Alison Harper – Thank you
Reflections of Gratitude: Lessons Learned Over 25 Years
A while ago, my colleagues asked me to try to put down on paper what they call my “Ali Analogies”. I apparently use them all the time, and now realise that they’ve been learnt over the past over 25 years, working as a clinical psychologist. This request served as the catalyst for writing the blogs on this website. In them, you'll hear about some of the common mental health conditions I deal with day-to-day and the strategies and techniques I recommend to clients. hopefully they will be helpful to anyone who reads them, whether they come to the practice or not.
In my years of being a psychologist, I have had the privilege of sitting across from thousands of individuals, each with their own unique story. As I reflect on the analogies I use and the people I have seen in these years, what I realise more than anything else is how much I have learnt and am still learning from every person I see. Clients, past and present, have offered me invaluable lessons on the many issues, both personal and interpersonal, that we might all face across the course of a lifetime. I have also discovered the variety of ways that help different clients in trying to overcome them and move on with their lives.
I’ve learnt that there is no right and wrong: that each person has to reflect on their own values, expectations, desires and goals to find the best way forward for them. All of the articles I have written have come from what I have learnt over the years - and I want to express my enormous gratitude for all that I have learnt and continue to learn from my clients. Your stories have shaped my understanding of mental health in ways that textbooks never could.
Seeing the Person Beyond the Struggle
Undoubtedly, one of most important lessons I learnt early on in my career is that it is vital to separate the person I see from their mental health problem. Our struggles are not who we are; they are something we experience. I’ve learnt how useful metaphors and analogies can be - originally from a client who told me that their anxiety was like having a “mad pilot” in their brain who told them everything was going wrong and that it was all their fault.
The analogies and metaphors that I have learnt over the years are borrowed from stories that clients create together with me, to find ways around the problems that they are struggling with. I remember speaking to another client with agoraphobia about the “mad pilot” concept. By the next session she had been outside, on her own. She told me that she’d reflected on the “mad pilot” concept – had decided to call hers Brian - and told him that she wasn’t going to have him ruin her life anymore!
Through learning to differentiate the person from their illness, I remain aware that my role is to help to loosen the grip that a mental health problem has on an individual: so, I will always stand on the same side of the boxing ring as you, fighting a condition that you don’t want to have.
Continual Learning
Recently, I saw a mother who had been my client about 20 years ago, before she had any children. This time, she had come along with her teenage son, who was now facing a few of his own struggles. It was in one of our recent sessions that he introduced me to the term social ghost. He used this concept to explain how he felt in social settings: unable to speak due to his paralysing fear of judgment and rejection, a fear that left him feeling like a ghost at a party.
Witnessing his process of naming, confronting, and overcoming this silent fear taught me a new way to articulate the challenges of social anxiety to other clients – and I’ve written a blog on it too. The “social ghost” concept is yet another reminder that every session holds the potential for gaining knowledge from clients that can help others.
The Permanence of Lessons Learnt
I have been fortunate to work with many students who were in Edinburgh only transiently - and are now spread across the UK and beyond. Some have returned for booster sessions after many years – the covid pandemic normalising online appointments. These clients remind me that being a psychologist can often feel like working on the tarmac at an airport, seeing planes take off. Clients go, looking like they’re heading in the right direction – and I do wonder whether they got to their destination and where they are now. Clients returning for booster sessions show how useful the concepts learnt in sessions have been to them over the years, a reassuring sign that the work we did together helped. It’s also a reminder that psychology sessions are not always one-off treatments– as with physical and dental health, we return when new issues arise or old issues resurface, getting the help when we need it.
In writing these blogs, I wrote to Jamie Andrew, the mountaineer, to ask if I could share his story in two of them, having heard him speak in 2005. He said how touched he was that his story had stayed with me for the last 20 years. I understand that feeling when I hear back from clients, I saw many years ago, or whose friends or family come on the basis of their recommendations. I am glad the lessons stay.
Quiet Strength and Psychological Flexibility
Relatives grappling with grief have shown me what resilience truly means. To witness their journeys—through sorrow and loss to a place of acceptance and an ability to forge on with a new path—has taught me that, while loss can appear overwhelming, it is not insurmountable. Your stories of loss and gradual forging of new pathways remind me of the amazing strength of the human spirit – and the importance of us as therapists to keep hope for clients when they have lost it. Stories of grief transformed, trauma navigated and hope rekindled are lessons that I won’t forget.
Staying Sharp: Lessons from medicolegal work
Medicolegal work has been among the most challenging aspects of my career – assessing personal injury cases. Unlike therapeutic sessions, these assessments come without the opportunity to provide ongoing support. Writing reports that serve as a catalyst for individuals to get the help they need is essential – as is the need to be able to defend these reports in the rare cases that proceed to court.
I’ve learned that the clarity and understanding I aim to put into my reports can be really useful in helping individuals understand how their experiences have impacted their mental health and defining their difficulties for them, so they can better understand what help it is they need. My experience of medicolegal work has also taught me the importance of indirect advocacy, often for those who find it most difficult to advocate for themselves: for those involved in industrial or road traffic accidents, to victims of historic abuse, or those miscarriage of justice victims whose lives were torn apart by false accusations, such as seen in the Post Office scandal.
From these experiences, I have gained further insights into the complexities of trauma, particularly complex PTSD, and the diverse ways people adapt and cope, often silently. These lessons have enriched not just my professional practice but my understanding of broader human experience.
It would also be remiss of me not to acknowledge the lawyers and advocates who have kept me diligent. Your rigorous expectations ensure that I remain up to date with research and can translate complex psychological theories into accessible language. You have driven me to sharpen my skills and maintain clarity, an essential reminder that my work must be understood not only by experts but by everyone it aims to help.
The Enthusiasm of Colleagues
Training new therapists has been another source of learning for me. Whether they stayed on at the practice or pursued further training or travel, their passion and dedication has been lovely to witness. The knowledge-sharing, curiosity, and mutual learning keep our practice vibrant and forward-thinking. Watching their journeys unfold is a testament to the ongoing cycle of learning that therapy represents. The passion and enthusiasm I see in my colleagues are sparks that will carry this practice into the future. Indeed, it is my colleagues I have to thank for coming up with the idea behind these articles and for our new website.
Genuine Gratitude and Thanks
Every morning, finding three things to be grateful for is not a challenge. To all of the clients I have seen in the past, to those I see today, and those I may meet in the future: thank you for being my teachers. You remind me that learning is constant and needs to be shared. I am genuinely and enormously grateful to you, for entrusting me with your stories and for the opportunities you give me to learn every day.