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Terry Hyde

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    https://www.counsellingfordancers.com

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  1. Thank you Harwell, taxiforballet and cotes du rhone ! for your comments. See my post re my proposed book "self-care for dancers......." on this forum. See my blog via my website regarding dancers and ex-dancers' own mental health stories.
  2. When I was at the RBS there was nothing like this for us students. We went to Demitri Papoutsis (osteopath), which we had to pay for, to get straightened out. Any 'specialist' that came to the school would just give us an injection! No time off for fear of showing a weakness. The three main UK Ballet Companies have now spent a lot of money on machines and staff for injury repair and maintenance. But what about counselling/psychotherapy? I am a psychotherapist now and have noted that no money has been spent on mental health care. The companies and schools have part-time performance and sport psychologists, they are not counselling psychologists. The only school that has a counsellor on the staff is White Lodge. Students and dancers are less worried now about disclosing injuries but there is still the stigma of mental health. It appears from the motivational words that are used in the video that if you have anxiety, bereavement, body image issues, just get on with it! There doesn't appear to be any emotional/mental health support. Elmhurst don't list a counsellor on their staff list. There may be one, but why not list them. Stigma. As you may have guessed I am a fervent advocate for getting mental health out into the open so that people feel able to talk about their issues. I am putting together a self-help book for dancers regarding emotional and mental health. I have been there as a dancer, so I know what it takes. We had no help back then, either physical or emotional, I would like to help change that.
  3. Calling all dance students, their parents, professional dancers, retired dancers and dance teachers. I am writing a self-care book for dancers regarding emotional and mental health. I know what help and support I would have liked as a dancer but I am only one person. I would therefore like to hear from as many people in the dancing world, whether working or not, as to what ideas, techniques, or questions you would like answered in my book. If you have positive anecdotes of overcoming issues and how it was dealt with, please include those as well. I am also looking for therapy volunteers as case studies for the book. These will be anonymised for the book and the sessions will be free to the volunteer. I hope my book will go a little way in helping remove the shame (stigma) surrounding mental health and allow people to ask for help. N.B. Please go to my website to check my professional credentials, which you can also find on the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) website. Parents please note that I will not be offering therapy sessions to those age 15 and under and for those age 16-18, please ask your parents to contact me. Email me if you don’t want to reply openly to this post: counsellingfordancers@gmail.com Please share this post with others who you think may wish to contact me. Thank you, Terry
  4. Calling all dance students and their parents, dance teachers, professional dancers and retired dancers. I am writing a self-care book for dancers regarding emotional and mental health. I know what help and support I would have liked as a dancer but I am only one person. I would therefore like to hear from as many people in the dancing world, whether working or not, as to what ideas, techniques, or questions you would like answered in my book. If you have positive anecdotes of overcoming issues and how it was dealt with, please include those as well. I am also looking for therapy volunteers as case studies for the book. These will be anonymised for the book and the sessions will be free to the volunteer. I hope my book will go a little way in helping remove the shame (stigma) surrounding mental health and allow people to ask for help. N.B. Please go to my website to check my professional credentials, which you can also find on the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) website. Parents please note that I will not be offering therapy sessions to those age 15 and under and for those age 16-18, please ask your parents to contact me. Email me if you don’t want to reply openly to this post. Please share this post with others who you think may wish to contact me. counsellingfordancers@gmail.com
  5. Here is another post from my blog. It is the first of a series of Q&A posts from questions put to me by both dance students and professional dancers. It was posted a couple of weeks ago during Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK. Here is the link https://wp.me/p8pUbI-3w Please contact me if you have any questions regarding any of my posts or any other subject you wish to bring up. Terry
  6. In replying to Xanthe's comments I was referring to autistic traits rather than a diagnosis. We all have autistic traits to a certain degree but here is an explanation from the National Autistic Society regarding Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) "The characteristics of autism vary from one person to another, but in order for a diagnosis to be made, a person will usually be assessed as having had persistent difficulties with social communication and social interaction and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviours, activities or interests since early childhood, to the extent that these "limit and impair everyday functioning". " I have a score of 18 in the PsychCentral's Autism/Asperger's online test (this is not a diagnistic tool), where with 30 or over there is a likelyhood that you have ASD. My score is due to me being a pedant, perfectionist and a few other traits, but I am not autistic as I am gregarious, I don't have repetitive behaviours and those traits I do have do not impair my everyday funtioning So Picturesinthefirelight I am not sure whether you think I am implying that you two children, due to my comments, are autistic or whether they have had a diagnosis of ASD. Perhaps you could clarify.
  7. Thank you for insightful comment Xanthe. We are all, to a certain extent predisposed to many of traits. If the environment is right, whether positive or not, then these traits will develop. So Ballet training could be one of the environments, but also include in this the parents' need for their child to do well (pushy parents), even if the child either doesn't have enough talent to do well or is only doing ballet to please their parents. The list you gave in your comment are mostly autistic traits, which a student dancer needs to become a professional dancer. As you are aware, autism (neuro diversity) is a very wide spectrum and comes from the workings of the left brain, the analytical side. Whereas ballet, movement to music or sound, is from the right brain, the artistic side. So a dancer who could be high on the autistic spectrum but who is also a dancer who can feel emotions in their work is balanced in both left and right brain. Being aware of these traits and how it effects you and your relationship with others is very important as without that knowledge of self it will be detrimental to both you and your relationships. There is more to this and I will write an article in my blog exploring it.
  8. At 10 my mother didn't know about jock straps, as we called them, she bought something for me that the girls wore. Then I developed......went to the Royal Ballet School where we wore "proper" jock straps. Black ones for under black tights and skin coloured ones for under white tights. I had the wider ones at the rear, didn't like the thong! 'Tackled' was pulled up to....er...perhaps to look good but also to hold the tackle well and truly firm. Rudolf Nureyev wasn't satisfied to look good, he wanted to be really noticed and stuffed socks down there!
  9. I am new to this forum and about once a week I will be posting a link to my blog "Counselling for Dancers". As you will see from my profile I was a dancer and am now a psychotherapist and now I have put the knowledge of the two careers together. Vastly more money is spent by the larger ballet companies on helping dancers with their physical issues than on their mental well being. I have recently started a website and blog and have been asked by One Dance UK to give a talk at their conference in London in November. You will see from my blogs that I will give links in weeks to come, that ex dancers who have written guest articles for me still carry emotional issues about their training and performing days. I hope that you will find the articles of interest, for which I will post individual links for each article, and hope that you will comment both here and on my blog. My first blog post link in this forum, https://wp.me/p8pUbI-G discusses whether or nor the discipline of ballet training needed from childhood is positive or negative.
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