Commentary on article 'Our Medical Advances Have Outstripped our Humanity'.

I found this article published in the Guardian to be poignant because of the honest and insightful manner in which it was written. I admire the author for sharing his story because many disabled people shy away from sharing their experiences, and have an angry attitude towards life. He demonstrated that wallowing in self-pity does no good, and although his situation is terribly sad, he is able to see beyond the limitations of his daughter, which a lot of people fail to do. I agree that we cannot let our problems control our lives, because by nature we adapt and have the ability to find the strength, if we search for it.

The main problem with those who cannot come to terms with their disability lies in the belief that the world owes them something. To harbor this attitude and resentment towards disability only sets a person back because the world does not stop for anyone and there plenty of opportunities to find happiness whilst living with a disability. We cannot change the course of life but what we can do is change our outlook. Of course it may be slightly more difficult at times, as a fellow disabled person I recognise that we will have our ups and downs, yet character and determination can set us on the right path to achieving happiness within ourselves. 

Following on from this article, I hope that more disabled people will share their experiences and feel involved as a valued member of society. It is empowering to voice our opinions because failing to do so isolates us from other people and prevents them from understanding what we are feeling or thinking. It is only through experience of listening to our opinions that we can change preconceptions of disability, which is why I encourage other people with disabilities to speak out and not suffer in silence. 

Our Medical Advances Have Outstripped our Humanity (Repost from the Guardian website)

'I can still remember each second of that day just before Christmas when everything changed. The happy family lunch, then the seizure suffered by my tiny new daughter, her eyes rolling and little limbs flailing. The nice paediatrician telling us gently she had “profound brain damage”, then carrying her with tears in my eyes through crowds of festive shoppers.

The next months and years are harder to recall, a blur of dark times later identified as the mourning period that parents in such cases endure. There were batteries of tests, endless scans, the same ceaseless questions as she was prodded, probed and wired up to weird machines. But there were none of the expected signs of brain damage, nor any clues over her condition from the doctors searching for a diagnosis.

One supposed expert measured our heads before declaring breezily that our daughter – then suffering up to 30 seizures a day – would have only minor impairments to her IQ. Others were more realistic, offering gloomier prognoses as it became apparent she would never walk, talk or feed herself given disabilities that were profound, complex and baffling to the medical world.

In those early days – about two decades ago – this lack of explanation for my daughter’s suffering drove me to despair, hearing her awful screams at night and seeing those dreadful epileptic fits in the day. It also meant we could not take the risk of having another child and we worried about the implications for our son – although my wife was more sanguine, saying it was probably just some ‘genetic thing’.

So it was good to see the announcement last week of a £300m package of public and private investment for the 100,000 Genomes Project, a Cambridge-based research initiative to sequence genomes of NHS patients. This is a significant step into the promised brave new world of medicine, with genetic code deciphered to discover, treat and even predict illness. It will also boost a related project focusing on children such as mine whose disorders evade conventional diagnosis.

As time went on and we adapted to our daughter’s condition, that lack of a label to hang on whatever made her the way she is became less important. It was always the first question new acquaintances asked if she cropped up in discussion, before toppling into a conversational black hole. But as she grew older, she developed her own character just like any other child; it was more important to recognise who she was and what she needed than worry all the time about the cause of her problems.

I saw often how people struggle to see past disabilities, however. The more I looked, the more I learned that most of the hurdles people with disabilities have to overcome are societal, forcing many into the shadows through a deadly combination of discomfort, discrimination and a lack of interest. The government says there are 11 million people in Britain with some form of disability or life-limiting illness. Yet a study by the charity Scope found that nearly half the public do not know anyone disabled – and more than two-thirds feel uncomfortable just speaking to a person with disabilities.

No wonder there is still abuse and violence against those with learning difficulties and physical impairments. No wonder governments can bungle disability benefit reforms with barely any concern among the wider public. No wonder local authorities can offer such paucity of services, if they exist at all. And no wonder prejudice remains so pervasive, even in healthcare where it routinely proves fatal.

My daughter’s condition is at the most extreme end of the spectrum, requiring 24-hour care. Yet she is happy and smiles often when the wretched seizures are at bay, giving love back to those around her and lifting spirits. Four years ago we finally got the diagnosis: a genetic disorder called CDKL5 discovered a decade after her birth. We were told she was among 200 recognised cases worldwide, although numbers grow all the time. I found this revelation after so long strangely unsettling; it was a reminder also that too many people are defined by their disabilities rather than their personalities or skills.

