And because of that I haven’t had as many schools. And

there is only… of the primary schools there probably isn’t any where they

would bring that sort of child to my attention [right] and would want me to get

involved in that way. I’m not saying, I haven’t not done any therapeutic work,

but I have to be honest there has been a lot of fire-fighting this year. I’ve had a

lot of children move into the area over the summer holidays. Six children in

one family all of whom needed statutory assessments. And a little girl, bless

her, in fact I have done some therapeutic work with her. She was excluded

from one infant school on the first day [sigh] quite impressive (laughs) and she

is being held in another one by the skin of her teeth. So there has been a lot of

emergency, it sounds awful, but there has been a lot of [yes] hugely. But this

doesn’t sit well with how I work. I don’t think it is very satisfying. I don’t think it

is satisfying for the schools and I don’t think it is satisfying for me. And it

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certainly means that every time the phone goes your heart goes …and you

really become, it feels… it is circumstantial the fact that I have got less schools

and they are a different sort of schools is making a difference. But I think it is a

shame when you don’t have that opportunity to work in a therapeutic way.

Because it helps the school as well, and I think it changes how a school

perceives itself and its role and I think it actually, I think reminds the majority

of teachers and the majority of schools, why they came into teaching in the

first place. And that was because they love children and they want to make a

positive change for children. And when you have someone coming in who says

overtly “My time is to make these children happier” it give credence to that

point of view. And I think that is far better than going in and testing people and

saying: “No she won’t get a statement so don’t even bother trying”. We should

all… it is just ludicrous.. and actually I have to say that schools are a lot better

about er um identifying those children who really do need support. But I do

think that the secondary school and I think that that is the crux, the majority of

children I’ve worked therapeutically with would be of secondary age. And that

situation, the school is in meltdown basically, and I think it is managing

everybody else’s stress. So I have spent far more time working with adults

there, which I think has been good, it is useful and I’m not.. but it is a shame as

that school now has no therapeutic input for young people and no safe place

for them to go and one person who is trying to contain all of that anxiety of

one and a half thousand children, which is horrendous. [ridiculous] yes it is

ridiculous it actually ludicrous. I think that that….

N – How do you feel given your passion for that kind of work?

R – Oh it is horrible, I hate working there, you know, as I say I’m having this

fantasy that someone is going to say to me “next year you can have school Y”.

There is one school, I know I will never get my lovely, lovely school back, but

there is another school that is more similar and I would love to have that

secondary school. You know that classic about this school is that there isn’t

even a room for me to work therapeutically with a young person. Yes not

having a room makes a huge difference as well, and I think it says a lot about

the school, it says about their priorities. The first school I was talking about – it

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was all fortuitous, as I was coming in they had just created the Cream Room. It

wasn’t any great shakes, but the fact that they had identified a need, says a lot

about the school. So I do think it depends on the school environment, possibly

more so than the local education authority. I think there are schools like that

everywhere and I don’t believe there are schools that don’t want the EP to

work therapeutically. [That’s interesting]

This is an anecdote – I was in the doctors surgery and I was talking to someone

who I hadn’t seen for ages. She said what are you doing now? and I told her

and then she went in, to see the doctor. And this other woman came across

and said “I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing that you are an

educational psychologist, do you take private consultations?” [wow] and she

started telling me about her grand-daughter, who was having… a very bright

little girl. At first I thought this is ridiculous there is a real need for this. There is

no way that this child would be referred to the school’s EP. And that actually

made me feel, and I was at quite a vulnerable moment, so I was quite lucky

that I didn’t say: “Yes of course bring her round tonight” (laughs). Because and

I think that um if that’s a parent, how desperate must that parent be to

randomly go up to a stranger she had just overheard, I think obviously we

exchanged smiles, but to talk about her grand-daughter and how much worry

and anxiety is in that family. And a lot of it was about pressure from school

about academic excellence, the little girl was very bright. And I think what

touched me was that regardless of whether she is bright, I want her to be

happy and at the moment she is not happy and that really touched me and I

thought: “Well yes”, we had some ideas and we talked about a few things. But

I thought yes there really is a need for this. And I know parents would like it.

And yes there will always be parents who want to know if their child is dyslexic

and test them with this, that and the other, but I think it is more that they

want to do the best for their child. And I think more and more, people are

beginning to understand, talking to someone who is not in the family,

somebody different, can actually make a difference. So I think it is really, really

important and that we should be doing more not less.

