Louise Knight
COUNSELLING • COACHING • MENTORING
TEENAGERS • YOUNG ADULTS • PARENTS
ONLINE • TOTNES • DEVON
Welcome
Welcome to the blog section of my website.
My aim here is to add entries that clarify commonly used psycho-speak, offer information around mental health and wellbeing, and provoke thinking and discussion around those topics.
Some mental health related terminology has come to be used so liberally that its meaning is often diminished, devalued and misapplied. Of course language evolves and sometimes vocabulary comes to mean something entirely opposite to its original use. As this happens we need to find new vocabulary to describe the original concepts. I aim to keep abreast of current common use as well as how terminology is used in the research literature in order to be clear in the messages I am intending to put across.
There are many publications, books and articles written about almost any aspect of mental health. I read continuously and attend CPD as required by the NCPS (my professional body). I will attempt to summarise key points from my reading and other learning and point website visitors to experts, authors and material I have found interesting and valuable.
By offering my own thoughts, questions and perspectives on mental health and wellbeing issues, I hope to provoke others to think more broadly or deeply about issues we sometimes take for granted - and share and discuss their thinking with yet more others.
I welcome comments on my posts or suggestions for new posts at my email: louiseknightcounselling@gmail.com.
We need to talk about daycare… Post 8 – Time, Quantity v Quality
Belief: Its quality of time not quantity that is important. We can compensate by…holidays, house, activities. Quality of time spent together with children is important of course, but so is quantity. Infants need love. They require loving responsive attention to their needs in the moment. Infants need to feel safe and secure. After the period […]
We need to talk about daycare… post 7 – Normalisation
Belief - Everyone puts their infants in daycare so it must be ok. Human beings have behaved horribly to one another since time immemorial, engaging in behaviours that were accepted as normal, not even questioned, until someone did question them and laws and attitudes changed. Once upon a time it was normal to […]
We need to talk about day care… post 6 – Stimulation
Belief - “I wouldn’t be able to give him/her the same level of stimulation at home as he/she gets at nursery” Donald Winnicot writes of ‘Good enough’ parenting as being the best there is - and, I would say that in the context of parenting, good enough and perfect are the same thing. I would […]
We need to talk about daycare… Post 5 – Parental boredom
Belief - 'I'm not the kind of mum to stay at home - I need more stimulation and fulfilment' The narratives that ‘being a stay at home mum is boring’ and ‘I’m not the kind of mum to stay at home’ or ‘I need more fulfillment than being at home would give me,’ are […]
We need to talk about daycare…Post 4 – Attachment
Belief - “The key worker system supports substitute attachment” Ostensibly the key worker system fulfills the attachment need - that was exactly what it was created for. However, in reality it falls far short for several reasons. First, key worker adults can have many children assigned as key children. This is because many children are […]
©Louise Knight
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