Laceys Solicitors, Bournemouth,
TAKING CHILD CONSULTATION TO A NEW    LEVEL BY PILOTING THE MYE PROGRAMME 

            Kenneth Clarke

               Lawyer Mediator

            Child consultation is an established feature of the child-focussed model of mediation practised by Laceys Mediation. Too often the voice of the child is but a faint whisper in the heated battle of parental conflict. Fortunately the Family Justice Review has pledged to give children a greater say in decisions about their future. This is belated yet welcome recognition that children are individuals with rights, rather than just objects of concern or merely the subjects of a decision-making process that often leaves them feeling alienated.

All our mediators have undertaken thorough child consultation training, and offer a supportive role to children where their parents are in conflict about their future arrangements. Furthermore children are empowered by their participation in the mediation process. By being able to talk in a safe and neutral environment they feel listened to and understood, and are more able to discuss their fears, concerns, wishes and feelings.

In an exciting development Laceys are taking this level of support to a whole new level by piloting the MYE programme as part of the child consultation process in appropriate cases.

MYE stands for Managing Your Emotions, and is an interactive programme that helps children identify and label uncomfortable and often painful emotions. This is a crucial step in helping children understand their feelings at a very difficult time for them. MYE will help a child focus on what they can do to start to feel better. They will gain insight into what their emotions are trying to tell them, and what they can do to work with rather than against these emotions. This is far healthier than the child suppressing his or emotions, as this can often lead to a range of psychological problems and physical symptoms.

Chris and Christina Hunt invented and developed the MYE programme. Chris is a trained Psychotherapist. His publications, Drama Handbook and Drama Complete Scheme At Work have been used in over one thousand primary and secondary schools. Christina spent many years working in education as a Special Needs Teacher, and is a qualified Cognitive Behaviour Therapist.

How does MYE work?

q  The child completes an online questionnaire, which generates an instant, personalised and confidential report. The report indicates their current dominant behaviour

q  They read the report and if they decide that they want to change the way they feel, they press the I want to change button. This in itself is a very positive and powerful statement for any child. The child is provided with its own instant online personal action plan.

q  The plan involves the child working from the computer and completing a personal MYE journal.

q  After one week the child receives an invitation by e-mail to complete a follow-up questionnaire. This triggers a new report, showing the child’s progress and the impact on their emotions and behaviour.

q  Finally, the child receives a “sticky situations” sheet, which contains real examples of what they can do in the future if they have difficulties.

The MYE programme is aimed at children experiencing anxiety, low mood or stress. It is a unique, uncomplicated child-friendly tool offering online emotional help for children.

We think the MYE programme will benefit children whose parents are engaged in a high level of parental conflict, or where there is poor parental communication. Often the children we see in these situations are already experiencing significant distress and are extremely unhappy at being caught in the middle of mum and dad’s battles.

The addition of the MYE programme in appropriately identified cases will, we believe, provide an additional and invaluable tool to help children make sense of the fractured world they are living in. MYE will help them develop the confidence to make their voice heard. Parents will also benefit from MYE, because when parents start to listen to their children they will be taking the first steps to reduce their conflict, improve their communication, and learn to parent co-operatively rather than destructively

E - Motion

Medical Dictionary

emotion  e·mo·tion (ĭ-mō'shən) 
n. 
 An intense mental state that arises subjectively rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes.

Having just attended an Anthony Robbins Seminar about changing your emotional state I felt the need to share some of the insights about what he had to say about emotions and to add my own pennies worth to boot.

Mr Robbins believes that we only want 'things' in our lives because it will make us feel a certain way. For example; a new car will make you feel excited and proud; a new relationship will make you feel excited, happy, loveable, passionate. All we really want is 'feelings/emotions' and that we can create or change our own feelings at will.

Mr Robbins asserts that the body can teach the mind what to feel and changing the way your body moves  will change the emotion you are feeling. So if you are feeling depressed your body will reflect this by sloping shoulders, shallow breathing, eyes focused downwards and maybe even a need for inactivity. If you change this and pull your shoulders back, breath deeply, look upwards and become active you will change your emotional state.

