The Offside Rule

Last Saturday I went to a football match. Not something within my usual experience. I went to support my Dad (no, he wasn't playing, just a loyal supporter of St Mirren for eighty years) who has lost confidence about going places through a period of ill-health. As someone who quickly loses interest when my partner watches football on television, reacting only when he jumps off the sofa and shouts, this was a leap into the unknown. Possibly committing myself to three hours of boredom, maybe even falling asleep. In fact, the hard seat and driving rain meant there was no chance of relaxing sufficiently to fall asleep. But, to my surprise, the moment the teams ran onto the pitch was the start of a drama, a piece of live theatre, which enthralled me. I found myself clapping, shouting, chanting, singing along with the home crowd, caught up in the fate of these eleven men and their opponents.

I began to recognise the rituals - the throw in, the corner and the free kick, with the graceful gesture of the referee's arm indicating which team had the advantage. Our team lost, but it didn't seem to matter too much, as they'd played well and avoided relegation. I stood by the barrier and applauded until the last player left the field, unwilling to go home, like watching all the credits at the end of a film. Later, over dinner in a local hotel, I asked about the offside rule, which was then explained, with the help of diagrams, by my father and partner. I'd assumed offside referred to lines on the pitch, but it turns out to be the player who is in the wrong place in relation to other players when he receives the ball. How can he tell in that moment? He has to be aware of where members of the opposing team are. Complex. Like life. How often do we find ourselves in that position, ready to act, but not sure if it's the right time, the right place, for ourselves and others?

I'm feeling very much onside with my professional life right now. Preparing material for the presentation I'm doing this weekend on individual dramatherapy, I have realised just how many people I have seen over the years, with a wide range of problems. It's been hard to select material - I want to tell all the stories, show lots of the things I use. But I can't take a huge bag of stuff on the train. So I'm settling for photographs. I was really touched when a long-standing client who has always had huge issues with trust, volunteered to have pictures of some of the objects she made with me included in my presentation. She is no way a 'success story', as her problems are all still there, but I have learned so much from her, primarily that people have answers within themselves, resources which we can help them access. But also that the concept of 'getting better' is not always relevant or useful. Sometimes it's about living with the grief, the anger, the pain and finding relief in creative expression and experience, whether that's making a papier mache mouse or watching a drama in the theatre or on a football pitch.

My father is struggling to cope with the disabilities and frustrations of old age, unable to engage in many of the activities which gave his life meaning - his work, golf, social gatherings, driving - but he has a tremendous capacity for finding solutions for himself. I've written before about his interest in mindfulness and he continues to strive to live in the moment. He talks about his football meditation and describes how he can lose himself in the game, live or on television.

We all end up offside at times, and like the player on the pitch, we can't always see it. But we go on playing, because while the ball's in play, we want to keep it there. And there is still the chance of winning (or, at least, losing well) until the final whistle blows.

Disclaimer: there weren't any topless players on Saturday!

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The Spring Dragon

Back at work after a busy spring break. Total immersion in home and family stuff for two weeks. Easter Sunday was a highlight - a family Eater egg hunt, presided over by the Spring Dragon (originally a sea monster from a street theatre project many years back!) - involving cryptic clues for six adults following individual trails around our three storey house and garden to find their chocolate eggs.

I've been appreciating the routine of Monday morning, the familiarity of my study back to its designated use. We had a major leak from the header tank in the loft, resulting in water pouring through ceilings on two floors. The study got the worst of it, with all the computer stuff sitting in a deepening puddle, carpet soaking. However, three weeks on, it's drying out, with just the stains on the ceilings to show what happened. And the computer, printer etc. still function. Re-evaluating my working life as I get this year's accounts in order to do my tax return.

The Trust has no money to fund my work with psychiatric nurses in the new financial year. Ironic, having gone through an audit of last year's training programme which recommended running it again. The supervision group has been a success, and participants wanted it to continue, but it can't go on without funding. This makes me feel that maybe that part of my career is at an end. I've had to fight hard over the years to get dramatherapy funded within the NHS on a contract basis. I think I'm beyond fighting now.

I've definitely slowed down and enjoy the more leisured pace of my life now. I have my small practice where I see clients and supervisees two days a week, and I feel it's enough. My family responsibilities are heavier - looking after the welfare of relatives who need me to manage their support takes up a lot of my time. And my adult children are at a stage now where they actively seek my company - I'm delighted that my older daughter is coming back to Scotland after 8 years.

I've rediscovered the joys of gardening. I never got on top of the weeding last year and it was a source of guilt that I didn't make proper use of the greenhouse. But the sunshine of the past few weeks has enticed me out there, and I've really enjoyed planting climbing roses, hauling out masses of couch grass and assisting in potato planting.

