Friday 14 December 2012

MY TOP 40 ALBUMS OF 2012

For those of you who may be interested in such things, please find below a list of my favourite full-length albums of 2012; listed more, or less in order of preference...

I hope that you find some moments of listening pleasure amongst them.

All the best for 2013 when it comes!

1. Julia Holter – Ekstasis
2. Chromatics – Kill For Love
3. Liars- WIXIW
4. Symmetry- Themes For An Imaginary Film
5. Beach House- Bloom
6. Holy Other- Held
7. Grizzly Bear- Shield
8. Andy Stott- Luxury Problems
9. Vessel- Order Of Noise
10. Actress- RIP

11. Dirty Projectors- Swing Lo Magellan
12. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti- Mature Themes
13. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead- Lost Songs
14. Bat For Lashes- The Haunted Man
15. Tame Impala- Lonerism
16. Field Music- Plumb
17. Egyptian Hip Hop- Good Don't Sleep
18. Daphni- Jiaolong
19. Hot Chip- In Our Heads
20. The Shins- Port of Morrow

21. The Mars Volta- Noctourniquet
22. Kindness- World You Need A Change Of Mind
23. Memory Tapes- Grace / Confusion
24. Ital- Dream On
25. The Walkmen- Heaven
26. Gatto Fritto- Gatto Fritto
27. Lindstrom- Smalhans
28. Errors- Have Some Faith In Magic
29. Matthew Dear- Beams
30. Laurel Halo – Quarantine

31. Blondes- Blondes
32. Shed- The Killer
33. John Talabot- Fin
34. Scuba- Personality
35. Teen Daze- All Of Us Together
36. Bear In Heaven- I Love You, It's Cool
37. The Soft Moon- Zeroes
38. Who Made Who- Brighter
39. Chilly Gonzales- Solo Piano II
40. Teengirl Fantasy- Tracer


www.harfordtherapy.com

Thursday 11 October 2012

European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA) Research Conference, London: 12th-13th November 2012

Hi Folks The Programme Overview and the full Speaker/session details are available on the STAA Documents page of the STAA website and are also now published at http://www.taresearch.org/programme-details.html So, please check it out, tell your colleagues and make your bookings. It's only a few weeks away now! Best wishes David Harford

Wednesday 10 October 2012

BBC Website Article on Narcissism- healthy or unhealthy?

Hi Everyone Please find below an interesting piece examining the much-criticised mode of relating known as narcissism and its vital role in healthy childhood development: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19876494 Its worth remembering that behind every personality style (Johnson, 1994)- however challenging in the interpersonal realm- there is a well-intentioned attempt to resolve existential crises and meet human needs. David Harford

Friday 31 August 2012

Discounts with Physis Training for all full STAA Members

Hi Folks

As part of an expanding range of membership benefits, the Scottish Transactional Analysis Association (STAA) are pleased to announce that all full STAA Members are now entitled to a 10% discount on all training / CPD events run by Physis Training in Edinburgh.

All STAA Members will shortly receive an email containing a promotional code, which can be used when booking training places via Physis Training's dedicated Eventbrite page.

Simply enter the code in the appropriate box in the booking form and the discount will be automatically deducted from your invoice.

Watch this space for more STAA membership benefits in due course!

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Scottish TA Conference 2012 - tickets on sale

Hi Folks Please visit the STAA Conferences and the STAA Documents pages for information on our next Conference, which is scheduled for Saturday 6th October- once again, at Pollock Halls of Residence in Edinburgh.

You can download all the documentation you need from the Documents page, including Workshop Proposal and Booking Forms.

Meanwhile, please visit the STAA Online Shop to purchase tickets electronically via Paypal.

Hope to see you there!

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Tuesday 26 June 2012

FREE Summer Event for full STAA Members and Physis/CPTI trainees - RSVP REQUIRED

All full STAA members, plus past and present TA trainees with CPTI/Physis Training are warmly invited to attend a Summer Party at The Meadows Bar (formerly the Borough Hotel), 72-80 Causewayside, Edinburgh at 5.30pm on Sunday 15th July.

Your FREE entry includes two alcoholic / soft drinks and a tasty finger buffet, so please come along and enjoy the company of your colleagues and peers over a drink, or two!

Current members of the STAA Committee will be present to discuss the organisation's work, together with our forthcoming Scottish TA Conference, plus there will be a presentation of certificates to all the trainees who recently achieved the COSCA-validated Diploma in TA Counselling.

** PLEASE E-MAIL shop@scottishta.org.uk IN ORDER TO BOOK YOUR PLACE **

Further details will appear on the Physis Training Facebook page in due course, so why not pay a visit and 'Like' them to stay informed of all their latest news.

We look forward to seeing you there!

