Catero, my wife, and I are just back from four days in the South visiting friends.  We're blessed with some lovely friendships but, partly because most of us live pretty busy lives, it's easy not to see people who live quite far away for months or even years.  A while ago we decided to at least partly remedy this, so we booked four days off our work and contacted old friends who lived along the South Coast of England, from Dorset through Hampshire to Sussex, to set up reunions.  We got back last night.  Over the four days away we saw seven sets of friends.  It was lovely ... really heart-warming, poignant, fun, fascinating.  And that's what I'm writing about here ... the fascinating bit. We saw seven sets of friends aging and we shared how we ourselves are getting older.  We range from our mid-50's to late 70's (Catero & I are in the second half of our 60s).

I wrote a blog post yesterday entitled "Therapeutic alliance ruptures: common, very challenging & a key area for increasing therapist (and personal) helpfulness".  I think this area is so important that I'd like to spend additional time exploring it more thoroughly. 

We had another of our small peer Emotion-Focused Therapy supervision/practice groups yesterday evening.  Half a dozen of us were able to make it.  We'd agreed we would look particularly at "therapeutic alliance ruptures" at this meeting.  As a doctor, I can't help finding the term "alliance rupture" rather giggle-inducing.  I have all kinds of pictures of unwanted extrusions, metaphorical trusses and possibly extreme interpersonal surgical cures. 

I'm a big fan of Self-Determination Theory (S-DT).  For me it's one of the best ways into understanding flourishing and wellbeing.  I use the ideas all the time in my work and in my life.  The fine S-DT website at Rochester University in the States gives vast amounts more information.  I've mentioned S-DT many times in this blog - see for example the post "Self determination theory" from five years ago that gives links to the slides of a lecture I gave on S-DT and a whole bunch of relevant handouts.

                      (this blog post is freely downloadable as a Word doc and as a PDF file)

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor."      Dr. Alexis Carrel

"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away."     Robert Pirsig

"There are people who live their whole lives on the default settings, never realizing you can customize."        Robert Brault

"A friend is someone who sees the potential in you and helps you to live it."     W. B. Yeats (adapted)

"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger."    Franklin Jones

A few months ago now, I initiated a personal feedback project.  It was triggered by a number of factors.  I was soon to start the third part of an Emotion-Focused Therapy training and was interested in possibly using myself as "a case study" for the course; I had received some quite surprising & confronting feedback from a friend and I wondered how idiosyncratic or widespread his viewpoint might be; I had been encouraging feedback in groups that I run and I wanted to explore this more deeply; and finally I'm in a very good position to ask for & receive honest, thoughtful feedback from a broad social circle.

And now it's several days after the four days sixteen of us spent together at the old converted watermill in Cumbria that we've been visiting for over twenty years.  I've already written about the final full day and the last evening singing together under the stars. 

And it's the final early morning of this four day residential group.  I wrote yesterday about sunshine along the wall outside - and it's here again today, bright & fresh.  Sunday morning.  I can be a very organized person - lovely though to let my hair down at times here (what hair I've got left).  Yesterday evening we sang around a bonfire.  Fantastic stars.  The stream.  Wine.  Singing together.  Happiness.  Not to bed till well after midnight.

The start of the third full day here.  In yesterday's post I wrote about the first full day and today I'll write about our second full day together.  We've had so much rain over the last couple of days, it's a blessing to see the bright early sunlight splashed along the wall outside the window as I sit here writing.  I sneaked away to bed with Catero my wife a bit early yesterday evening.  It had been a long special day and now I'm up this morning feeling fresh.

Still before breakfast - at the start of the second full day now.  Yesterday I wrote about "arriving".  The noise of the mill stream just outside provides a constant back drop while we're here.  When we arrived on Wednesday evening it was flowing so quietly, the water level almost as low as I've seen it.  Then the rain came and it turned into a torrent.  Roaring.  In a way a bit of a parallel for our group.  We've got going fast.  So many of us know each other well.  Familiar place.  Familiar to be in one of these residential groups together again.  And new.  Extraordinary to "age" alongside these people.  We've brought photographs from earlier groups going back over twenty years.  Poignant, funny, endearing, happy-sad.