Well, I do believe that your body quite literally reads your mind. Many illnesses can be sourced to repressed emotions. Essentially emotions are energy, and energy wants to move freely and easily. If we repress this energy it doesn't just simply disappear. At some point it will move to the weakest point in your body and appear as an illness or make that part of the body even weaker than before.

At Manage Your Emotions we believe that 'Emotions are action giving transmitters.' They mostly want you 'to do' something or not do something to make your life balanced.  In order to allow your emotions to flow through your body you need to firstly acknowledge them,  understand their message and then take action (move) to do what ever it is you need to do with that message. Making bodily movements will allow you to help the emotions to flow through you rather than remain stuck within you. 

I feel that Mr Robbins certainly has a very good method of changing how you are feeling in the here and now. However, this method may be a 'plaster on the wound' way of treating your emotions. In other words, changing the movement of your body will allow for a shift in the emotions, but the emotions you are probably trying to shift will be the dark uncomfortable ones which usually have the most urgent of messages for you. If they go unacknowledged they will come back again and again in many various ways until you listen to even the smallest part of the message. I would ask people first to acknowledge 'how' you are feeling and understand why you are feeling this way, then make the change in body movements. This will then be a concious act, a way of transforming that energy into action. That way you will feel more comfortable for longer and the painful emotion won't have the need to come back and send you the same message again, again and again.

STICKY EMOTIONS

This is our new way of describing how our emotions can become 'stuck' for children. Our emotions were designed to flow through us, carrying with them messages to help us to live a balanced life. However, many of us have not learnt how to listen to our emotions, especially the painful uncomfortable ones and so we try to repress or bury them. This causes our emotions to become stuck in a loop, resulting in our behaviour also becoming 'stuck'.

To release our sticky emotions all we have to do is to be truthful with ourselves about how we are feeling and to 'listen' to the messages of our emotions.Then they feel they have done their job and will leave us. Easier said than done you say! You are right. It takes practice and a desire to change behaviour.

To find out if you have any sticky emotions go to our programme www.myenow.com

Why Do We Apologize for Being Emotional?

Yesterday I heard someone say to a loved one 'I am sorry for being so emotional, I will be okay tomorrow.'
I wanted to say, 'So tomorrow you will not be a human being, but become some alien who has no feelings at all?'

We have learnt to hide our true emotions not only to others but more importantly to ourselves. When someone asks us how we are we will say that we are fine, ok or good which can mean just about anything. We also use the word 'stress' to cover a multitude of feelings which seems to have a common understanding with everyone; 'He is just a bit stressed at the moment.' But what emotions are involved with being stressful, fine, ok or good? How are you really feeling and why wouldn't you think someone else would be interested in the way you feel right now? After all, we all have the capability of feeling all of the same emotions.

It could be that we are in a habit of just using a certain number of words to describe how we feel - happy, sad, angry, calm etc. Maybe we need to increase our emotional vocabulary to help us describe how we are feeling. It would be incredibly useful for our children to learn an expanded emotional vocabulary list.

The emotional revolution requires us to accept that as human beings we are emotional. Our emotions help to drive our behaviour so therefore are important to us all. Being honest with ourselves is the first step towards earning how to acknowledge and accept our feelings. 

GP Practices

We are proud to announce that there are currently nine GP Practices in the South of England participating in the MYE Programme. The feedback we have received from the doctors have been excellent. It seems that the programme is proving to be very effective.

Loving Someone Who Isn't Good At Loving

People who love someone who isn't good at loving can find themselves in an emotional trap. They try so hard to 'change' or 'rescue' their partner by making all manner of emotional self-sacrifices.

Unfortunately, this only succeeds in stifling their own happiness. People who are trying to 'awaken the love' in their partner usually focus on constantly pleasing the other person. This can stifle aspects of themselves which the other criticise such as: passion, fun, spontaneity, ambition.

Another rescuing trait is to be 'over-cheerful' to make up for the lack of joy in the partner or relationship. Sometimes this results in parents relying on their children for emotional joy and support, which is lacking in their marriage. Yet all this tends to bring more an more disappointment as nothing ever changes. The golden rule to remember is 'just because you love someone it does not mean you are responsible for their happiness. We are responsible for our own happiness'.