David Harford http://www.scottishta.org.uk/ www.harfordtherapy.com

Friday 15 June 2012

Scottish Transactional Analysis Conference 2012 - Tickets Now Available

Hi Folks. Please visit the STAA Conferences and the STAA Documents pages for information on our next Conference, which is scheduled for Saturday 6th October- once again, at Pollock Halls of Residence in Edinburgh. You can download all the documentation you need from the Documents page, including Workshop Proposal and Booking Forms. Meanwhile, please visit the STAA Online Shop to purchase tickets electronically via Paypal. Hope to see you there! David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Monday 23 April 2012

Being Alone Versus Being Lonely in the Mobile age

A moving and thought-provoking article, which, claiming my right to total hypocrisy, I am posting on a social networking site. I guess this phenomenon is one of the reasons that counselling and psychotherapy are becoming increasingly important these days...An uninterrupted hour of intimate embodied dialogue, etc. The Flight from Conversation- New York Times David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Sunday 22 April 2012

The age of materialism and the need for enlightenment

Further to my last post about the work of Glasgow's Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing, there's a whole host of interesting material on their website relating to our conception of self, others and wider society as a whole. Well worth a browse.... Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing - on Materialism David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Thought-provoking article on consumerism makes for uneasy reading

The consistently on-the-button Centre for Confidence and Well-Being point out some painful home truths. I agree with much of this, except the slight inference that middle class people know how to prioritise their spending, whereas the working classes do not. The middle classes are the definers of 'taste' as a concept, so they simply dress up their materialism as something morally superior, but the underlying consumerist impulses are the same.

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Friday 23 March 2012

Fatherer's Question Time

How does a TA practitioner welcome and subsequently process the news that- all being well- he is soon to acquire his first experience of fatherhood? The answer, at least for this one, is with a curious blend of unreality, excitement and trepidation.

A vague quickening of inner warmth and existential triumph over death intertwines with the half-remembered cynicism of Philip Larkin's 'This Be The Verse'; all this observed by a menacing menagerie of twittering child development theorists. “Beware abandonment!” squawks one; 'Beware engulfment!” chirps another, like some sinister object relational fusion of the 'The Birds' with 'Eraserhead'. Somewhere on the periphery, a Council spokesman and Holyrood bureaucrat point and whisper something about 'Getting It Right For Every Child', while in the background a pair of insecurely attached adults are engaged in a tug of war; one tugging the left arm of a hapless child and screaming hysterically, “Look out! Look out, there be paedophiles about!”, while the other tugs at the right arm of the same, pleading, “Let him be, let him be free- just like me!”....

Such are just a few of the cacophonous Parent voices of cultural and transgenerational scripting around Daddy's responsibilities reverberating around my unconscious as the trimesters unfold.

Of course, by way of compensation, TA provides me with quite a few reasons to be cheerful- not least the fact that, as Erskine and Summers & Tudor assert, children are not the passive recipients of script programming we once postulated them to be. Nor are they prisoners of Mahler's autistic selflessness. My child will be fine-tuned for contact-in-relationship (Erskine & Trautmann, 1996) from the start- and will shape me as much as I shape them. I wonder what they will teach me about self, others and the world? Perhaps I will be born, too; the redefining and stroke-filtering scales falling from my eyes?

So, enough of these gloomy prognostications of hanging up my dancing shoes and handing on- and possibly fumbling- the baton. All I need to do is be “good enough”, as my new best pal Winnicott would say, and not lurch into acerbic guilt and self-criticism when I inevitably experience envy and resentment for the little critter from time to time.

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Saturday 10 March 2012

EMDR and PTSD

Please click on the title link above to view an interesting article on the use of EMDR techniques to treat PTSD and other related symptoms arising from exposure to severe trauma. Fascinating stuff!

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Saturday 28 January 2012

Anger management tips

Having had some "interesting" responses to poor quality workmanship carried out by tradesmen in my flat recently, the attached article features key points relating to the management of angry impulses. http://www.harfordtherapy.com

David Harford

Friday 27 January 2012

Codes of ethics and best practice guidelines

The codes of ethics and best practice guidelines I adhere to in my counselling and psychotherapy work are now available for download from: http://www.harfordtherapy.com/apps/documents/

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Thursday 19 January 2012

Elderly people's risk of falling increased by antidepressants

Perhaps a widening of the Government's Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) scheme is required as part of a more holistic approach to care of the elderly- and those experiencing dementia, in particular? www.harfordtherapy.com

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com

Wednesday 4 January 2012

BBC video article on mindfulness techniques

An interesting piece today on the BBC website exploring the potential use of mindfulness and meditation in the management of chronic pain: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16406814

David Harford www.harfordtherapy.com