Presentations round 3, more success!

Hello all,

Thank you to everybody who contributed this afternoon and well done to the four presenters who delivered great research.

Congrats. go to Anna, Andrea, Ciara and Robin who discussed the following topics: depression, perinatal mental health, postnatal depression and the ineffectiveness of Freud's theories. Some great research again, make no mistake. Excellent questions again, thank you for them. They were all thoughtful and linked to the talks very well indeed. 

Next week is in two parts: Sarah from 2-3, followed by a short reflective session on the oral presentation assessment, including my own reflections.

Lorraine, Alannah and Jonathan will present on Tuesday 16th November, all first attempts for the avoidance of any doubt.

On the 16th I will look at formal writing (report) and this is likely to be on the same subject as your respective presentation topics, but you ARE permitted to change to another Counselling related subject should you so wish.

Please make any comments on today's talks in the comments below, they really resonate I feel.

Great stuff all, have a lovely evening.

Mark

Guest Speaker - Tuesday 9th November at 2pm

Hello all,

I am delighted to let you know that next Tuesday (9th November), my former colleague at the old Stevenson College (now Edinburgh College) and good friend, Sarah Austin, has accepted my invitation to speak to you via Zoom at the start of our normal class. She is really looking forward to connecting with you. 

She will be with us for an hour to talk about her role as a Counsellor and importantly, to field any questions you might have for her related to the world of Counselling.

A little about Sarah then, which I hope you will find helpful.

Sarah holds an Honours Degree in Psychology, with twenty-six years experience in FE teaching in Special Education, Social Care and Counselling. She has been in private practise as a Person Centred Therapist since 2005, supervising other therapists since 2013 and training Postgraduate Psychotherapy students since 2015.

Sarah works using a Person Centred approach, first developed by Carl Rogers. This approach is client-led and supports clients' natural ability to develop and change within an accepting, non-judgemental therapeutic relationship. It aims to develop as equal power dynamic as possible so the therapist is not seen as the 'expert' and does not give advice.

Food for thought:

As therapists we're continually developing our practise: at the moment, the world of counselling is changing rapidly with online therapy (eg. using Zoom) now being offered by almost all therapists as an option. This has implications for how we communicate and how we work safely but also means we can work with clients from anywhere in the world.

I am certain that we will have an excellent time with Sarah next week.

Please e mail me any questions you may have by the end of this week please (5th November), which is coincidentally Sarah's birthday and I will send them on to her before next week.

I look forward to listening to the session very much indeed.

Mark

Round two presentation success - bravo to today's presenters

Hello again everybody,

Another wonderful round of presentations today, I thoroughly enjoyed them all.

Well done to Joanne, Ainsley, Yvonne, John and Jan who were all successful today. 

The subjects covered today were as follows: Social Media and the effects on the young, CBT, Grief and effects on mental health / wellbeing, PTSD, Complex Trauma.

Again, some brilliant research, logical links in the talks, some personalisation, but lots of solid content to help scaffold all the fine content. Top drawer for the second week running. 

"Tomorrow can be a new day", and today has been an excellent day.

Please note your thoughts below in the comments section, especially if you presented today and of course, if you were in the audience listening in. 

Have a great week everybody and I look forward to the final seven talks next Tuesday.

Here's to a restful evening.

Mark

Very well done to today's presenters

Hello all,

I thoroughly enjoyed the six presentations we listened to today for the Communication Unit we are working on.

I think Jan and Yvonne summed it up perfectly when they noted they were fantastic and fabulous, and I must agree.

We had six very competent deliveries which were well researched, sensibly structured, covering a variety of topics and to a high standard of delivery, so well done to Kellie-Anne, John, Lisa, Shannon, Vel and Robyn.

The subjects were Alcohol and Drug Addiction, Meditation, Wim Hof Method, Trichotillomania, The Gloria Films and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy.

I would like you to comment on how you felt the session went this afternoon, especially if you presented your research today, but I encourage any attendee to provide feedback too. Every comment counts after all!

Wonderful work all round and total success, very well done.

Thank you to all attendees; I am sure you will have learned a great deal from the talks, for lots of reasons.

Please note down your reflections below.

Mark

A veritable bounty of research goodies!

Hello all,

Here are some links that may be of interest to you, not only for my unit, but for other aspects on your Programme.

https://www.samh.org.uk/    - SAMH - Publications option

https://theconversation.com/uk/search?q=grief   - The Conversation UK -grief etc.

BACP may be of interest for a variety of counselling topics

https://www.bacp.co.uk/search?q=bereavement    - bereavement | may not be in date order

https://www.bacp.co.uk/search?q=grief    - grief | may not be in date order

BPS may be of interest for a variety of topics

https://www.bps.org.uk/search/google/bereavement   - bereavement

https://www.bps.org.uk/search/google/grief    - grief

BMJ Open may be of interest for a variety of topics

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/search/bereavement%20jcode%3Abmjopen   - bereavement

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/search/grief%20jcode%3Abmjopen   - grief

https://www.ted.com/search?q=grief   - TED Talks - grief

Below is a list of websites which contain at least some open access

BMJ Open

BMC  

Core

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)

Elsevier

Hodder Education Magazine Extras

Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)

IOPscience

Internet Archive  -  "free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more"

JSTOR  -  includes ebooks

National Library of Scotland (Digital Resources)  -  registration required

OMICS

Plos One

PubMed Central

Scientific Research  - international

Scottish Government Library Services Newsfeeds   -  some open access

SpringerOpen

Taylor & Francis  -  link leads to specific open access journals

TED Talks  -   videos

University of Westminster Press  -  mainly ebooks

Wiley Open Access  -  link leads to specific open access journals

Enjoy!

Mark

Provisional titles chosen for the assessed presentations on 19/10, 26/10 and 2/11

Hi everybody, below are the provisional broad topics you have chosen for the assessed talks for my Communication Unit. I think this shows a real breadth of knowledge that you are all developing and I am genuinely looking forward to hearing how you structure your thoughts. 

I would say a minimum of three sources is what you should be looking at, but I am expecting quite a lot more from some of you, depending on the subject chosen. 

All the best, Mark

• Grief, effects on mental health and wellbeing
• The 'Gloria' tapes
• Addiction
• Postpartum Depression
• Mental health and the pandemic
• Anxiety
• Social media and the effects on mental health
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Depression
• Eating disorders
• Trichotillomania
• Meditation and mental health
• (Alcohol) addiction
• Schizoaffective disorder
• PTSD
• Trauma therapy

Assessment dates for oral presentation (5-8 minutes)

Hi all,

Another great session today, thank you and some amazing ideas. Thanks in particular to John R who I think is right, we can all benefit from listening to all the wonderful presentations across the three sessions.

You do not HAVE to attend all three, but you will all be very welcome. We will agree that oral questions can only come from me and the other five in the allotted presentation slot.

Tuesday 19th October at 2 - Lisa, Robyn, Vel, Joanne, John M, Kellie-Anne

Tuesday 26th October at 2 - John R, Jan, Andrea, Yvonne, Ainsley, Shannon

Tuesday 2nd November at 2 - Robin, Ciara, Lorraine, Anna, Alannah, Johnathan

I will note the topics in another post later.

All the best,

Mark