This is rule does not mean that you have to stop doing lovely things for people because you like to make them smile and feel better. The rule is about 'responsibility' or as I prefer to think about it as two words; respond - ability. We all have the ability to respond to people in various circumstances, but it is always our choice how we respond. You can keep responding the way you all-ways do and the chances are you nothing will ever change for you in the relationship.

Changing your behaviour requires you acknowledging and accepting how you are behaving at this time. Which is why the Mye Programe (Manage Your Emotions Programme) is great at helping you to discover how you are behaving at this time. What is   also important is looking at the emotions which drive that behaviour. Once you have understood why you do what you do, you can then make a choice to change. The Mye Programme, can do just that ! Visit the website to find out more www.myenow.com

Do you feel like a prisoner wanting to escape? 

Escaper Behaviour is one of the behaviours in the Manage Your Emotions Programme. As an 'Escaper' you feel that you would love to be able to escape from certain situations, from people or even from yourself!

What Escaper Behaviour is;

You feel as though you need to escape from your situation or from certain feelings.
You may feel that you have no choice other than to see things through to the bitter end.
There may be times when you feel you don’t belong anywhere.
You may find ways of escaping through various ways. These might include; over eating, drinking, smoking, having affairs, gambling, taking drugs, obsession with sex, over working, compulsive reading, excessive need to be out of the house, avoidance of certain people or places, avoiding confrontations or creating confrontations, excessive fantasising or day dreaming.
You may feel the need to be in control, because you feel so out of control.
You may not have much patience with yourself or with other people.
You may feel exhausted most of the time.
You may not feel you have the ability to make yourself ‘safe.’
You may not really like yourself.


Understanding Your Escaper Behaviour 

All your emotions are trying to help you. Escaper Behaviour is very common. All of us need to ‘escape’ at times in our lives. However, if Escaper Behaviour is a dominant way of behaving then it may cause distress. It can lead to many different kinds of avoidance which if left unattended can undermine and affect lives.

Escaper Behaviour hides very important emotions
These are: Fear, Anger, Shame and Sadness

It would be helpful for you to understand each of the emotions which are probably ‘stuck’ under your Escaper Behaviour. Emotions often work in groups: your Sadness is connected to your Anger.

Changing
It will take some effort to make incremental changes your Escaper Behaviour. Perhaps it is the way you have always behaved and it makes you feel ‘safe’. Remember, no one can change you, except you. Moving away from Escaping behaviour means that you can confront increasingly difficult obstacles in an honest and self empowering.

If you are an 'Escaper' please go to www.myenow.com and take the programme to start making the necessary changes to your life now.

HAPPY PILLS AVAILABLE NOW!

Warning: THEY SAY - happy pills do not solve all SORTS of problems

WE SAY .... tell us which problems happy pills WiILL solve? Happy pills do not solve ANY problems. Try taking one to stop your partner from bullying you!

Do You Feel Like You Are Drowning?

Do you feel that you have lots of responsibilities and you cannot say ‘no’ to people? This is an example of 'Drowning' which is one of the behaviours in the Manage Your Emotions on line Programme. 

What drowning is

There are times when everything is too much for you.
You may feel as though you are drowning.
You don’t know whether to say something, to leave, to sit down and cry, you can’t decide on anything.
You tend to feel frozen as if you’re not really there. It’s as though events were happening to someone else: you don’t know how to react, so sometimes you just ‘clam up’ and look at others.

Understanding drowning

When you are overwhelmed your emotions are stuck. This means that in some way you are not allowing yourself to ‘feel’ anything.
Feeling ‘overwhelmed’ helps you to avoid things. It may happen when you are doing too much, or you feel that you have too much responsibility and you are unable to say ‘no, I don’t want to do this’.
Your body, mind and emotions will make sure you slow down. Feeling overwhelmed is a way of doing just this, to make you feel that life is happening to someone else and that you do not own your body any more. You are saying that ‘you can’t take any more and you need a break!’

Drowning behaviour hides very important emotions: Fear, Anger, Shame and Sadness

It would be helpful for you to understand each of the emotions which are probably stuck under your Drowning Behaviour. Emotions often go around in pairs or groups:  your Sadness is connected to your Anger. 

