Episode #30 Compassion and Chairwork with Dr Tobyn Bell

Hi, this is Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair, and I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, clinical psychologist, supervisor and trainer. Welcome to Self ™ is a place where you can come and learn ways to elevate your own care and compassion. A place to rest, be soothed, and at times maybe gently challenged to think about yourself and your practice. A place to remember that you are human first, choose the helping profession is just one of the roles in your life. My aim is that this is a place of soothing, comfort, nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can also welcome your self.

 

Hi and welcome to another episode. I hope you’re enjoying the podcast and if you’re new here, welcome, it’s lovely that you’ve tuned in. I always love receiving feedback on the episodes and any questions or comments you might have, so please feel free to reach out to me on social media, via my website or at hello@drhayleydquinn.com 

 

My next guest, Dr Tobyn Bell, is someone I had the pleasure of meeting many years ago at a Compassionate Mind Foundation Conference and I’ve also been lucky enough to participate in some of his training, which if you get the chance, I’d highly recommend. Tobyn is a Compassion Focused Therapy Trainer, Supervisor and Psychotherapist. His is also an accredited Schema Therapist and Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist. He is a co-founder of Chairwork UK and a co-author of the book ‘Compassion Focused Therapy from the Inside Out: A Self-practice/Self-reflection Workbook for Therapists’. Tobyn regularly provides national and international training on compassion and chairwork and is actively involved in ongoing research within these areas. He currently works as a lecturer and operational lead at the University of Manchester, very close to where I grew up.

 

I really enjoyed chatting with Tobyn and I hope you enjoy this episode as much I did. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Tobyn to Welcome to Self.

 

Tobyn Bell
Thanks for asking me to come along and speak.

 

Hayley Quinn
Fantastic, so did you want to start with just telling us a little bit about yourself and your path to becoming a helping professional?

 

Tobyn Bell
I suppose my path like this is like a professional path, I suppose. And a personal path. I mean, professionally, I started off as a nurse, a mental health nurse. And then sort of found that the things I enjoyed most were the one to one time with clients and getting to know people well. So then moved into therapy, and CFT first, and you know, it’s great. So that’s my first main training. But I suppose then it moved to, I suppose there’s lots of clients I’ve worked with, who had things that didn’t recover, and sort of weren’t amenable to change in lots of ways. So I suppose I got drawn more and more to compassion and acceptance based ways of working and trained in CFT and mindfulness and schema therapy, emotion focused therapy, etc. But CFT feels like it’s my sort of home really. 

And I suppose in terms of like, personal journey starts a bit earlier really, it’s a bit longer I mean, when I was a youngster I had depression quite badly.

So I suppose that was probably the trigger to be thinking more about mental health and put it more forefront in my life and you know, you get to know people who also have difficulties in that way.

I suppose you kind of left to try out the therapies you learn on your own yourself and you seek therapy yourself and different things, and I suppose my journey has been kind of similar to trying out first CFT and I got drawn more and more to compassion based approaches and just found that so helpful in my personal life really. So I suppose that just strengthened my belief in the therapy, trying out, experiencing it myself. So I suppose the personal professional sort of combined in a way?

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, absolutely. You co-authored compassion, focus therapy from the inside out with Russell Colts and Chris Irons and James Bennett Levy, can you share your thoughts on the importance of self practice self reflection for therapists, and why it’s not only good for their practice, but also for them as human beings?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I mean, so I suppose I personally believe that having therapy yourself as a therapist is really important, but I know the actual evidence is quite mixed about it. So I suppose not having therapy and just learning about it, by delivering it, but then also receiving the therapy, self practice, self reflections, the chance to learn the therapy by receiving the interventions, trying it on yourself, or receiving in pairs, or groups or workshops, or online, for example, and then you sort of squeeze the juice of the experience. So you get the maximum benefit from it. So you experience it, and then you reflect on the benefits for your yourself as a person. So what you might learn about yourself, your thought patterns, etc.

But then also what you learn as a therapist, too, so you know, what was it like to receive the intervention? Was it too fast? Would you have like weeks on that formulation, rather than being rushed? And I think that’s what really builds like empathy. So there’s lots of evidence that sort of practice self reflection builds empathy, but also, I think conviction for, for the therapy you’re delivering. So if you’ve done it, and you receive it, and it lands, and it makes a difference, you actually can deliver it with more conviction. And you can be slightly more creative in the way you apply it as what the evidence suggests. I think having that chance to receive it from the inside out is really important, you know it in a very different way.

 

Hayley Quinn
Absolutely. You understand the power of some of the exercises, don’t you? In a way that you can’t understand just by reading about them.

 

Tobyn Bell
Definitely, I think you also find your blind spots, as well as the areas that you find difficult to be sensitive to or to tolerate ad Paul Gilbert from CFT often talks about that, if you can’t sort of be sensitive and tolerate it in yourself, it’s very difficult to do that with other people. 