So maybe, it's not so important for me to BE a Dramatherapist, more to be my own person, contributing to dramatherapy in my own way. I'm looking forward to doing a presentation in London on 30th May at an Introduction to Dramatherapy day run by BADTh, where I'm talking about working with individuals.

As always, I enjoy hearing from you, so do post a comment or email me at
theatreandtherapy@gmail.com

Girl on the Piano

There are birds singing outside my window. Daffodil and crocus bulbs are pushing green leaves up through the ground and there's some warmth in the sun. After the bleakness of the last few months, it seems that spring is just starting to assert itself. I find the apathy and gloom of last month beginning to lift. I have some new clients, new challenges in work and my own creative life. I got word at the weekend about the apartment in France, damaged in the cyclone in January, to say that repairs are well under way and we are welcome to stay as originally planned.

A reader of my blog commented that I go on holiday a lot. I suppose I do - I love to travel and see new places - but I do work hard in between times! Two days in Berlin with my younger daughter last week was great fun, staying in a 'hostel boat' on the river Spree, traveling around by train, bus and U-Bahn. One day was very wet and we spent 3 hours in Ka De We (a cross between Harrods and John Lewis only better) looking at Barbies in designer clothes, spookily realistic baby dolls, adult fany dress costumes and amazing cakes. We bought some cakes to eat back in our cabin with a bottle of wine from Lidls (even cheaper than at home).

I've had an interesting experience with my piano tuition. My teacher made a DVD of a lesson with me for training purposes in which she took me through an exercise on rhythm. I just couldn't get it. The harder I tried, the worse it got. She patiently tried different ways to help me, clapping the rhythm, counting it aloud, tapping it out, until, finally, I got it! She described this later as a Gestalt moment, in which everything suddenly came together and made sense. This unconscious leap in thinking is what can happen in dramatherapy too. For me to experience this myself, in a creative activity, was important in two ways: first, for the unblocking of some of the psychological barriers to playing the piano, which go back to earlier experiences, second, for the insight it gave me into what my clients may experience. Since then, I've felt freed up, I'm playing Mozart and Satie on the piano as well as Abba, improvising and getting more enjoyment from music every day, even feeling I can play when other people are around without the 'third bar panic' which used to overcome me whenever anyone was listening.

Sitting on top of my piano is a Hummel figure of a little girl looking at a picture book. One of her legs is rather badly glued on, and part of her hair ribbon is missing, but she is one of my most treasured possessions. An early memory is of being allowed to play (under supervision) with the doll, who sat on top of my mother's piano. She was intact then, and I was always reverently gentle with her when she was lifted down. I always wanted to be able to turn the pages of the picture book. Recently, my mother decided her piano should be stored away. She has Parkinsons disease and can't play or sing any more - a huge loss for her. She said I should have the Hummel girl. She now sits on my piano, representing my three year old self, my audience, patient, accepting my mistakes as well as taking pleasure in my successes.

Email me at theatreandtherapy@googlemail.com or leave a comment if you'd like to discuss anything in this blog

Stormy Weather

Here in the East Neuk, we've had a stormy start to the year - high winds and flurries of snow, but not the traffic-stopping winter weather suffered by other parts of the UK. I've not felt like venturing out but have been feeding the birds - starlings, robins, sparrows and blackbirds - in our courtyard, enjoying watching them vying for places at the bird table and hangers. I did rehydrate some worms which I hoped the robins would enjoy. I half-expected the worms to wriggle, released from their freeze-dried state, but they looked just the same, only wet.

I'm trying to shake off the urge to hibernate, get myself out and about after a period of relative sloth. Working from home makes it all too easy to shut myself away from the world. However, I have just made a trip to London for a consultation day on therapy for student dramatherapists.

I signed up for this because it is something I've been involved with. All trainees have to complete 72 hours of personal therapy, group and individual, alongside their training. This can be difficult to manage, especially for students living in Scotland, and other areas where there are not many practising dramatherapists. It was good to have the chance to discuss some of the issues with fellow practitioners, although the situation in London is so different. It's hard to believe that it's almost a year since I last spent a day with my peers, when we met as supervisors.

I made this a bit of a holiday as well. My daughter in Swindon took some time off on the Friday - we went shopping - and I got to sit in on the dress rehearsal of the pantomime she's involved with on the Sunday. Quite fun to be there and have no responsibilities, watching her unflappable efficiency as she dealt with temperamental actors, excited children and last minute repairs. I ended up making a ghost costume out of an ancient velvet curtain as well as sewing on lots of buttons.

I was shocked today to receive an email from France, with photos of the destruction wreaked by a cyclone two days ago of the place we stayed in last summer - the pottery, the flat upstairs where we stayed and the beautiful garden and swimming pool all ruined. How quickly people's lives can be changed. We're lucky so far not to be hit by natural disasters, redundancy or serious ill-health, but it's all so fragile......

