When you are a Therapeutic Life Story Work Practitioner and work alongside children and young people who do not live with their birth families and you create a Life Story Book for your Dad who has dementia – it is a heartbreaking privilege.

Well the Summer Holidays are over and I have just seen how long it has been since I posted something here – it’s been a very busy last few months here with people birthdays, dog birthday, NCS programme, GCSE results, Summer party, discovering and loving Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, family holiday, Gang Show rehearsals, selling a house and finding a new home, connecting with some new super kind people and then a wedding thrown in that was planned and seen through in 5 weeks. Phew – so important to remember to breathe and to notice others in a real and meaningful way.

I recently saw this animated short film by the Illustrator Steve Cutts, titled ‘Are you lost in the world like me?’ and it’s poignancy reminded me once again of Landreth, Van der Kolk and Perry:

Noticing confirms a child’s existence – Landreth

The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind -Bessel van der Kolk

Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love – Bruce D Perry

Take care everyone,

Nadine x

Thank you to all current students on the Diploma in Therapeutic Life Story Work, being run by Richard Rose  with The Institute for Therapy with Arts in Education for listening to me present on my work last Friday. As always, a privilege.

Wishing you all so much satisfaction and enjoyment with doing all things  Life Story in a therapeutic way.

Nadine x

Very pleased to be a part of the recent Therapeutic Life Story Work Summit in Lisbon, Portugal and privileged to be invited to present on this amazing intervention (which involved lollipops and silver shoes).

175 attendees including colleagues from Portugal, Australia and the UK, second international summit to take place in Melbourne 2020 – watch out here for further information, closer to the date

New art boxes for Therapeutic Life Story Work, so lovely.

Will always love all things gems, crystals, shells etc etc for the all important sand tray…

Which means it’s Play Therapy in The Phoenix School – for me, the best way to end the working week

It comes down to the question of not, “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with that kid? Why is he behaving like that,” to, “What happened to you,” which is a very different question.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-life-changing-story-oprah-reports-this-week/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-winfrey-treating-childhood-trauma/