More About Stephen...

Part 1 – Your approach and what led you there

Stephen perhaps you could begin by explaining how you became interested in Stress Reduction. 
Well I would say it began with my personal experience of anxiety and panic attacks back in the mid 90s, towards the end of my final year of my training in psychotherapy. In addition to my day job, each week l was spending 8 hours at a placement in a NHS residential psychiatric unit in Edgware and a further 4 hours at a counselling centre in Highbury. I was also seeing patients in Enfield and in Warrick Avenue. What with attending lectures and weekly supervision sessions I was leading a very busy life.

So all this activity and running around London brought on the anxiety?
Yes, I would say so. I was spinning a lot of plates and when that goes well its quite exhilarating but once they start to fall…

So what happened?
Well, I remember the first time I had an anxiety attack. It was stuck on a tube just outside Highbury and Islington station and I suddenly felt incredibly hot, dizzy and shaky. I had a burning desire to escape to get out.

But you were stuck in a tunnel…
Yes. Eventually the train pulled into the station and I staggered out, I did not think too much about it. However over the next few weeks there were other ‘attacks’. Also I started finding it difficult to sleep at night, I would lie awake and just feel my heart racing. The next day I would be tired and washed out. I got through the day by drinking lots of coffee but that only made it more difficult for me to get to sleep at night.

Did you seek help?
Not at first – I was too ashamed. I was just qualifying as a psychotherapist and I had loads of people around me praising me and telling me how I was ‘doing so well’ that I was ‘really gifted’ that I ‘obviously would go on to great things’ yet inside I felt a failure and a phony. Eventually, I confessed all to a colleague and teacher I respected. He explained that what I was experiencing was quite normal under the circumstances and admitted he had a similar experience some years previously. That helped a lot.

It normalised your experience?
Yes exactly. It put my symptoms in a context and I began to accept them. He also suggested that I look into relaxation and meditation. He introduced me to the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Did your psychotherapy training help you with your anxiety?
It helped that I had an understanding of anxiety from several perspectives, I could see it as signifying ‘the return of the repressed’, a challenge to my present definition of my ‘self’ or as a flight from the present moment – the gap between now and then’. What it did not do was give me any real techniques for dealing with it.

Were you having therapy at the time?
Yes I was, my therapist was supportive and sympathetic but had little to offer me to cope with my symptoms. He was an existentialist and neo Freudian and would never ‘help’ a patient. He was instrumental in my having some great insights and deepening my self-knowledge and understanding, but as far as symptom relief was concerned it was a waste of time.

Is this when you came to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
Yes, I started reading CBT texts by people like Arron Beck and Christine Padesky. I was introduced to a therapist who had worked with Arron Beck’s daughter. For a while I immersed myself in the subject and even took some additional courses that covered its application to various problems. It’s true to say that CBT really helped me and I found a new respect for the approach.

Previously you were skeptical of CBT?
Yes, very much so. I dismissed it as a kind of ‘therapy for dummies’. A sort of quick fix that you could get from a nurse at your GPs surgery. I realised that it was actually a very clear and coherent system that had a real depth to it and was capable of providing real and lasting relief, particularly with anxiety.

Many so called ‘depth psychotherapists’ have that attitude towards CBT don’t they?
Yes they do. Unfortunately CBT is a victim of its own success. As therapies go it’s relatively quick and easy to learn, so quite a few CBT practitioners have not had anywhere near the same depth of training - particularly in the area of their own personal development. It’s also fair to say that many CBT practitioners are dismissive of other approaches to therapy and usually don’t admit that they even have anything to learn from them.

So does CBT form the core of your approach today?
No, I would not say it’s the core. It’s more the supporting structure. It provides an explanation and a systematic and structured approach to recovery.

What then is the core?  
The core principles we work with revolve around the development of spiritual qualities like acceptance, awareness and compassion. Through philosophical discussion, exercises and self enquiry, meditation and contemplation we cultivate such qualities and they lead to a sense of calm and contentment that is the opposite of stress and anxiety.

This sounds like the feminine balance to the more solution-focused and masculine approach of CBT.
Yes, I suppose it does and to some extent it is mirrored in the fact that I prefer to work in partnership with Kate Connell, it helps to fuse two apparently contradictory approaches and provides a wonderful balance to our work.

Does Kate represent this more spiritual and feminine approach?
Yes. Although it’s not quite so clean cut, there is a lot of crossover and a real appreciation for each others position and particular set of skills.

How did you and Kate come to work together?
Back in 2006 I started working every Thursday at Mind in Enfield – I ran a drop in centre for people with mental health problems. Kate was volunteering there and after a few conversations with her, I recognised that she had a very similar approach to stress reduction and anxiety to my own. Although she had arrived at the same place she had travelled a quite different route, her pathway taking her through a long and difficult illness that left her physically dependent on others for several years. We soon started a stress reduction and relaxation class at Mind and this later developed into a much more structured course in Stress reduction that we co-facilitated. All our subsequent work has grown from this.