The two lovely ladies who own the atelier have lost so much - and yet are already offering to help us find somewhere else to stay this summer.
That seems so unimportant at the moment. Appreciating the things we take for granted - a roof over our heads, food on the table, a walk in the sunshine - will be my priority this week.

Contact me by email at
theatreandtherapy@gmail.com

In the Bleak Midwinter

After two days away in Edinburgh and Glasgow, I arrived back at the car park where I'd left my Mini to find its windows covered in amazing fern-like frost. This instantly transported me back to the winters of my childhood, jumping out of my warm bed onto the cold linoleum, running to the icy bathroom, its window frosted, then into the kitchen, where the fire in the range was burning, my school uniform warming on the clothes horse, my mother scraping the burnt toast. Then the spoonful of Virol (a sticky, malty paste that was meant to protect against colds and flu) at the door, then down the tenement stairs into the brilliance of the outside world, the cold air biting at exposed skin. Watch out, watch out, Jack Frost is about! He's after your fingers and toes!

Slides - areas of black ice, polished by many child-sized feet - appeared at regular intervals along the pavement, inviting me to launch myself expertly along, arms out to balance, until I hit the deadness of uniced pavement again. The school playground, of course, was criss-crossed with much longer, more elaborate slides, where dozens of small uniformed bodies slid and slipped, tumbled and got up again, over and over until the bell rang and we ran to line up in silence at the doors marked Infant Girls and Infant Boys. Bottles of milk were put on the large painted pipes to thaw, but often by playtime still contained frozen lumps, cream and water separating to provide an out of the ordinary drink.

We sang In the Bleak Midwinter and I felt every line. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. This carol still sends pleasurable shivers down my spine, and it was in my head the minute I saw my little car, with I'M COLD written in the frost on the rear window, on Saturday afternoon. It's only three weeks till Christmas and I'm feeling a pleasurable anticipation which seems greater than for a long time.

The worries that have been such a major part of this year have abated somewhat. My close family are currently reasonably well and content. The upheaval of work being done in the house is over. My working life has settled back into a manageable routine, with a satisfactory ending of one long-standing therapuetic relationship and the beginning of a new one this week. I'm even feeling ready to participate in the professional networking I've deliberately opted out of for a while and look forward to meeting colleagues again in London in the New Year.


I have nice things to look forward to. A trip to Berlin to meet up with one of my daughters in February, a theatre and galleries visit to London with a friend in March and a long summer break back in France. The bleak midwinter we're having right now seems to provide the necessary contrast of season and activity. A time for nurturing oneself, family, friends and neighbours. Keeping warm - I treated myself to some really cosy boots - early nights, sitting by the fire, lighting candles, making soup, seems the right thing to be doing.

I made an Advent Calendar at the weekend, and am filling its pockets with little knitted things, which are hung along the top. This is giving me an inordinate amount of pleasure. Making things, handling fabrics and yarns, paper, pens and scissors, can be therapeutic in itself. A client has been making a very simple collage of affirmative statements of her own, written out and made into speech bubbles around a picture of herself. Her eyesight is poor, so we've shared the cutting and pasting. She commented on how soothing it was to do this task together.

Thanks to all of you who read my blog and for your comments and emails.
theatreandtherapy@googlemail.com
I wish you peace, joy and contentment whatever your own midwinter brings.

Umbrellas in Paris

Usually there is something which drives me to update my blog, and I start with an idea, often with a title before I begin, but I've been struggling this month. I've decided that I'm in a transition, which often manifests itself as a kind of stuckness.......the desert without an oasis in sight, the flat expanse of ocean, far from land. Yesterday, I found myself lost on a dual carriageway, in driving rain and fog, without a clear idea of where I was. However, I decided to leave the dual carraiageway and head back, re-tracing my route until I found myself back at the roundabout where I'd taken the wrong exit.

I think that's how life has been lately, finding myself a bit lost, but coming around again to a place I recognise and making a more considered choice about which road to take. I decided some months ago to cut back on my working hours to spend more time on my own creative work, but have found the days and weeks passing without anything much to show for them. Now new work opportunities have made me focus again on what my priorities are - to have a balance in my life which makes me feel content ( for me this is better than happiness, which tends to happen in fleeting perfect moments - the photograph, a shop window in one of the passages in Montmartre, taken two weeks ago on a wet day in Paris, represents one of those.)

I've taken some decisions which allow me space to give my therapy clients my full attention, before and after a session, as well as during it. Time to reflect on process is too easily lost when under pressure. I feel more confident as a supervisor, enjoying the experience of group and individual work. I also worry less about work in between times, finding my increasing enjoyment of music, knitting and sewing gives me tremendous satisfaction, fulfilling some of my own creative needs, both alone and with others. I think having my own parallel creative life makes me more receptive to the often small and subtle ways in which clients wish to express their thoughts and feelings through creative activities.

