This month the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on "Physical advice: brief advice for adults in primary care".  NICE state "The guidance is for ... anyone ... whose remit includes offering lifestyle advice. Examples include: exercise professionals, GPs, health trainers, health visitors, mental health professionals, midwives, pharmacists, practice nurses, physiotherapists.  It may also be of interest to others with a role in encouraging physical activity and members of the public." 

Still less than three days since the most intense, prolonged, potentially catastrophic experience of my life.  What have I learned ... both personally and as a therapist?  Gratitude ... of course.  Gratitude to the mountain rescue service, gratitude to my wife & family & friends, gratitude for my health, for the extraordinary beauty of this world, for being able to walk, to breath, to smile.  And gratitude can even help me process what happened better. 

It's really early, and paradoxically I should be sleeping beautifully because I'm in a comfortable room at the Sligachan Hotel on the Isle of Skye.  However I'm not too fussed - acute sleep deprivation may well affect memory consolidation and reduce the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma.  And why the possible PTSD?

Last month I used Google Analytics to identify the most read pages on this website and I wrote the post "Update on website traffic: the ten most popular blog posts". This got me thinking - "What are my own personal favourites?" I quickly realised that the posts that I've written that have had the most impact on me and my practice as a therapist are nearly always made up of sequences of blog posts rather than just individual items.  I said that glancing back over the last year or so, themes that stood out included mindfulness, therapist feedback, self-control, conflict, embodied cognition and positive psychology.

This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

“ Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ” - Jelaluddin Rumi

So it was the second session of the group yesterday.  I blogged about the first session last week.  Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis.  It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting.  It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind.  They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.   

So it was the second session of the group yesterday.  I blogged about the first session last week.  Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis.  It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting.  It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind.  They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.   

The last morning of the group.  I wake a bit "troubled".  This is the ebb and flow of the group.  Feelings tend to be more intense here.  As the "group river" flows its four day course, I know that I'm likely to move through a series of different emotional states.  I lie in bed for a bit sensing what I'm feeling.  What's it about.  The overall "smell/flavour" of my mood seems contributed to by a mix of things.  One factor is that I feel, what seems to me, a low key grumbling unease going on between me and one of the other people in the group.  A second factor is a discomfort I have about how another person expressed themselves for a while in the group yesterday.  A third is a concern I'm feeling about another person seeming to get too "isolated" in the group.  And there's something too about the group ending - both saying goodbye to the people and saying goodbye to this

I'm woken by a particularly loud owl hoot close by.  "HOOO.  HER-HOOO".  And again.  And again.  Becoming more distant.  I lie listening to the dawn chorus.  There are voices in it that we don't get at home.  It's a bit after five in the morning and I feel I've slept well.  Content.  Lovely down sleeping bag and a sleeping mat.  Gosh camping can be a lot more easy than when I was a kid.