You prefer to work with people in groups don’t you?
Yes. Groups are a great way of gaining support from others, breaking isolation, normalising experience and provide a camaraderie that you just don’t have in one to one work.

But some people dislike joining groups.
This is true. Groups are not for everyone so I have a private practice for those who would rather work one to one.  

Another thing that both you and Kate like to do is to give public talks about your work, why is that so important?
Well first off it’s our advertising, its how people often first hear about us but its also something we both really love to do. There is nothing like giving a talk to test that you really know and understand your subject. It also helps us to get valuable feedback on our ideas, to test original exercises and to keep our work topical and relevant.

You encourage questions at your talks.
Absolutely. We see our talks more as conversations, an exchange of ideas where we attempt to convey our enthusiasm for our subject. We don’t use slides or powerpoint presentations, such things only get in the way - at best they are a distraction. If we can get an audience talking and asking questions we know they are engaged and we are on the right track.

Part 2 – How you work with organisations

Tell me about your work with organisations
Many organisations are hindered by internal divisions, factions and competing interests, this can manifest as ‘stress’ and anxiety driven behavior, this usually ends up in low morale and poor productivity.

I remember reading in the Guardian that last year 9.8 million days were lost due to stress related illness and that it cost £3.7 billion to the economy.  
Exactly, it’s a massive problem that in the present climate of cuts and austerity is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better.

So this must be a boom time for you at the moment.
Not really, many organisations are too paralysed by fear and uncertainty to act. Instead they wait like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for something to happen for someone else to make a move.

That sounds like the behaviour of someone driven by fear and anxiety.
Precisely. When an organisation is optimistic it progresses forwards in a generally open and trusting way. Once confidence takes a knock it can slide into a state of fear. A climate in which decisions are made purely to protect and consolidate an existing position not to expand into a new one. This fear-based approach trickles down from the top – from the senior managers and leaders right down to the office junior.

Can you stop this?
Well we can’t change the external economic picture so instead we focus on what we can change. The first move is developing a deeper awareness and understanding of the situation and how that influences behaviour. Within organisations there is an emphasis on how the leaders behave, what qualities are they exhibiting, what attitudes they are modeling for the rest of the staff. Put simply, if the leaders start to behave in a paranoid and self-serving way then they will spread such attitudes throughout the organisation with the consequent reduction in performance. Typically then the leaders become even more rigid and controlling which leads more resentment among the staff, absenteeism, ill health – a vicious circle.
 
So what can be done?
Once a level of awareness has been achieved – and this can take some time as the level of resistance is proportionate to the level of fear – we can then work with managers to establish a more positive approach to leadership that supports and encourages openness, trust and confidence.

That sounds easy but I’m guessing its not?
It’s true it can be difficult. It’s all about building relationships on a basis of trust and to achieve that you have to be prepared to be really honest, with yourself and with others. In some organisations management conceals its motives, it uses smoke and mirrors or it controls and manipulates by raising the specter of redundancy and budget cuts. For some honesty can involve a degree of pain and represent a leap of faith.

Is this a shift in management style?
No, not style but in values. The whole problem is that many organisations have adopted the ‘style’ of ‘equal opportunities’, many organisations have the ‘style’ of ‘employee involvement’, many have the ‘style’ of ‘investors in people’ but what is needed here is to take the next step. To walk the talk. Otherwise its just bull and verbiage. The only way out involves a frank and honest exchange between all parties and before this can begin trust must be developed in order for people to feel that it is safe to be honest. Otherwise they fear the repercussions and just keep silent and the problem continues. I think most people have probably come across this at some level in their work.

It takes a lot of courage to be totally honest with ones manager.
It’s often made near impossible. Up and down the country every day managers are conducting tens of 1000s of appraisals, supervisions and meetings and are being told what their employees think they want to hear or else they just stay silent and the managers hear nothing. What a waste of time, what a lost opportunity!

So you work with managers to help them receive honest feedback from staff and this promotes greater leadership qualities and teamwork?
Yes. It’s the only way to restore faith trust and confidence. A manager can lead through a combination of B/S and fear during good times but in times of austerity there are less places to hide, everyone is called to account for themselves one way or another.

Are managers likely to embrace this or try to avoid it?
Once we begin the process they usually embrace it, everyone prefers to work in a happy and harmonious environment so it really does benefit all. There can be some nervousness at the start and some managers have never known anything but the ridged hierarchical form of control that passes for leadership in some organizations. Most rise to the challenge.

And those who don’t?
They may require additional training and support. In some cases they might resign and seek employment in an organisation that more embodies their need for control and the exercise of power based on fear.