One To One Change Work Session - £125
Therapy, Personal Change Work, Problem ResolutionSince Andrew began changework sessions in 1994, people have been seeking his services for a variety of problems, including anxiety, depression, phobias and other psychological problems.
His background working in neurosurgery and psychiatry has meant that he also works with psychiatric complaints and many disorders not normally treated by private therapists.
"Andrew Austin is clear, original, and outspoken about mental illness, medication, and psychiatry. His skills were honed by years of experience in the 'trenches' of psychiatry, so he knows what he is talking about." Steve Andreas
"Love him or hate him, Andrew is always thought provoking in his communications and the planet certainly needs more people like him!" Nick Kemp, Hypnotherapist, PT & PCW trainer
"Andy is as insightful in person as his website would suggest. Unorthodox, perhaps, but always passionate; his grasp of his chosen subject is, frankly, astonishing and matched only by the single mindedness with which he pursues still deeper understanding." Dr. Alan Lush PhD
"In a field filled with pretense, Andy's evident openness and curiosity for what is and what could be are very welcome... in addition to his considerable skills." Charles Faulkner
The Influence of R.D. Laing & Gregory Bateson et al on Clinical Practice.
The well known 'anti-psychiatrist', RD Laing worked endlessly to demystify the nature of 'madness', placing 'insanity' into an interactional social framework rather than as biological entity. Controversial in both his approach and writings, in "Sanity, Madness and the Family", he and Aaron Esterson wrote:
'We do not accept 'schizophrenia' as being a biochemical, neurophysiological or psychological fact, and we regard it as a palpable error, in the present state of the evidence, to take it to be a fact. Nor do we adopt it as a hypothesis. We propose no model of it."
Along with Bateson et al., Laing popularised the notion of the double bind, a theme that recurs throughout his work, the most common example cited is as follows:
(From an interview with a mother and her 'schizophrenic' daughter)
Mother: "1 don't blame you for talking that way. I know you don't mean it.
Daughter: "But I do mean it!"
Mother: "Now dear, I know that you don't, you can't help yourself."
Daughter: " I can help myself."
Mother: "Now dear, I know you can't because you're ill. If I thought for a moment you weren't ill, I would be furious with you."
. . .during a first meeting with the psychiatrist he conceived of an intense contempt for him. He was terrified to reveal this contempt in case he was ordered to have a leucotomy and yet he desperately wanted to express it. As the interview was going on he felt it more and more to be a pretense, and futile, since he was only pretending a false front and the psychiatrist seemed to take this false presentation perfectly seriously. He thought the psychiatrist was more and more of a fool. The psychiatrist asked him if he heard a voice. The patient thought what a stupid question this was since he heard the psychiatrist's voice. He therefore answered that he did, and to subsequent questioning that the voice was male. The next question was, 'What does the voice say to you?' To which he answered, 'You are a fool.' By playing at being mad, he had thus contrived to say what he thought of the psychiatrist with impunity."