Transcript
Intro: Welcome to A Bunch of Therapists, the podcast that goes behind the doors of the therapy room. Our guests will be sharing their experiences of counselling and psychotherapy, and all the lessons they’ve learned on the journey through life. This episode is hosted by Dipti Solanki and me, Michaela McCarthy. Today’s guest is therapist, Philippa Madden and her dog, Lola.
Michaela McCarthy: Welcome, Philippa Madden. And we have your lovely puppy, Lola.
Philippa Madden: She just stood up on time as I… yeah, this is Lola.
Michaela McCarthy: But first, we’d like to hear your story about why you went into therapy.
Philippa Madden: Professionally, I was in the music industry. So, I had my own company and I was in West Africa and coming backwards and forwards, bringing a group on tour, a traditional group on tour. I did that for a few years and decided after quite a difficult breakup and the ending of that tour that I wanted to have a complete change of career. So, while I was in the process of closing my business and looking, right I need a job now because I’ve got no income coming in I heard there was this job going at The Awareness Centre, Centre Manager, and I went down and met with you Michaela and had an interview and I got the job and I was there from 2006 to 2009. But I met with a lot of therapists and over time got to know them and what became apparent to me was that I’d had a lot of loss in my life. I’d lost all my family, I’d lost my parents and my brother sort of just before all that happened and I hadn’t really processed my grief, I hadn’t really faced it and looked at that, I was just busy working and through discussions through other therapists I became interested and I thought well this sounds like something I’d really like to do. So I left The Awareness Centre in 2009 to study, absolutely loved it, qualified in 2012.
Dipti Solanki: It sounds like you were in a big period of transition before you came for the job at The Awareness Centre. And then you described having these conversations with therapists. Yes. And it felt like there was something that was being stirred up in you within those conversations. So what was it about those conversations, as Michaela asked, that made you kind of get curious about therapy and think, well, maybe there’s something in this?
Philippa Madden: I think it was when clients would ring in and talk to us about why they wanted therapy and we would sort of think about what therapists might be suitable for them and then I’d have a word with therapists about what they did and what kind of therapy they offered such you know is if a client had said I’ve lost lost someone I lost my parent or I’ve been through a breakdown in a relationship, then I would have a conversation with one of the therapists about how they might support that person. And then it was kind of ringing true for me as well, because I was thinking, well, I haven’t worked through my losses and the breakdown in my relationship. So I thought, this is interesting, because clients would also appear to be very grateful for the support they’ve been given.
Also I think my faith, I’m a Christian and also that was really important to me about having a role that was about serving other people and helping other people and this was something that really suited both for me and it just sort of happened, you know, it just kind of felt like this is right for me. And every door opened. So it felt like now I’ve chosen what I want to do, every single door I went to opened up. And you can’t ignore something like that when it goes right all the time.
Michaela McCarthy: For you, when you first went into a therapy room, because some people have never been in therapy, and I think it’d be really good to share, you don’t have to share all story, but what it was like for you to first sit in front of a therapist, to be able to just have your own space, that space just for you to be able to share your story.
Philippa Madden: Yeah, I mean my first therapist I, was okay. I didn’t really think that I was really getting enough through that therapy. I did stay with her for a year. It was when I started with the second therapist I worked with, who was a psychoanalyst, and I was with him for two and a half years and he really helped me to see the loss of my father because my father died when I was very very young, I was just coming up to my third birthday, and you know, you always told ‘It was good that you were so young. You were too young to remember him.’ and I listened to that and I thought okay, I do remember his face and I remember him looking down at me. But when I sat with this therapist who really believed that I was very attached to my father, who I was told by relatives I was, and there’s no way that I could not have grieved my father or feel the loss of my father, it was then that it hit me. And I think I cried for about, I don’t know, maybe a month of therapy, really felt the connection to my father. And that was the first person that actually acknowledged the loss for me. And I’ve really gained so much from that, because I actually remembered my dad. And that was something that I can’t, it was more than just here, it was a whole whole Gestalt feeling of a stork feeling a whole sort of bodily feeling of missing him.
Michaela McCarthy: Well, I imagine that attachment would have been strong you know three years your first three years of your life
Philippa Madden: Yeah
Michaela McCarthy: You know and to one minute he’s there, next minute he’s gone. How do you explain to a three-year-old that your dad is not here anymore?
