2006

‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’

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21st Century Group HemsMESH Humber MeshWORKS Humberside MESH Network

January: Completed longer programmes of counselling & therapy for 2 clients.
Commentary: Having started to use aspects of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy the previous Summer, I now found myself using both it and elements of Psychodynamic (Freudian) for these clients. Often the NLP-type therapeutic interventions I’ve favoured resolve issues for clients in a relatively short space of time. However, by coincidence, I took on 2 cases almost simultaneously where the complexity of the issues required longer-than-usual intervention, using a range of strategies.

February: Pre-release copy of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ received ringing praise from L Michael Hall, developer of the Meta-States concept.
Commentary: The inspiration to write came from a combination of experience, research and my blossoming understanding of how a cohesive meta-approach could be developed to align and integrate the all-too fractured behavioural sciences. While there were clearly others moving in a similar ‘integrated’ direction – eg: Peter McNab (excellence for all) with his concept of ‘Integral NLP’ – I wasn’t aware of anyone else with a book that going to be quite as comprehensive as the one I had in mind.

I had originally intended the focus to be on applications to education; however, my wife, Caroline, persuaded me to turn it into a ‘self-help’ book.

February: Returned to teaching at Vermuyden.
Commentary: It had taken some 3 months to get a correct diagnosis of my back problem. Then it had become a case of developing very specific exercise regimes to compensate for the problem. For the first couple of months I really struggled to cope with both the long journey to Goole and being on my feet in busy classes for hours at a time. However, the exercise regime pretty much worked and by May I was more or less as fit and mobile as I had been before the back problem erupted.

March: Performed as after-dinner speaker at the Harrogate 41 Club for former/older members of the local Round Table.
Commentary: My first after-dinner engagement!…and a real opportunity to create interest in ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ and Integrated SocioPsychology. Unfortunately, I have to admit to misjudging my audience. They wanted entertainment and I gave them academic passion! Oh, well….

March: Publication of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ by Canadian based Trafford Publishing.
Commentary: Obviously thrilling to have my *own* book published; but, sadly due to some cock-ups at Trafford and my own restrictions due to my recovering back, the book more limped out than was launched.

March: Shades of Leadership: a Case Study in Leading for the Followers published in Russ Volckmann’s Integral Leadership Review e-zine.
Commentary: This was the Hodgson Sealants case study slightly rewritten at Russ’s suggestion, to help give me extra profile at the time of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ being released.

July: Left Vermuyden to go back to part-time supply teaching and to concentrate on promoting ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ and building up my consultancy, training & therapy business.
Commentary: Teaching at Vermuyden was a real challenge – and 3 years was enough!

Firstly many of the students were demotivated and suffered from chronic low self-esteem, coming from a town culture where academic learning was not valued. Due to what, with the virtue of hindsight, was clearly a mistake in restructuring the pastoral systems, discipline in a school already struggling to manage behaviour virtually collapsed. In the year I left, close to a third of my colleagues either went to other schools or left teaching altogether.

Nonetheless, Vermuyden was another valuable experience of a very ‘challenging school’.

Secondly, a significant amount of the material on the Psychology specification was either fairly new to me or I hadn’t looked at it in any depth for 30+ years. The effort in learning the specification in sufficient depth to teach it well was enormous – and the first year at Vermuyden was sheerly exhausting! However, I rose to the challenge and overall got the best results the school had enjoyed since debuting the Psychology A-Level. A number of the students acknowledged it was the anecdotes from my experience as a practising consultant and therapist that brought the seemingly-endless pages of dull ‘scientific’ text alive for them. (See Client Quotes in the Services pages.

However, I was mapping what I taught to my understanding of the Gravesian approach and NLP and making new connections right through this period. I did come to realise that the Gravesian approach and NLP, as they were, did indeed have some limitations. However, by the time I was half-way through my first year at Vermuyden I was beginning to see how a new broad, potentially all-encompassing approach to the behavioural sciences could be developed centred on the Gravesian approach. The Freudians, the Behaviourists, the Cognitive psychologists, the Evolutionary theorists, the cognitive neuroscientists….and so on – their ideas could all be valid if located within the diverse understanding of human nature the Gravesian approach offered. Thus, the seeds of Integrated SocioPsychology were sown!

August: ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ endorsed by Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck.

September: ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ described by Californian nanny and blogger Bill Hajdu as “the best Psychology book of the year” in his 5-star Amazon review.

September: Accepted part-time post teaching A-Level Psychology at Guiseley School, Leeds, for the Autumn term.
Commentary: After the last year at Vermuyden, Guiseley was a wonderful, life-enriching experience! At first I was a little reluctant to go back to teaching A-Level and only agreed to do 3 days a week – meaning the school had to recruit a second supply teacher to stand in for their unexpectedly-indisposed regular teacher. By the time the second supply teacher didn’t work out, I was enjoying the experience enough to agree to cover the position full time till the end of term.

Through Guiseley and some of the committed, hard-working 6th Formers I encountered, I came to realise that I really did enjoy teaching A-Level Psychology. What I needed was a part-time position in a well-managed school that would allow me still to pursue writing and research, consultancy, training and therapy.

October: ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ given a glowing review in this month’s edition of the Integral Leadership Review e-zine.

November: ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ endorsed by Wyatt Woodsmall, one of the world’s leading trainers and theorists in NLP.

December Carried out some of my most challenging Therapy work to date.
Commentary: The story of ‘Jay’ is told in the Services Case Studies pages.

December: The clip above shows me distracting Guiseley Year 12s as part of a memory (learning-and-recall) experiment. Unknown to me at the time, one of the students was filming me secretly with a mobile!

December: Invited by Tim Roberts at the Professional Development Unit of the University of Chester’s Department of Work-Related Studies to discuss having some of my workshop programmes accredited through the University.
Commentary: Although nothing came of the dialogue – Tim emigrating to New Zealand partway through 2007 – it did set in mind the idea of producing some workshop programmes of a more academic nature for those who wanted to study Integrated SocioPsychology in greater depth.