We see this again in the case of the Australian couple accused of abandoning a baby with Down’s syndrome, born to a surrogate mother in Thailand. This provoked global outrage, quite rightly if disputed claims they refused to take one twin because of his disabilities are true. Yet the furore seems rather synthetic when our own country aborts a rising number of such children simply on the grounds of disability, even up to the moment of natural birth and when apparent abnormalities can be comparatively slight.

This is not to quibble with any woman’s sacred right to choose, merely to highlight the casual acceptance that disabled lives are second-rate and can be discarded as too burdensome. Some people, even doctors, say such things explicitly; this is the backdrop facing people with disabilities even before birth. Now we enter the age of genetics, which offers such hope for advancing healthcare but has also sparked a new form of eugenics, with scientists talking of eradicating disabilities at birth from the human condition.

This has long been predicted; even 24 years ago Troy Duster,, a prominent sociologist, warned of a back door to eugenics made up of ‘screens, treatments and therapies’. Now zealots such as John Harris, bioethics professor at Manchester University, advocate what they call ‘enhancing evolution’ by eliminating genes that cause unwanted conditions to create ‘better’ people. Last year, he told me on television it was ‘morally wrong’ for parents to choose a child with a disability if science offered an alternative.

Those preaching this new eugenics conflate health and disability, harm and difference. They dismiss how diversity enriches the world, reject complex issues of choice, ignore implications of inferiority. They sweep aside Stephen Hawking writing about how motor neurone disease focused his work, or studies showing people with Down’s syndrome to be far happier with their lives and looks than the average person.

One tragedy of modern society is this failure to come to terms with disability, even as numbers rise with ageing populations and other medical advances. This is the true immorality: the shameful exclusion of so many people who could contribute so much to communities. Until society grips this, we cannot start to grapple with some of the most profound questions facing our species in the genetic wonderland. Sadly, it seems our technology has again exceeded our humanity.'

Birrell, I. 2014. 'Our Medical Advances Have Outstripped our Humanity. Available at <http://www.ianbirrell.com/our-medical-advances-have-outstripped-our-humanity/>

True Colours

This is my article which I wrote after I qualified as a counsellor in July 2013. It explains my personal journey and how I mananged to get to where I am today.

In 2009 I began studying for a Level 2 certificate in counselling concepts and training at St Ivo School Adult and Community Learning in Cambridgeshire. I completed the Level 2 in 10 weeks and then went on to complete Level 3 in2010 and Level 4 in 2011-13. My training consisted of cognitive behavioural therapy, humanistic and psychodynamic theories. I consider myself to be an integrative counsellor. I am currently completing the face-to-face client hours I need to qualify as a counsellor. This article is a reflection on the stages of my training and the personal transformation I have undergone. But first, some background information about me. My name
is Rebecca. I am 26 years old. I have cerebral palsy.
Cerebral palsy occurs when part of the brain fails to work. Each case is unique, but usually people’s muscle control and mobility are affected. Due to severe weakness in my legs, back and arms – particularly in my left side – I need help with dressing, bathing and washing, toileting and getting into bed. I have involuntary movement in my left arm, which I cannot control – spasms just happen of their own accord. I also have a visual impairment, which means I require large print in order to read. I am in an electric wheelchair all the time and need to be accompanied when I go out. I have wanted to be a counsellor since I was 10 years old. As
I was growing up, I had more connections with adults than with people my own age. Due to the nature of conversation I could have with them, I found that adults could reason and question me better; there was more depth to the conversation. People my own age shied away from me. I think it was because they did not know how to approach me and my disability, and I was still coming to terms with it myself then. Surrounded by adults, I did not talk much, but listened more. This capacity to listen came before I was able to find my own voice. From what I heard, other friends were not given the time and attention they needed from their families in order to verbalise their worries. And if they did verbalise them, family members would just jump in and try to solve problems without actually hearing them out or listening properly to what they had on their mind. This is one of the reasons I sought counselling training.