• It will take some effort make incremental changes to your Drowning Thinking. Perhaps it is the way you have always behaved and it makes you feel ‘safe’. Remember, no one can change you, except you.
• If you want to carry on behaving in a Drowning way you will always feel like you do now. 

If you feel you would like to understand more about 'Drowning' behaviour or work through the emotions which are underlying this behaviour please visit our website www.myenow.com and take part in the questionnaire.

Are you an Angry Parent?

We hope the answer to this is 'of course' as everyone was born with the ability to feel anger. However, it is how we react to anger which causes most of our emotional problems in our lives.

Most of a child's emotional learning takes place within the family environment. The child not only learns how to respond to the emotions of others, but most importantly how to handle their own intense feelings. As anger is the emotion which most of us have an unhealthy relationship with, it is usually the emotion which a child either learns to repress or express in an aggressive way. What they learn about Anger in the home will usually affect their behaviour outside of the home too. Children may learn to repress their anger, maybe because the parent forbids them to be angry, in which case they may show their anger through sulking, crying or by withdrawing. In teenagers they may become apathetic or 'bored' all the time. Alternatively, they may express their anger in an explosive, aggressive way, behaving in an out of control or verbally abusive manner. As adults, we too can react to our anger in the very same way.
In order for children not to fear anger or use anger in a powerful way we as adults have a responsibility to have a better understanding of how we react to our angry feelings. At Manage Your Emotions we can help both children and adults do just that!
Our unique programme helps not only adults but children to understand the message of anger and through various forms of exercises we can help people to deal with their 'anger' in an assertive way, which is what it is there for.
We like to view 'anger' as a soldier of your own boundary. Its job is to keep you safe and will alert you if anyone hurts you in any way. Anger can help you set boundaries, be heard and gain self respect. However, its is not its job to hurt anyone!
Anger wants to be your friend, not your enemy.

Relationships and Fear

Most of us agree that childhood relationships have dramatic effects on our relationships later in life. Important experiences may form the core beliefs about life in general and painful childhood relationships can become prototypical for later life relationships.

One of the outcomes of a painful childhood relationship may be the 'fear of intimacy'. For adults this may mean a preference for short-term relationships which feel safer than long term or committed relationships. Other people may tolerate long-term relationships providing they are in control and keep others at a certain distance from them emotionally. Some people fear intimacy in any form, which can lead to a sense of meaninglessness or emptiness, or a futile search for 'happiness'. Fears of intimacy can stop a person from experiencing 'love' in healthy ways. Being in a relationship with someone who has a fear of intimacy can be extremely hurtful and emotionally draining. The recipient can suffer rejection, withdrawal and isolation. It is very difficult not to take these actions very personally.

If you are a partner of someone who suffers from 'fear of intimacy' or you feel that you may be experiencing this fear yourself, you may find our Manage Your Emotions programme useful to understand your behaviour and also the messages within your emotions. 

Living With 'Over Eating'

Eating Disorders are not uncommon in our society today. Over the weekend we were told that doctors are to unite to combat obesity and that UK women are the fattest in Europe. Of course, there are lots of varying factors as to why a person can be over weight, but it makes obvious sense to me that if the reason isn't 'medical' it has to be Emotional. To be clear, in this blog I am talking about people who are suffering from over eating/bulimic rather than those who are suffering from Anorexia and whose symptoms are more to do with a Mental Health issue.


When I see an over weight person I tend to see not their size, but their emotional state. My heart goes out for these poor souls who are so insecure that unconsciously (or consciously) have made their weight their barrier against their fears, their protection against life if you like. Usually, the most weight is gained around the stomach area, which is where your gut instinct lies. As society has a great deal to gain from instilling 'Fear' into us all it is not surprising that the body weight people accumulate can be hiding their fear of; not having enough love or money, low self esteem, inability to keep boundaries, feeling powerless, rejection, childhood traumas etc.

When I have counselled people who are battling with over eating, Anger, Resentment  and Apathy are usually the key emotions which are either raging or being totally repressed. But the next big emotions to look at are 'Shame' and 'Fear'. Sometimes Shame is too painful for a person to feel and they try to bury it as deep as they can so that they appear not to have it. Some people do a really good job of this and it is almost as though they are without conscience, but rarely is this so. In fact, most over weight people are extremely sensitive, caring people unable to keep their own boundaries and are over compliant. As already mentioned,  over weight people can be Apathetic (some say lazy), but this is nearly always because of repressed unresolved feelings of Anger and Fear.