Philippa Madden: Well it’s funny because I used to have this phobia when I was young and it all started making sense because I wouldn’t want the door shut. So, especially my bedroom door, and I’d get hysterical if anyone shut my door. And if they shut it, I’d be really scared. And I think that everyone vanished when the door was shut. And I remember thinking, that’s so odd because people would say, of course we’re not vanishing. You know, we’re still here, but I didn’t believe it. And it was only when I went through the therapy, I realised that my father had probably come to say goodnight and left, shut the door and never saw him again. So it put this fear that the people that I love would disappear. And that really resolved that for me because I stopped having to have the door open and was okay with shutting the door. And this has been going onll my life.
Michaela McCarthy: But it just goes to show when you’ve lost someone so close to you, like a parent from a young age, how it affects you. And you can go through your life, you know, kids can jump back quite quickly because you had your other parent. But the thing is, it’s what goes on inside, emotionally, psychologically, you know, that it affects you. And then all of a sudden you say, well, actually, I need to deal with this.
Philippa Madden: Yeah, and I had no idea until I was in therapy. That was, that came to me as something that was so important, you know, to actually connect back with my father and that loss. That all happened when I was studying at uni and I realised how powerful therapy was. You know, it was just, for me, it was something that I thought, thank God I’ve gone down this path because I understand me and all my little quirks and all the things that I have that I wondered what it was about me that was so difficult. But also, I’d lost my other family members as well. So my mother died in ‘92 and then I lost my brother in ‘99 and that was all my family, so I was kind of feeling a bit of an orphan and thinking…
Michaela McCarthy: But what is it like, you know because I speak to adults sometimes when they’ve lost parents when they’re a bit younger, and I say what’s it like to be an adult orphan? Because people don’t think about adults as being orphans.
Philippa Madden: No.
Michaela McCarthy: But I think it’s important, you know because it is odd not having your immediate family.
Philippa Madden: Yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: You know I can relate to that because I’m also an adult orphan.
Philippa Madden: Yes, I know. Yeah.
Michaela McCarthy: And I also lost my brother.
Philippa Madden: You did, yes I know. So, I think it takes a while for it to settle in you. I mean, I had a lot of dreams of them being in my life and waking up thinking they’re still there. I don’t know if you had that, and conversations I think I have to have, especially with my brother, and then remembering he’s not here. And that sinking feeling, you know, just he’s gone, you know.
Michaela McCarthy: So, Brixton Prison. Yeah. You know, so, shall we share the story of what happened? Because I called you…
Philippa Madden: Yes, you called me in Bulgaria…
Michaela McCarthy: And you were on top of a mountain.
Philippa Madden: In Bulgaria. And, yeah, and Michaela called me and said, you know, would I be interested in supervision work in Brixton Prison? Of course, I jumped at it.
Michaela McCarthy: But you said, when does it start?
Philippa Madden: When does it start?
Michaela McCarthy: I said, now.
Philippa Madden: Yeah, and I couldn’t wait to come back and start. I handed in my notice at Richmond Borough Mind and I was really excited to join the prison. So I went there as a supervisor but then things changed, things happened and I became the clinical lead there. So I had my own caseload of prisoners, of inmates and then I had, I ended up sort of managing the service while I was in there. I think what was really key for me with the prison work is that I’ve always had an interest in trauma and since, because my father was a soldier and he had PTSD, which I didn’t mention, and he had quite bad symptoms, quite severe symptoms of PTSD and my mother told me some of the things that he was going through and so it was always in the back of my head that it was something I was interested in and for my research project at uni I looked at how therapy would help war combatants in surviving from horrors of war and how that affected and how therapy might help them you know. And then in the prison there was so many traumatised people there and I felt out of my depth sometimes, because there was so much PTSD and complex PTSD that I really felt the need to improve my skills. So I decided to study trauma and I did a diploma level 7 in trauma and that really helped. That really, really helped and it really informed me of my practice and how I should be working with the prisoners in particular.
Dipti Solanki: For many of us on the outside of prisons we know how therapy may work. Can you give us a bit of a flavour of what therapy looks like within prisons and what it’s actually like to work with the people that are in there?
Philippa Madden: I have to be mindful of what I say here because I’ve signed the secrecy act. But I can share some of the experience and what was really hard is the environment. It’s a very tough environment, you’re surrounded by, as soon as you come through the gates of the prison you’re seeing all the barbed wire and all the locking gates and even getting used to that sound of doors being locked and gates being locked and the shouting of the, you know, that goes on with the officers trying to communicate across the wings and stuff. It’s all very…
Dipti Solanki: What was the first time like being in there? I’m so intrigued.