Growing up, due to the different needs I had compared to everybody else, when I heard other people talk about their problems I could see how much that problem was affecting them. Even though I was in a wheelchair, I could see how people around me were being disabled by their anxiety, and not having the time and space to explore such issues. I wanted to show them that it could be done. This again drove me towards counselling training. I started to see the value in counselling because of its power to help people make adjustments to their lives, so that they could be in a happier state of mind. I became passionate about making a difference to clients’ lives. The qualities of a counsellor fit with my morals in life, to have a non-judgmental attitude, to be authentic, and have respect.
Another reason I wanted to be a counsellor was because I wanted to challenge the idea that your disability could stop you from doing the things you want to do. The determination to turn disability into ability made me want to try harder. I have always had cerebral palsy. I am not angry about the condition. That is the way it is. If you are angry about your condition, you won’t get anywhere in life. I don’t see the world with contempt, as if it has done me a disservice. I have a sense of humour, which gets me through the things I cannot do. I have got freedom. I see my wheelchair as my legs. But then I do not have freedom in another sense, because I cannot go out on my own. I have a philosophical outlook, which is the backbone of who I am and how I live.

If I sign up for something, be it a college course or sporting activity, a music gig or a meal out, I always have to say at the start that I am a wheelchair user and I have cerebral palsy. I have to determine the accessibility of a venue before I can go there. Up until a year ago, I found it excruciating to say the words disabled, wheelchair and cerebral palsy. I would jump if I heard these words spoken by someone else. These words were at the root of my problem. To say them was to acknowledge that my disability was a reality and I worked through this in my personal therapy. I don’t think everyone labelled as having adisability should be classified under the term disabled. Now I will begin talking about my counselling training. I will discuss each level of my training in turn, to highlight my personal growth in trying to overcome each challenge I faced. A chameleon can switch its colours. I was used to blending into the background, much like a chameleon can. However, my aim was to become more like a rainbow, which is able to show all of its colours all of the time. I can compare the colours of the rainbow to different emotions and aspirations. I wanted to feel all the emotions represented in the rainbow and to be able to communicate them. My counselling training allowed for this transformation. 

Hiding inside my shell
One of the constraints I experienced during my training was myself. I was very shy when I started my counselling course. In my life, at this time, I put up a wall, so others couldn’t get to me. It was as if I had put up a glass panel. I could be seen, but not reached. To get over this, I had to take the wheelchair barrier away first of all, and then I had to take the wall down. I was battling the wheelchair stigma as well as the wall I had built to protect myself, my low self-esteem and confidence. Due to the course being reassembled, I took a year out and when I re-joined I was with a different group. It was a diverse group that encompassed different beliefs, religions, cultures, personalities, counselling styles and philosophical views. The diversity of the group aided discussion around the topic of difference. As well as the diversity within the group, the tutors all had very different teaching styles. But I found it difficult to make connections with my peers at first. They had already built up a friendship between themselves.

When I first met the group I felt apprehensive about whether they would understand my needs immediately. I think that is the case whenever you meet someone new. My deep-seated anxiety showed itself through my quiet voice. I felt completely supported by my tutors, but I did not feel immediately at ease in the group. I started off behaving in a very introverted way.
I chose not to contribute when in the wider group. In fact, I didn’t speak in front of the group as a whole until a year and ahalf into the course. I had, however, showed how much I had to contribute through my written work. The time I had to think about my written work allowed me the chance to articulate it exactly as it was in my head. My silence had given people the chance to wonder what I was like as a person; they seemed curious. I didn’t want to speak for the sake of it, so when I did finally contribute in class, it made my tutor jump.

I overcame my introverted personality because my thought processes were so deep. I began to philosophise about why I was in a wheelchair and how I could move forward. I put things into context. I started achieving some small goals that I had set myself. For example, I started sharing more within smaller groups, and the more I shared, the more my character would come out. I began to let other people see all the colours of my personality. It was a gradual process to get to this point, and I continued to make swift progress. If people were willing to be patient, and if I was willing to show my true colours, then my bubbly personality would show itself. When I took the Level 2 exam and the tutors told me I had passed, I didn’t believe it could be me. I asked: ‘Are you sure you are talking about the right person?’ But it was me. It wasn’t a figment of my imagination.