Over Eating affects all the members of the family to some degree. This makes utter sense, as we learn how to deal with our emotions through watching how our parents/caregivers handle their own emotions. It can be particularly painful for the partner of an over eater. Partners usually feel really helpless in this situation and may plead with the over eater to get some kind of help. Indeed, some may even feel they are to blame for the over eating in some way. Those partners who have lived with the disorder for many years, hoping things would change, begin to feel Resentful, Angry and mistrustful in the relationship and this can cause them to become 'policemen,' waiting to catch their partner eating what they shouldn't (which will only fuel the fears of the over eater). This in turn can mean that the partner will become the 'abuser' telling the other what they should and shouldn't do (even if it is for the good of the loved one's health) and the other the 'victim' which is a rampant archetype in an over eater. So these relationships become a self fulling prophesy.

What is really needed here to treat this issue from the inside out and I hope the Doctors who meet together to discuss obesity really understand the emotional issues. Yes, bring down the cost of low fat food so that it is more affordable and deal with other external issues which contribute to obesity, but more importantly, provide emotional support  for ALL those who are suffering.

If you or someone you know is suffering from over eating, or if you are in a relationship with a person who has an obesity problem please take a look at our programme www.myenow.com for instant emotional help!

I would like to let you in to a little secret. When I see a client for the first time who wants Counselling I make sure I ask about the way they handle their Anger. What I have learnt over the years of being a therapist is that the way a person handles their Anger is usually at the root of most emotional problems.

I believe that Anger is one of the most hard working and misunderstood of all the emotions (other than Shame). Anger does so much for us, if it wasn't necessary in our lives we wouldn't be born with the ability to feel it. It is essential to help us build boundaries and to make us feel safe. Imagine life without Anger.... I have had a couple of Clients in the past who have chosen to live completely without Anger and whom I consider to be very brave souls. They had decided to live this way because they had lived with parents who used their own anger to abuse their children and hurt others whom they loved. As a child living with this sort of Anger Management you learn from an early age how to hide, become invisible, not to voice your opinion in case of violent reactions. You also become very skilled at recognising when people are feeling angry and either duck out the way, or allow the anger to bounce off you.

This behaviour can then lead to the belief that Anger is dangerous, it is painful and that it should not be shown. As adults, how do these poor people keep their boundaries in disputes, make their opinion heard, allow others to know they are hurt, or say 'no' or 'yes' to people assertively? How can they be 'real' with others? The answer is that quite simply, they don't. These lovely people use different emotions to come forward to help them when they feel hurt or abused. Fear, Sadness and Shame are usually the emotions which will volunteer for the job of protecting you when Anger is not allowed to do its job.

Unfortunately, these are the wrong tools for the job and does not usually promote change or can protect people like Anger can. The irony is that the parents of these clients were using their own Anger abusively because they were scared and vulnerable but couldn't consciously feel or recognise the other emotions such as Sadness or Shame.

People who choose to live without Anger are brave people because they are able to confront other people's Anger with numbness which can create space for others to consciously complain in safety. Indeed, one of my clients who lived without Anger was a Social Worker, working with Young Offenders who were often verbally abusive to her.

However, as you can probably appreciate, these brave people suffer emotionally in many ways. It can take a long time for people to form a new, healthy relationship with Anger. It is very rewarding when you can do this though. It is incredible how you can feel more peaceful and relaxed when you are can trust your Anger to protect you in an honourable way.

At myenow we can help you to forge a new, rewarding relationship with your Anger. What have you got to lose......your Anger?

How Can Parents/Teachers Teach Their Children To Manage Their Emotions?

I was inspired to respond to an article I read today in the Guardian Professional entitled 'We Must Get Serious About Tackling Mental Illness Among The Young.' This piece of writing talks about how parents and governments across the world need to understand the importance of the mental health of children. A view which I totally support of course. In the first paragraph the writer states;  'we must seriously re-evaluate how we raise our children, care for them, teach them to take up supportive and loving relationships, and protect them,' and it is this sentence  that I would like to take issue with.


