Editorial 

As we go about our busy private and professional lives, does it seem increasingly hard to ignore the worldwide rumblings of climate chaos in the background? Our island seems, for now, blessedly protected from the worst of it: the extreme heat and torrential rains, destructive wind and surging tides that regularly besiege our less well-situated neighbours. If you are looking for an alternative to the “distress, denial, and disavowal” that has become so much a part of our eco-anxiety, please join the conversation with Imogen O’Connor in her opening article of this issue: “Let’s talk about climate change.”

Do you ever wonder if the DSM, with its ever-expanding catalogue of disorders (370 and counting), is really the infallible bible of diagnosis that many of us have come to believe? If so, please see what Gayle Williamson has to say about “The myth of mental illness.” We are proud to be a forum for voices like these that question assumptions and open doors to new ways of seeing the familiar. Another such esteemed beacon of light is founding member Shirley Ward who invites us to join her on a guided journey into the underworld of “Suicide, para-suicide, and self-harming in prenatal and perinatal psychotherapy.” In the first of a two-part article she shows us that deeply traumatised souls may be able to escape their death wishes and embrace life with expert guidance and loving care.

If your practice is awash in marital discord and divorce, and you could use some inspiration and encouragement, we offer Fergus Finucane’s essay on the “Resnick model of couples therapy” with his seven years’ worth of experience in their workshops as his foundation.

When disorder, divorce, death and disaster become too much to contemplate, we have our traditional allies to come to the rescue: the faeries, who may be in danger of being forgotten as our focus turns away from the natural world to the ever-more virtual. William Pattengill reminds us that despite their historically ambivalent behaviour, they can light the way to a transcendence found only in embracing our belief in something beyond the “merely explainable.” For more light, there is the praise of Colm O’Doherty’s “Down and Dirty” from the Spring 2023 issue by Maria Moran, and two sequels to other previously published works: “Dreams Part II” by Mark Redmond, and “Single-session therapy and the therapist’s fear of opening up a can of worms” by Windy Dryden.

We are also honored to present “On becoming an integrative therapist” by John Bourke who shares his thorough research of the process, based on a series of carefully structured interviews of Irish clinicians.

Sara Carroll tells a “Tale from a trailing spouse” as the wife of an emerging therapist, and Sarah Kay shared memories of Anne Kavanagh in her obituary, recalling her “compassion and wisdom for healing families.” Poetry by Simona Tudor, Sinead Ryan and John Bourke provide the dessert for our Autumn feast.

IAHIP 2023 - INSIDE OUT 101- Autumn 2023