Peeking out
When I was studying for my Level 3 qualification I hired a personal assistant and this had a profound effect on me. It was a necessary part of the course to get my thoughts onto paper.
I tried to use a voice recognition program in order to complete the assignments, but to no avail. Therefore, in order to complete this process, the only feasible option for me was to tell my thoughts to another person, who could write it down for me. Sharing my inner world was a challenge at times. When you
feel you have something to say, amongst friends for example, something that might be a very personal thought or feeling,

or an idea that you feel they might not agree with, then you might choose not to say it. In this context of my counselling coursework I had to say it all. I wanted it to be an honest account of my thoughts and feelings. At times my PA would try to persuade me not to write some of the things that I wanted to. This made me feel more vulnerable about expressing myself truthfully. I had to let them in completely. I had to verbalise everything I was thinking throughout the whole course in order to complete the written component. The congruence, the trust and the confidence between me and my PA was paramount in order for me to get everything down that I wanted to.
Just before the exam for the Level 3 course, my wheelchair was stolen. It was a huge shock, but I had to get on without it. I still had to do the exam, and I managed it. I completed thexam in a manual wheelchair, which meant as a result I was much lower down and I couldn’t move as easily. It made it more difficult for me, but I didn’t give up. Over the course of my studies I had increased my self-awareness to a point where instead of barriers being a hindrance, I just went ahead and got things done. I had developed a quiet mind, but a loud voice when needed. This was due to introspection, which in turn

led me to find the answer, to find the strength.

Revealing myself
My experience studying for my Level 4 qualification brought a whole host of new challenges. I suddenly found myself losing control of my own body. I lost my balance. Even though I was functioning in my head, all of a sudden my body did not feel part of me. I didn’t feel connected to it and everything became out of synch. As a result, I took eight weeks off in order to work on this change in me. It was during this time that philosophy really became influential for me, helping me to bring my body and mind into alignment once more. Existentialism focuses on the purpose of life and why we are here, and makes you examine your life. Sartre’s concept of ‘being and nothingness’1 was also paramount in my self-discovery. You can experience nothingness inside when you cannot connect the mind and body together. I had a realisation that I am in this world to
learn and do something that I am passionate about. These philosophies helped me to realise this.
There came an important turning point, in terms of my peers’ understanding of my disability, during a skills practice that focused on a scenario surrounding disability. One of my peers had to take the role of a client with motor neurone disease. She had to take on the emotional and physical stress caused by the condition and portray it in the session. The remaining members of the group took it in turns to be the counsellor for five minutes each. Before we did this practice session, I felt that my fellow students were quite scared to talk to me about my disability; after this exercise they found it a lot easier to approach me. They became more inquisitive and they understood more fully what day-to-day life is like for a disabled person, like myself. I believe the group could have benefited even more if an exercise that explored disability had taken place earlier in the training programme. Maybe then I would have connected better with the group in the early stages.

During Level 4 I had to find a work placement. I was worried about working in an agency, in unfamiliar surroundings. I contacted 50 different organisations and received very similar responses – either that there was no accessibility, or that they were not taking on students at that time. I do not believe that counselling work placements are set up adequately forwheelchair users. I still believe there is a lot of work to be done to make it more inclusive to all. Thankfully, my tutors were very supportive and contacted the exam board on my behalf and organised things so I could complete my work placement hours from home. I advertised my counselling service online in order to recruit clients. Working from home did present some risks and ethical issues. The experience of first meeting a client can be daunting. On top of this, to welcome them into my own home made me consider my safety. To rectify this, there is always someone in the house when I’m counselling. In my house I have my own room in which to see clients. This provides a confidential and private space. Since then, I have very nearly completed my 120 client hours. I have been carrying out individual counselling with adults presenting with eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety and disability. My supervisor has provided help and support throughout my completion of client hours. I was responsible for the initial assessment to gauge whether I could work with the clients’ issues effectively. My caseload was then handled by having two or three clients a week, managed by my supervisor and myself. I also attended monthly supervision to discuss my work. I can now see the finishing post. It gets closer every time I complete another client hour. My dream is becoming more realistic every day. 

Putting things into practice
I’m equipped to tackle life now, and this is down to my present frame of mind. This shift in my mindset is due to the counselling course I have been pursuing and my own personal therapy. My capacity to think about things in a deep way gives me a reassurance that I am able to go beyond the self. The pain of any situation I might be facing goes away when I think deeply about life and my self-awareness. This depth gives me strength, and it prevents me from falling back into how I felt at the beginning of my training. If something did not go quite right before, I would fall straight down. But now I can better arrive at a balance.
I look up rather than down now. But I am glad that I had the experience of falling down, because without it I would never have had the chance to bounce back up, and I realise I have experienced similar emotions to what my clients might have been through. 

