Adrian Scott Counsellor Supervisor MBACP Accred

Grenfell Notre Dame 
Notre Dame has quickly raised far more money for its rebuild, than for the tragedy of deaths in the Grenfell Tower. The majority of the money raised for Grenfell was donated by the UK population. For Notre Dame the money came from billionaires. The UK Government offered the French help and to ring the Westminster Abbey bells in solidarity.

At face value this is blatant prejudice against a poor section of the community. People in power with money have no interest or care about the people of Grenfell. This is the result of a classist heirarchical country of haves and have nots. Time is money. Profit is the goal.

Yet 72 people lost their lives. In the UK. In London. From a fire in a building not adequately fire protected. We are all culpable as we live here. It was in our country. It was avoidable. There is a collective guilt which we cannot escape from. A pain, a hurt that others suffered and died in our home.

They were innocent like we are. We did not build Grenfell. But we are all at risk of buildings, transport and infrastructure being under funded, and possibly unsafe. Accidents can happen. We are all at risk. It could have been us. This causes us bad feelings. Which we want to deny, repress and escape from. We are humans and wired to avoid pain.

So Notre Dame where nobody died, is undeniably a building of great beauty. We mourn its loss, as it is a safer object/symbol we can project our pain and loss onto. It mainfests feelings of history, of pride of nationhood. We are in control of what it symbolises for us. Some thing or nothing. It is a pain in our control. It is not a person with the complexity of a story of a life, a childhood, a family. It is not messy. It has a simple beauty of a building. Three dimensional. Not multi complex. Not flawed. Not rich or poor. Bricks and glass. It can be rebuilt. Ironically it was waiting to happen. Under funded and needing renovation when at most risk of fire.

The other ugly thought is that art comes before people? Do we rate Michelangelo above other humans for what he created? Would we trade a hundred stone labourers for one artistic sculpter genius? Do some humans have more value than others? A taboo to admit to thinking like this?
Grenfell Notre Dame

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it”

…. so said Edward Bernays, pioneer of public relations and propoganda. Also nephew of Sigmund Freud. His most famous campaign Torches of Freedom encouraged women to smoke a feminist brand of cigarettes.

His philosophy was of a utopian society where humans’ dangerous energies could be harnessed by the corporate elite to make profit. The idea was that society’s dark side could be redirected to save society from itself. Bernays used the principles of psychoanalysis and the unconscious to manipulate the mind. Like hypnosis the hypnotised person doesn’t know they have been hypnotised.

Another family member Anna Freud was intent on figuring out how the Nazis were capable of what they did. She wanted to control chaos so that it wouldn’t happen again. She believed that society’s irrational behaviour was created by the repression of childhood trauma. If members of the society could follow the rules: chaotic behaviour could be supressed.

Bernays used the fear of communism as a powerful weapon to control the the public in the cold war. He also thought that people in the society needed help for their own good by a “capable few”.

Freud himself turned down his nephew’s schemes of promotion of his own work. Perhaps he realised that there were two sides of his creation – psychoananlysis. Light and Dark.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Bystander Apathy is a social psychological theory that has remained unchallenged for over 50 years. So briefly it says that we are less likely to intervene in a crime or assault in a public space the more people are present as witnesses.

Science trying to reduce complexity to a simple statement? As ever reality is more tricky. In modern bystander research – personalities and the default reaction to trauma play a significant role. Humans are more reflexive and unconscious. In other words they experience Fight, Flight or Freeze.
Personal. Individual. Historical!
So bystanders with more empathy (nurtured in personal histories) were more liable to intervene than bystanders with low empathy.

What is astounding is that this theory has remained unchallenged until recently. Is research not capable of studying complex human behaviour? Does personal history not play a part in trying to evaulate human behaviour? Are we still trying to squeeze human behaviour into simple predictable universal reactions? How has research ignored unique individual human behaviour for so long? Resistance? Resistance to what? Complexity v. Simplicity?
Good Samaritan

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Who’s afraid of red yellow and blue?  is a series of paintings by Barnett Newman

The painting was a bold modernist statement. To provoke and attack traditional painting techniques. The painting was large and displayed in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam Holland.

The public made complaints about the painting. It was disliked because of its provocation. Against the more usual perception of what art might be. A traditional artist attacked the painting with a knife. The museum restored the painting at great cost after years of waiting. The restorer made no attempt to recreate the original painting authentically. A second attack. The restorer then sued the museum because of damage to his reputation.
So the Museum settled.

1966.Oil on canvas.

A second attack was correctly predicted. The same artist attempted to damage the painting again! But the attacker couldn’t find the painting – so damaged another of the Newman’s works. Amsterdan City Council demanded a report on what had happened. The report was kept secret as part of the agreement.
Until now.

A chaotic story of a chaotic painting creating an unbelieveable story of chaos and confusion. Job done.