In order for parents/teachers to help children 'manage their emotions' they really need to be able to manage their own. I have spent many years as a counsellor and often receive phone calls from parents who wish send their children to me for Emotional Therapy. As I run a private practice, parents have to pay for their children's therapy, but they often choose to come to me as the waiting list may be as long as 6 months for a child to see a therapist on the NHS.


The parents come to see me first without the child in order for me to fully understand the situation  from their perspective. After a short while of talking to the parents I can usually begin to understand why the child  may be behaving in the way he/she does. More often than not the situation has come about because the parent/s are having trouble handling their own emotions and the child is reacting to the parents' behaviour. Of course this is a very delicate situation and I have to be very sensitive how I approach this. It is often the norm, that parents send their child to 'therapists' in order for the child's behaviour to change not thinking that they themselves might be the reason for the behaviour in the first place. After suggesting that a solution might be that we work as a team, giving the parents, siblings and the child in question, some different ways of understanding and managing their emotions, I am often met with resistance. As parents we really need to acknowledge our responsibility for our own inept emotional aptitude in terms of the way we deal with our emotions before we can expect any lasting change in the way our children handle their emotions.


There have been times when I have agreed to work with a child when the parents have declined my offer for them to be involved in the therapy. My heart sinks when this scenario plays out, as the child usually responds well to the therapy and then goes back into a negative environment, only to slip back into his/her old pattern of behaviour. Then the parents believe the therapy is is not working because the child's behaviour shows little improvement.


I can't say strongly enough that there needs to be an 'Emotional Revolution' in the way we think about our emotions and how we 'react' to them. I believe this has to happen in order for there to be any real lasting progress made in helping to reduce mental health issues in children.

A New Way Of Thinking About Our Emotions

A new way of thinking about our emotions is essential if we are ever to have an Emotional Revolution. It is about time the rules about emotions were changed, after all they have been left unchallenged for many, many years. We are beginning to see that the way we deal with our emotions is essential to our mental, physical and spiritual health. I am very enthusiastic about helping people to learn about our emotions in a totally different way to the way society and religion have always taught us. Society and Religion have made us believe that there are 'positive' and 'negative' emotions and that we must do our utmost to try and stay in the lovely, comfortable no problem emotions. So  what do we do with the other uncomfortable, painful, emotions? Repress, or avoid them of course! However, just look at the impossible task Society and Religion has set us.

Here is the list of  Positive Emotions
Happiness
Joy
Peace
Contentment
Love

Here is a list of the other Emotions
Anger         Depression
Hate           Anxiety
Rage          Apathy
Fear           Frustration
Jealousy     Despair
Grief          Guilt
Sadness     Shame
Envy        

It is hopefully obvious to you that there are far more uncomfortable emotions compared to the comfortable ones. So how on earth are we supposed to keep feeling the five 'positive' emotions when we are running from the other 15? It is impossible!

Most of us were born with the ability to feel all of the emotions, painful and comfortable ones, this is because all of the emotions have a function for us. It is my opinion that the dark uncomfortable emotions are our greatest teachers. Each of them has its own special message for us and if we would only listen to the message  or even just part of the message then they will have done their job and they will flow through us. You see the uncomfortable emotions (I refuse to call them negative as they are not, it is our reaction to them which is negative) don't want to stay with us, they just want us to acknowledge them and then they will leave, but will return again when we need them. We have learnt to repress them, to avoid them by taking anti-depressants, over working, taking drugs, drinking alcohol, gambling, over eating etc. This is mainly because other people can't deal with their own emotional pain and so can not deal with being with other people who are also in pain. So, from childhood many of us have learnt not to have them. 'You mustn't be jealous of your sister,' a parent might say, or 'You can't get angry at me, I'm an adult!' 'Don't cry' 'Its wrong to hate people.' The list goes on.

It is almost as though society and religion want us to remain in a constant state of repression. By stitching up the emotions as 'positive' an 'negative' we do not learn how to deal with the negative but only repress them. The ironic thing is, while we continue to do this, we will never experience those lovely emotions we crave to feel. 'Happiness flows when all the emotions flow' - Karla McClaren, Language of Emotions.