When I had my first private practice client this was a massive step. It proved to me that I could actually do it. No matter how many problems you might face, it can be done. Overcoming nervousness, achieving confidence and self-esteem, forgetting the stigma of the wheelchair, the introspection, the ability to self-reflect – all these elements I have experienced along the way to reaching my diploma in counselling. I am partly writing this article to reflect on my journey and for other people to help them to follow their own dream. 

Reference
1. Sartre J.P. Beingandnothingness:anessayonphenomenological ontology (second edition). London: Routledge; 2003. 

Reflections on My Counselling Journey

My name is Rebecca Sherwood, I am a qualified counsellor and I am also member of the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists. I am wheelchair user and have Cerebral Palsy. I have wanted to become a counsellor for a very long time, from the age of ten, which shows that I have always had an interest in the subject area. I have experienced people suffering in silence and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to make a difference to people's lives.

I studied for a diploma in counselling, and have plenty of experience in working with clients directly. You can view my qualifications at: www.rebeccasherwood.co.uk   where I also have listed more information about myself. I specialise in counselling for: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and disability. I have published in the Private Practice Journal, where I discuss from beginning to the end of my training (link provided below)

In my spare time I enjoy going to debates at the Cambridge Union. I have also just finished an undergraduate course in Philosophy, at Cambridge University. Psychology is another subject which I have taken an interest in. Both Philosophy and Psychology complement my counselling, as I am also able to provide existential counselling.

www.rebeccasherwood.co.uk
http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/rebecca-sherwood
http://bacppp.org.uk/_sitedata/1391515928%20Z3A0IvmuG/JournalsFromOldSite/12501_true%20colours.pdf

A New Voice Through Writing

After  trawling the internet I have noticed that there is a lack of books written by disabled people. This might be because often it is not easy to talk about disability or celebrate the positive. Of course when you have a disability it is tempting to shy away from breaking down the barrier and discussing it, but it is beneficial to both the reader and writer to talk more openly about something which impacts on our lives so significantly.

My reading taste is very eclectic and I will give any book a go, but what has been the most rewarding for me is when I have read autobiographies by people with disabilities. This is not to say I wouldn't enjoy something written by someone able-bodied, but as I am in a wheelchair myself I have been inspired by these particular kinds of autobiographies that I have read. They have given me an insight into people's ways of living which I may not have previously understood. For example, Jess Thom's "Welcome to Biscuitland" helped me to imagine what it must be like to live with Tourettes Syndrome throughout everyday life. This book gave me a new found respect for people who suffer from this, and has also given me a renewed hope that more individuals will share their stories. 

I have found in the past that most books written about living with cerebral palsy have failed to enlighten me, because the authors were fairly self-deprecating. Which is why I was so pleased when I stumbled across Francesca Martinez's "What The F*** is Normal?" In this book her character and spirit shone through, overcoming her disability. Martinez writes modestly about herself and her achievements, and doesn't allow her disability to control the narrative. It is important in these sorts of autobiographies to strike the difficult balance between enough lightheartness alongside exploring vulnerability, which she seems to do well. Books about disability should not dwell on the aspect of pity, instead they should focus on offering an insight. 

Writing is a release and a good way to carefully convey the implications with living with either a physical or mental disability. Words are powerful, as you will find in both Thom's and Martinez's books. It is a privilege to experience a person's life so closely and so deeply, through a text. It may reduce ignorance and would allow people to be better equipped to understand the situations of others. For this reason, I encourage others to share their stories, just as I intend to share mine. 

The Annual Disability lecture- Cambridge University, 2014

I attended the lecture on disability, slightly apprehensive of the way in which the lecture was going to be delivered, given that the topic of disability is such a sensitive issue. Generally disabilities and mental health are a conversational taboo because people neither understand them properly, nor want to talk about them. I was pleasantly surprised how the speaker, Dr Rachel Perkins, managed to address mental illness in a relaxed and respectful way, similar to how I am aim to when dealing with clients. What I drew from the lecture is that there seems to be three main reasons why people might choose not to accept help with a mental illness:

(i)                    They are scared of the stigma surrounding it. Unfortunately it still remains an embarrassing prospect for many people to face up to the label.  I want to dissipate the preconceptions.

(ii)                  Fear of the unknown, and fear of bothering someone, feeling unworthy of others spending time with them. Ultimately hoping it will all disappear.

(iii)                They are in denial and have failed to recognise that they are, in fact, ill.