I wonder what part personal creative activities play in the lives of other arts therapists. I found when I was training that the work we did on the course opened up a side of me that I had lost. As a drama teacher, all my own creative energy seemed to go into my job, and it was a joy to re-discover my interest in drawing, painting, music and acting, as part of my own journey as a therapist. But once established in my dramatherapy practice, time for personal creative activity was squeezed out by work, somehow more worthy and deserving of my attention.

So - what part should creativity play in the life of a dramatherapist?

your comment, question, suggestion....

Vide Grenier (Empty your Attic)

I discovered the joys of the Vide Grenier on a French holiday some years ago, marvelling at the boxes of rusty keys, broken dolls, stuffed animals and wheel-less pushchairs arrayed at the kerbside of the small towns of the South West on summer Sundays. This year, we came home to begin work on turning a boxroom on our top floor into a shower room for visitors. Not only did the boxroom have to be emptied, but the floor of the attic above had to cleared to provide access to pipes and wiring.

My first thought was to have our own Vide Grenier in our small front garden, but it seemed a little presumptuous to display our junk to our neighbours' eyes and expect them to pay us money for it. As we assembled a motley collection of bedspreads, plastic flowers, seventies clothes and mirrors (I used to collect them, but have run out of wall space), each item seemed to stir up memories and associations. My partner decided it was time to part with his dog bed, bowls and leads. I let the cat loo go (enclosed, hygenic, with free unopened bag of cat litter), along with my studded leather coat from 1968 and the blue bead curtains dating from my somewhat OTT post-divorce home decorating phase. Inspiration struck, and I Googled 'car boot sales'. I found there was to be one the following Sunday about 3 miles from us. Fired with enthusiasm, I printed out pages of hints and tips from the internet.

Don't put on price stickers, State your price with conviction, Take a picnic, wipes and plastic bags. Don't expect to sell exercise equipment or wigs.

Preparing for the boot sale became my main preoccupation. Yes, I was returning to work the following week, and should perhaps have been looking out materials and planning ahead, but somehow the need to shift the emotionally laden pile of formerly significant things was more pressing. Sometimes letting something go is an acknowledgement that never again will one

go ski-ing, do karate, own a dog or a horse ( yes, the tack box was going too), wear a wine suede mini-skirt...........

I lay awake at night, mentally arranging and re-arranging our stall. I took things out of the pile, looked at them for a while with a lump in my throat, then put them back.

The day dawned. I leapt out of bed and pulled open the curtains - it was raining hard, as forecasted. However, nothing daunted, I managed to repark the car close to the house and began loading up. My other half was struggling to wake up - he'd driven to Glasgow and back the day before and we'd got home late - but he did get involved with the packing and sandwich- making.

We arrived to find the site unusually quiet. Not many cars at all. We got a good pitch and began to set up our table and clothes rail. People descended on us, picking things up as we set them out, making it difficult to set out our wares. The wind had got up, and snatched scarves, bags and dresses from our hands. We took it in turns to pursue our escaped goods and bring them back. Next time, I said, we bring clothes pegs. A pottery lamp fell off the table the table and smashed on the ground. Meantime, my partner's mood lifted - he'd made his first sale!

The rain came and went. We huddled against the car, hoods up, eating our bacon rolls and drinking lukewarm coffee. Amazingly, people continued to buy things - the bead curtains, the dog bed, cat loo and the Sega Megadrive (collector's item?). After two hours, people were packing up, but still the potential buyers came - my daughter's size 7 boots went to the woman at the next car as we were putting our stuff away. Once we were home and had decanted our remaining 'stock' to the shed to be handy for next time (yes, we were hooked!), we counted our takings - a profit of over £20 - not bad for a couple of hours on the wettest, windiest Sunday of the summer.

Reflecting on the meaning of this experience, it feels not unlike therapy. You go into some obscure places, discover things which were important and meaningful. Dragged out into the light, they are examined for what they are, often appearing less significant than our memories had suggested. Some can be discarded, not worth keeping or passing on to others. Some are still precious, irrelevant to our life as it is now, but of value to others. Like the dog bed, with its newly laundered padded lining and cushion, which went to a lady who was taking it home for a rescued pet in need of comfort and care. Or the curtains of blue moons and stars, seized with great enthusiasm by two young men with limited English - I'd love to see what they did with them. We let go of stuff from the past, having processed it in some way, laying it out and offering it up to the world.

I've started work again with a kind of lightness, a sense of having dealt with some of my own baggage from the past and the weighty problems of the past six months. The empty attic is a metaphor for the bit of me that is ready to be receptive to others, a potential space to which they can bring their concerns.