Philippa Madden: Well, I think my nervous system was on super high alert for a bit. I was excited though as well. But the places we had to actually hold therapy were very different to rooms like you have at The Awareness Centre for instance. There’s no comfy chairs and lamps and cushions and tissues, it’s all very hard. We would often use cells that were not used by, so there were cells, but they were not the inmate cells, they were cells with maybe a chair or two in it. Sometimes we’d be walking around the yard or sitting on a wall, sometimes in a segregation unit. But if we could get them into healthcare we would have a room, which was quite basic.
Dipti Solanki: Is that like a hospital wing type thing?
Philippa Madden: It actually used to be a hospital but it’s not any longer, but it’s where health care are based. So there are a few rooms there.
Dipti Solanki: Thank you for painting that picture I think it’s so important to know how different it is and it’s a different challenging situation for you to work in.
Philippa Madden: It was hugely challenging and the noise, there’s no sort of ‘Shh! Quiet please, there’s therapy going on’, it was very loud. So bells are ringing, people shouting and doors banging, clinking, you know all those sounds and you get used to it.
Dipti Solanki: Right.
Philippa Madden: You know so I could hold therapy anywhere now on a busy road because I’m so used to noise and but then sometimes as well because obviously security is number one in prison and if anything happened you’d have to stop therapy immediately and sometimes we’d have to stay where we are until they did a headcount or we’d have to leave the leave the wing straight away, so it was was always on edge, we were always on edge.
Michaela McCarthy: But tell the viewers a little bit about trauma because people might not know what trauma is, you know, they kind of maybe just a certain level of trauma but what it means for you as a therapist?
Philippa Madden: You So for me as a therapist, well I was, I knew obviously trauma existed but understanding it and the different levels of trauma and what’s the differences between PTSD and complex PTSD or complex trauma was something I’d learnt through my training. So, obviously there are symptoms that we can all have after trauma. Normally, trauma will settle after around six months after we experience something. So it’d be a near death incident where we felt threatened, our life threatened, or we’ve witnessed something where someone has, their life has been threatened or something has happened. But the trauma that was arising in the prison was PTSD, which normally the psychology team would deal with, but we had clients who would show up for therapy and end up having symptoms of PTSD and I felt ‘What can I do with this?’. So, there’d be things like nightmares, flashbacks, very severe anxiety, panic attacks, just sweating profusely or feeling on the edge all the time. So they’d be quite jumpy, you know, and always thinking something bad was going to happen. And they were sort of reliving the trauma every day as if it was happening now. And there was nothing you could say to convince them it wasn’t, it would be ‘Well, that’s how I feel, you know, I feel like I’m always on the edge.’.
Dipti Solanki: For those listening can you explain why that is? Why when people are experiencing those symptoms, why there’s no reasoning with that? I think it will really be helpful to people to understand that.
Philippa Madden: We have a system in our brain and in our nervous system that responds to trauma. And normally when we go through a traumatic experience, all those signs of hypersensitive reactions to things will eventually die down. But what happens if it doesn’t is it’s often because we haven’t resolved the trauma. So, it may be that we’re not happy with the outcome. So a lot of the prisoners would not be satisfied with the outcome of the trauma. So, something bad happened, or someone died and they couldn’t protect them. And because they weren’t happy with the way they dealt with it, it stays there, it stays with them. So our brain holds all the details and our amygdala, which is our threat system which goes off, will be constantly sending messages to our adrenal gland and pituitary gland, so people are always on the edge and feeling like something’s gonna happen. And when you’re all there it’s very hard to come down so…
Dipti Solanki: People don’t know how to regulate again.
Philippa Madden: And that’s the thing and therapy can actually be a trigger to that if you’re sitting in a room talking about something that’s happened that’s traumatic then the symptoms can come back and then they’re what we say ‘triggered’ back into the symptoms. So it’s when you’ve got that how do you then regulate someone? So those were important things I needed to know. I needed to learn how to regulate a prisoner who was very hyper aroused and be in his threat system running back onto the wing and maybe wanted to get into a fight, or lock himself up in his cell or whatever because he was now in full swing of his symptoms.
Dipti Solanki: I bet some of the stories that you heard were really quite incredible.