These three reasons might be justified in the case of a patient visiting a doctor for advice, because they might be clinical in labelling a patient and prescribing certain drugs. However in a counselling scenario, there would be no form of judgment; each case would be evaluated individually. The main difference is that a counsellor has time and interest, which a typical GP might lack. Counselling is about normalising the illness, making the patient recognise that they are not the only one going through this, and that others have also overcome this. It offers a safe, non-judgmental, confidential setting. It is an alternative to taking medication, because talking helps discover new ways of finding purpose in life.

Many different things can trigger off negative thoughts and mental instability. We can’t assume that we are exempt from an illness of this kind. For example, eating disorders can develop from various life experiences, such as over-exposure to media expectations, stress, and warped body image. I specialise in counselling clients with: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and physical disabilities. Society today places an emphasis on how a ‘normal’ person should be, rather than how we want to be. But if we harbour self-defeating thoughts then we will never develop our full potential, and are always held back. Sometimes we need to seek the help of a counsellor who is impartial and willing to listen.

The concept of seeking a counsellor is becoming more accepted due to the fact that in modern day society we are faced with more issues than ever, and that we have to adapt to. We all need help at some stage in our lives, so instead of blaming ourselves or taking it out on other people, counselling acts as a coping mechanism. You will be taken seriously, no matter what size of the problem you bring to counselling sessions, because you are unique and everything affects us all in different ways.

As a wheelchair user, I have also needed to breakdown barriers within myself. I have now achieved what I set out to achieve, but this was only through acceptance of my circumstances and myself. This is why I believe that I am able to be sympathise with others going through any mental struggle.

https://secure.counselling-directory.org.uk/membersarea.php

Similarities and Differences Between Hawking's Life and Disability to Mine

On Saturday I went to see "Hawking", a biographical movie about his life and disability, and I could not help but notice certain similarities and differences between his life and my own. One of the similarities between Hawking and myself is that I like discovering new philosophical views and ideas; thinking about the big questions. However, his focus and interests mainly lie with problems of Physics such as black holes, particles and matter - while Philosophy still talks about the physical world, it approaches different problems from different angles. Another similarity is that Stephen Hawking says that there are no boundaries to endeavours, which is the way I approach my life as well. An observation I made was that he has an intellectual curiosity about the world, which makes him want to find out all that he can about the Cosmos in the limited time that he has, a curiosity made more intense due to this race against time. I can understand his wanting to focus on the big questions due to this time constraint and because of this, however small or large his discoveries are, they hold great meaning for him as part of this curiosity, a feeling which I share when it comes to satisfying my own.

After he had an unexpected fall down a set of stairs at the age of twenty, Stephen Hawking was taken to the doctor and was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and when his family was told that he had only two years left to live, they went through a dark black hole of depression (as opposed to a light black hole). From that moment on his condition worsened, though while his body deteriorated his mind grew stronger. Even through the deterioration of the body, one can depend on the strength of the spirit remaining the same. After contracting pneumonia, he gradually lost the power to talk, now only able to talk through the use of technology which reads his eye and cheek movements. I relate this to my own experience of becoming more vocal, making the most of my voice and expressing things in the way that I want. When Stephen first learned about his disability, he had a renewed sense of determination, wanting to prove his doctors and family wrong by not letting his disability beat him without a fight, something which makes him one of the most inspiring scientists of our time.

The film is a must see as it portrays disability in a positive, uplifting way. It's a big thing to let people into your personal world, and for the first time Hawking is revealing more than just his intellectual work to the public, potentially putting him in a vulnerable position, something I wish more people had the guts to do. It was nice to see that Stephen had good banter with his carers, and you can see his good sense of humour through the way they interacted with him - this is another similarity I found between us, as I think it is important to have a sense of humour. Having a good sense of humour lightens the mood - things cannot and should not be serious all of the time. Another observation I made was that because of Stephen's situation, with many carers around him constantly he had very little time to himself away from the world, which he found hard to adapt to, but he had no choice. I know I am going to have to have carers and it will be interesting to see how I cope with this change in my everyday routine, but I mustn't deny that it will happen one day. It was a privilege to gain more insight into motor neurone disease, a disease I wanted to know more about - it might help me to gain more knowledge about friends or clients I may have in the future with this condition. It's also good to branch out and gain knowledge about disabilities in the world other than my own. Often people with disabilities hide away and don't freely share their insights, but I feel it's a very important exercise to do so regularly.


www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/rebecca-sherwood