THERAPY

I first encountered the world of therapy at a previous work place in the late 80's early nineties where the head of Human Resources - or Personnel as we used to call it ( I am NOT a resource!? Still don't care for the term and feel it belittles and adds to social control calling staff "resources" but hey I digress.) I lost my brother shortly after the death of my Dad who had died through having been on a waiting list of years to have triple by pass surgery at Harefields' Hospital thanks to Thatcher and her impositions on the NHS ( yes even then) and I struggled with a variety of issues around losing my brother so soon after losing my dad some year or more between them. 

Head of Personnel then was a wonderful person, a woman who had trained under the legendary Metanoia Institute, and she spotted something in me that made her quiz me and ended up giving me bereavement counselling therapy for and on behalf of the company for which I am eternally grateful and like so many who come across therapy this way, it was later when considering a change in professional direction, that I re-trained and qualified as a counsellor/psychotherapist myself and spent the least twenty years of my professional life with my own practice and worked in the fields of social care where those skills I learned were put to good use. From an extraordinary Rehab in The Ley Community nearby to working later with addiction and the local initiative SMART-CJS (Substance Misuse Arrest Referral Team) the socially disadvantaged hostels and homeless sectors too, desirous as I was to give something back. 

The person who gave me that therapy did not obviously charge me anything for my counselling sessions and they opened up my head in ways that only later would I fully come to understand more completely but she asked me for one thing when we finished working together. As I had done an elaborate drawing on handmade paper of some size during a therapy session which seemed to take her by surprise as she discovered my talents in the arts and she asked if I would do a drawing for her. I gave her the option of one or two and she claimed to not like those or understand them particularly and so I did a pastel 'painting' as we might once have called a drawing in that media, specifically for her of a 'genre subject', as she had a passion for gardening and loved the Monet gardens at Giverney.

This drawing which I had quite forgotten I had briefly photographed (and wish I had kept a copy of my therapy drawing too) I found a little snap of earlier on yesterday

This was for Angela Chris:

Large floral piece - pastel on handmade paper, for Angela Chris ©️Andy Swapp