Meeting my theapist

So, today I met with Alyson Henty, who has kindly volunteered to help me in my performance, and take the role of the psychotherapist. As I have said it is important that the performer taking this role is an actual psychotherapist. Alyson is one of three director of East Kent based company ‘Together in Communication’. ‘Together in Communictaion’ (TIC) is a not for profit company who work in schools in the Medway area to provide counselling and support for children and families, as well as working on a number of other projects in the area, such as a program of counselling session with overweight people called ‘tipping the balance’. The company was established in 2005, and since then it has gained a great deal of respect and funding in the local area, as well as receiving lottery grants. On there website (http://ticcic.co.uk/AllAboutUs.html) they say they’re aims are to work for ‘social benefit and improvement, (to) work collaboratively helping develop healthily, real and meaningful relationships that are based on respect, honesty, integrity and mutual trust.’ In their own words there vision is to ‘give people the opportunity to understand and improve relationships in a peaceful, powerful and trusting community, by using innovative, retainable and self sustainable methodologies.’ Through her work with TIC and her own private practice Alyson has a great deal of experience working with both adults and children. I will also be working with another of TIC’s directors, Sue, who also has a great wealth of experience working with children and adults, through TIC and her private practice in west Kent. Having a wealth of experience at my disposal in both Alyson and Sue I feel safe that my performance will run smoothly, and be informed by their knowledge around this area of psychotherapy.
This was my first meeting with Alyson regarding the performance, but I had discussed it previously via e.mail. It was good to meet face to face, because we were able to talk about the technicalities of the performance and how we might structure it. We decided that we were going to do three 30-minute sessions, one in a direct style and one indirect. The direct style is where the psychotherapist guide the client in what they are doing, for example they might say, ‘why don’t you paint a picture of what you think a family looks like…’, indirect is where they just let the client do what they like and then comment on it, for example they might say, ‘I see you are playing with that soft toy, do you like the soft toy…’. The last session we will decide on the day which style is working best for the performance, and do it in that style. We discussed the role that Alyson is going to take, and how to act. We also settled on a date for the performance, which will be the 13th of May.
I am really happy with how this meeting went. Alyson really seemed to understand where I was coming from and what I wanted to do, and was very happy to help. I’m confident in her as my psychotherapist role.