Philippa Madden: Yeah. Yeah. Really sad. And quite difficult to hear some things. And also the crimes, you know, I mean I remember saying what kind of client would you not work with in the early days and they’ll say murderers, pedophiles, and people maybe who are violent towards women. I’ve worked with all of them now. Probably my most valuable work and experience was with people who committed crimes like that. But it’s in the story. It’s always in the story. And finding empathy is really important. So it’s very difficult to find that when you’re hearing a story that’s so horrible, or you know someone has done something terrible. Of course we all judge, we all have prejudices and judgments and you know we have to put those aside and try to find in the story a place for empathy for that person and compassion. I’d say nine times out of ten I did, there was a couple occasions where I found it quite difficult, but yes I think if you can find empathy in someone’s story then you’re able to work with them
Michaela McCarthy: You sit with another person, and you really listen to them, and I don’t mean listening as in don’t speak, but really hear them, that actually it’s very, very different…
Philippa Madden: It’s very, very different
Michaela McCarthy: Because you have a big picture of that person. And not every person is the same. Everyone’s an individual.
Dipti Solanki: And not everyone’s had that space where they have someone really hear them either.
Philippa Madden: No, no. Well, they’re already judged, aren’t they? At the moment they walk in, they come out of court and into the gates of prison, they’re already judged aren’t they? At the moment they walk in, come out of court and into the gates of prison they’re already judged. What they don’t need is to continually be judged over and over again is to now understand why. And I think that’s where people in the therapies teams in prison come in because they ask why and they try to help that person to understand them. Again, like I said with me, understand themselves and learn why they’ve become or done what they’ve done. And it’s often because of their own traumas.
Dipti Solanki: Right.
Philippa Madden: So, you know, I worked with a few people who’d actually committed murder or manslaughter. And when I asked them why they felt they did that, it was because they felt so much rage in their own pain and what had been done to them. They wanted others to understand how that felt, but it was a drive behind what they did. But it wasn’t… I think what happened was after when they became remorseful was actually ‘I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t done that. But at the time that’s what I wanted someone to feel, what I’d felt.’ you know.
Michaela McCarthy: Lola, your puppy down here, she’s been very, very good. Tell the viewers, you know, why, you know, you haven’t just brought Lola along
Philippa Madden: No.
Michaela McCarthy: Just for childcare or doggy care. There’s a reason for Lola really to be…
Philippa Madden: There is a reason for Lola. I wanted to do this when I was in the prison, but it’s a big thing getting dogs into prison. Of course, they’ve got the sniffer dogs and everything else. We did have a couple of dogs brought in who the therapy dogs and I tried to sort of look at it when I was there but it’s a big job to get them past, but it’s always been in, since studying trauma and becoming a trauma therapist is how much I would love to have a therapy dog and to work alongside me. And so leaving the prison gave me the opportunity to to do that and so…
Michaela McCarthy: Do you work with other clients now in private practice?
Philippa Madden: Well I’m… she’s in training at the moment.
Michaela McCarthy: What does the training entail for her?
Philippa Madden: So the training, so it’s basically she has to to learn how to be with people and to remain calm.
Michaela McCarthy: Which she’s done today.
Philippa Madden: Which she’s done. And sort of to work with their needs. So, which she does actually instinctively. So she’s, I bring her in sort of on a practice level at the moment to sit with people. And she’s very good, very good. She’s eight and a half months now. I saw her on the internet and I just fell in love with her and I thought this is the dog I want. Went to meet her and just, yeah, I just knew she’d be the right dog. She is really calm, she’s obviously got her puppy side which is quite excitable and quite playful, but she also very sociable, she loves people and so I’m training her. So training is her learning to be an emotional support to people and already she’s sitting with others and she responds differently to people which is good to see because some she’s a little bit more playful with, some she’s wants to go and lie with them put her head on the lap and others should just sit with them or sit at their feet and sometimes she’ll just sit with me and just be in the room.
Michaela McCarthy: So how do other people respond to Lola being in the room?
Philippa Madden: Well, I always ask. So, so I always check with clients first, are you happy, would you like the dog to be there? I’ve always had ‘yes’ from people, she’s always welcomed. Even those that are a bit nervous will say they like her there but maybe not right by them until they get used to her because they’re a bit nervous of dogs and she’s good with that. Others have said how they feel very regulated when she’s there, they feel calm.
Dipti Solanki: Well she’s making me feel very calm today.
Philippa Madden: Yeah, she’s very good and she also keeps me calm.
Dipti Solanki: Right, right.
Michaela McCarthy: I just want to thank you for coming on our podcast today, and for you Lola too, thank you for being such a good girl. Maybe, we can come later on when she’s done more of her training.
Philippa Madden: That would be good, we’d love to come back. Wouldn’t we Lola?
Michaela McCarthy: Yeah, thank you.
Outro: You’ve been listening to A Bunch Of Therapists with me, Michaela McCarthy and Dipti Solanki. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review.
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