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N- One last thing. You said that many people go into education because they

want to make a difference for children. And I wonder whether there are two

schools of thought on that. That some people go into education because they

want to educate and don’t appreciate that paying attention to emotional

needs might facilitate that. And there are others who do understand that

paying attention to emotional needs facilitates that. So yes, I don’t know what

you think about that.

R – I think I am probably the most naïve woman in the world as my view is that

everyone who goes into teaching does it because they love children and yes

some may have more of an educational flow on it, particularly in secondary

where you go in to teach a subject, rather than… but whenever I do a

conference on anything, you know whether it’s on ADHD or about children’s

well being or about SEAL or anything at all, I always get: “Well you reminded

me why I went into teaching”. And there will be thousands of comments like

that and I think that that reaffirmation.. well it might be that they had a

dreadful experience themselves, or they just love children, or, I do think there

are people who go in because they can’t think of anything else to do, I think it

is a great shame , I think it is a tragedy, but there are those people [tough job if

you went in for that reason] horrendous, horrendous, horrendous!

N – Do you think that is true for EPs as well that we go into this because we

want to make a difference for children?

R – Um – I don’t know

N – Or do you think people get into this as they see it as a way out of teaching?

R – I think there is an awful lot of people.. I mean the other day because I’m

reducing my hours next year and people are saying what are you going to do in

your spare time and l’m saying “well I don’t know, I might start teaching again”

there was like a “ urrr no way” [laughter]. And I think there are a lot.. oh I don’t

know, a lot of them were secondary and a lot of them were secondary science

teachers and I’m not to say, that’s a bloody difficult job. I think there are

teachers who see educational psychology as a way out of a very tough job. And

I think there are EPs who had a passion to become and EP because of their

own experiences, or a wanting to change things for other people. Yes I would

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say its not… yes and it’s a shame. There are a lot of EPs desperate to make a

difference and there are some EPs who, I think, want an easy life. And actually,

it is very easy going and doing a BAS or a WISC and summing it up and looking

all intelligent as you give your findings back, feeding back to parents and

children. And the days when you do those things you come home and feel like

you can run a mile, but and I’m not saying yes, I think it is a shame and I think it

is a shame that there isn’t more emphasis on the interpersonal side of being an

EP. Because whether you call it therapeutics or not, what you say or write

about a child makes such a difference and you know…. yes.

N – Thank you very much. Just before I switch this off I just wanted to say

something that I was thinking last night. When I was a gestalt psychotherapist,

I really didn’t like the use of the word healing in relation to therapy. And the

use of the word therapeutic has to do with the word healing and I think it’s

[yes], and I can really empathise with and I can’t remember her name, the

woman who wrote the book about “The dangerous rise of education” [oh yes]

I mean I don’t agree with most of what she says [no], but I do think she has a

point with reference to this idea of stigmatising children and seeing them.. the

deficit model. And I don’t hear you working with a deficit model at all, but I

think there is something about the use of the word “therapeutic” that pushes

us in that direction and I don’t know how we overcome it, but it is one of the

things I want to consider. And the word I prefer, which is definitely what you

were doing when you talked about the word therapeutic, you were talking

about changing the way people see themselves and think about themselves.

And I prefer this idea of increasing a person’s awareness or personal growth

which is what you were talking about. And it is how we.. and you can do that

with absolutely anything, you can do that with a report, you can do that with a

BAS, you can do that with a consultation [yes]

R – No I definitely agree with that. When you used the word ‘healing’ that

made me want to, gosh that’s how people see that word. I would hate to see

myself as a healer. Yes it is about the power of words, that ‘s horrendous. And I

also think, that when I did that study and I interviewed 10 year 10 girls after a

focus group and they all said we should all have to have this [umm umm] she

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said it was the best hour of my year. And I think it is that notion of “We all

need that”. Not one or two

N – Who are “emotional cripples”!

R- Absolutely who need “mending and healing” and I think that was one of the

most powerful messages and I think that yes when I look back at myself at

secondary school. Yes we could all have done with it. Almost an expectation,

like when you are a counsellor, you have to have counselling yourself. Like say

you are this age and you have to spend X amount of time talking on a 1:1 basis

with somebody. A bit sensitive (laughs) [yes]

N – Thank you [that is a good point]

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