Podcast The many deaths of a painting 

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Mike Muggy Thalassitis died in an Edmonton Park close to his home. He had hung himself.
A footballer and reality TV star: he was seens as a ladies man. “The classic lad who didn’t have feelings”. Struggling with bereavement and the pressure of 15 minutes of fame.
Nobody will really know what was happening for him.

Again the old stereotype of man pervades. Men do not have feelings. When under stress men have to be men. Cope on their own. No help. No backup. No support.
The world moving forward desperately needs a new version of men. Men who are skilled at talking. Expressing themselves. Expressing thier feelings.

This will take a while. As it starts with Fathers and Mothers. Grand Parents and Families. Men will only become skilled at the art of speaking, when listened to and appreciated for thier feelings as little boys.

In the meantime we can ony be aware. Aware that men are alone. Aware and imagining of mens’ distress. Aware of the clues. Troubled moods, withdrawal, upset. And ask with curiousity and care.
Reared by Fathers unable to express themselves. The unskilled emotional man flows down the generations.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

The Brexit process is at one extreme- chaos, at the other – reflective of the divisions expressed by the original Brexit Referendum.

Whatever your point of view there is the lack of analysis. There seems little chance to think deeply about what has happened and essentially HOW it has happened.

Still some topics appear taboo. Communities overwhelmed by an influx of people, perceived to be supported and given more. The fact that wages are so depressed, can partly be explained by workers willing to work for less for a new life in the West? A legitimate concern or racism?

Apparently a lot of rich people are going to become even richer in the land of Brexit. Are these the same people wanting to leave the EU? Money has no borders. Manufacturing has borders with tariffs.

Or a sense of nostalgia of a lost country that cannot be reconciled? Brexit can be interpreted as a nation dealing with Loss. Who loses most, and how it is to be avoided is what is unclear: and open to ideolgy & argument.
Who knows about Brexit?

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Philotimo is a Greek word which is not translatable. Literally meaning love and honour. Learning or training will not create it. It is inbred. So it is part of the self. It is a choice of life. A Philosophy. To live well with honour. Without self gratification. Without gain.

Because the idea conveys a sense of pride in family, community, and living the right way.
“that deep-seated awareness in the heart that motivates the good that a person does. A philotimos person is one who conceives and enacts eagerly those things good.”

A way of life that benefits the receiver not the giver. Many find people today selfish, individualistic, & social media driven. Have people changed that much? Or a complaint that the world is changing too fast. Or changing in a way that we have little control over.

So to fall back on the old idea of a time before seen as more simple and straight forward is required. A natural longing for the pace of life to slow down and be more simple.
The recurring idea that previous times are simpler is a trick with little truth. All times are complex and a struggle.
The wish to escape this pain is an enduring human trait.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Nostalgia sells. Trump sold it, the Leave vote sold it. A mixture of yearning, grief and home coming. A longing for the past: childhood, when the UK was white, and the free market yet to be unleashed. The sense of loss of a great country US or UK forces a yearning for the golden years. Those who have lost or perceived to lose the most, create a feeding ground for nostalgia.

Even the European Union is not free. The EU holds a nostalgia for a time before the world went to War? A way of life uncorrupted by an Anglo Saxon life style of work and work? Without joy.

The aim of therapy is to transform our obsession with the past into plain old grief. The relationship to the past instead of blocking life informs the potential for a future informed by the past not dominated by it. The longing for our past, a home, past objects determines a healthier future of desire and free will.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

One of the most iconic photographs in WW2.
George Mendonsa the Kissing Sailor died recently aged 95 years old.
VJ Day was the day Japan surrendered to the United States. 14th August 1945.
George had never met Ms Friedman a dental nurse. Several people later claimed to be the kissing couple.

Or today – a sexual assault? The woman in the photo had no choice whether she wanted to be kissed or not.
Was this euphoria in a euphoric moment?
Or Iconic Photograph or Photographic evidence of sexual assault?

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
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Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique

Hysteria (based on the Greek word for Uterus) a Freudian term used to describe psychological symptoms.
Sensory, motor and disassociative illnesses in his patients. Female patients.
Freud a 19th Century man with all the associated prejudices of that time. Mental health, the power men had over women, in a patriarchal, heirarchical society.

Once an idea is lodged in cultural thought it is difficult to dislodge. Even when there is a mass of evidence against the idea. The idea being that there is no such thing as male hysteria.

The ideal male behaves in a way that is the opposite of hysteria. Ideal male traits are calmness, control, quietness, and confidence. The fear of male hysteria is so overwhelming, that male behaviour is dominated by it. Humans use opposites to cope. Male hysteria is cured by the opposite.

History is full of men doing hysterical deeds under the male camouflage of calmness and control. From Churchill’s Commanding War Rhetoric, to the Brexit Referendum, to the Building of Walls – Hadrian & the Mexican Border.
For all time Men are doing Male Hysteria.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2019
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique