Articles
1.
Touch in Therapy
(c) David Forrest
In this workshop, my intention is to provide an opportunity to explore what touch evokes. As the starting point of our own experience and thoughts about touch there is some guided experiments for how touch may be described and utilised in the therapy room.
Consider that touching elicits a sensation, a feeling, for both the one touching and the one touched. How is this sensation experienced by each? Already I am looking at the action of touching and being touched between person and person; because touching a chair, for example, does not illicit an experience between person and object in that the object does not experience the touch, the touch is not reciprocated.
3.
Imagery and Creativity in the Therapy
(c) David Forrest
In the context of how I approach the therapeutic engagement, as well as my theoretical reasoning, my attitude is to not get overly fixated on definitions and try to maintain an openness to meaning in a creative and lateral manner. Behind this use of ‘imagery and creative work in the therapy room’ the function is to provide variations for the client (and therapist) to explore and discover what is occurring.
Everyone has particular ways to describe what they are experiencing. These particular ways may be amazingly rich, creative and imagery full, or, perhaps, dull and lacking stimulation or interest. Wherever the client is along this spectrum the opportunity exists to stimulate a fresh approach in meaning giving and making. This opportunity is about exploring differently; to offer a difference in the therapeutic relationship that allows the client to gain fresh insight, fresh awareness of their experiences.
4.
Intimacy and Love in Therapy
(c) David Forrest
A healthy relationship will experience
“caring, affection, esteem and appreciation” (Erskine, et al., 1999, p. 148)
and the therapeutic relationship is one where health is promoted, thus will have, or move to have, these attributes; no different in this respect to any other healthily functioning relationship. For the therapist, knowing, appreciating, and hopefully, understanding their own needs to be loved and to love is important... so the therapist is able to both receive and give the love of the client that heals
“As clients begin to re-own the denied and dissociated parts of themselves, they are likely to recover the ability to feel more intensely … (and) have a strong need to express them” (Erskine, et al., 1999, p. 148)