Like, I find anger, quite tricky, more of a tricky emotion and doing work on that has helped me to, I don’t know, see its valuable importance in other people in the therapeutic process and not be frightened of it in therapy.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, because of course I mean, if we can’t get close to our dark side, how can we walk with somebody else as they move towards theirs?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I think it’s essentially quite bonding as well, isn’t it? What you see in the other you recognise in yourself and it’s actually something that brings you together rather than the other person.

I think that’s what I love so much about compassion, focus therapy is, it’s a model of human functioning and distress. There is no other in a way. 

So I suppose like that’s the nice thing, you know, you learn about being human, patterns and processes that aren’t disordered, but part of being human and they inevitably apply to yourself as well as other people.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, definitely. We’re all walking around with these tricky vines.

I think for anybody interested in CFT. The CFT from the inside out book is a fantastic one to go through. So thank you for bringing that with your colleagues into the world.

You also founded the organisation chairwork with Matthew Pugh and do a lot of research and work utilising chairwork. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about? And what have been some of your biggest learnings from that?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I suppose I met Matt at chairwork training. I think we’re both interested in similar processes and had similar questions about how it works and why it works and things.

I suppose like from a personal point, using it in therapy, it just became something that I started to do without really knowing what I was doing, I suppose, by sort of having just another chair in the room. 

It just felt like a really helpful way of externalising certain processes that the client might be experiencing, but also separating from them too. So I suppose like, you know, in cognitive therapy, for example, you might ask them to how would you see this in a friend? Or if a friend was here how would they see this in you? For example, to get a perspective shift.

But we’re having a chair there, and then imagining the friend there to either talk to or go over and embody just seemed to move things so quickly, just a bit in that way, and then got drawn to all the different therapies that use chairwork and I think there’s such interesting processes within chairwork. So some of the important learning points for me is that idea of self multiplicity. Often, when I’m hearing people talk, now I’ve become of trying to listen in, like, talk about it, like listening in stereo, rather than mono. So someone might say something like, oh, you know, stupid for doing that. And if you’re listening, for the dialogue, listening for stereo, you can kind of hear that there, you know, there is a part of the person that is attacking them and calling them stupid and there’s also a part that receives it.

That kind of allows you to explore and be sensitive to the relationship that goes on in between these two parts, it gives you more of a therapeutic target, because you can target the angry critic, or you can explore the vulnerability. And when you get the relationships now you can then explore, like, does this relationship look like other relationships in people’s lives.

I think there’s something also, particularly using compassion focused therapy is, like separating a part of yourself and personifying it giving it sort of human form, sort of recruits the care base skills to so you can start to see a part of you as being, I don’t know, like, upset, and you can imagine, like gaining eye contact with them, and you imagine their shoulders slumping and I think, that allows you to facilitate flows of compassion, I think. I think self compassion is quite hard because where do you give it like, it’s easy to give to you, for example, I could see you and I can see your facial expression.

But to yourself, kind of look down and see your toes type thing. It’s separation via imagery or chairwork allows that. Interpersonal skills, I think, and allows them to translate them to your interpersonal intrapersonal world really.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, yeah. I love that. As you’re saying that it’s like a maybe that’s where somebody could start, though, if it was really tricky is could you perhaps give self compassion to your toes.

 

Tobyn Bell
But it’s hard, it’s got no expression to respond to.

 

Hayley Quinn
Then start to see these different parts of self, isn’t it? And that’s not the whole of who you are, that we are multiple selves and these different parts of self need our care and nurturance, don’t they?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I think that’s a really important point that you can go and really immerse in these different parts, because you’ve also got chair for the other part and then you can separate from them, and you can stand up and you can walk about, and you get a sense of agency that you can come back and sit in and then move away.

So I think I’m kind of doing some of those exercises for myself as well. You kind of realise the power. But also it’s weird. So I think you need a really good therapeutic relationship to take that leap and enter that surplus reality. 

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, I think you know, it can feel weird, can’t it? And I think therapists can be hesitant to want to broach this with a client, because it can seem weird. Do you have any tips for somebody who’s not done that before? Or has only done a little bit of how they could kind of move into that?

 

Tobyn Bell
I think like with quite a lot of CFT, actually, I think it’s sometimes talking about maybe the you know, say if you’re working with a critic, you might say for example, you know, so if I was working with my critic, my critic might be over here. And he might be saying those kinds of things, and then I might be receiving it and feeling really, really upset too. So I think with particularly with CFT I feel more and more inclined to share just you know, small aspects of myself to normalise it and deshame it and then you kind of say well, you know what would your critic kind of stay and would it say similar to mine or to this is what we typically expect. So I suppose it works to deshame it before you start. And the other thing that we typically do in chairwork is you work together and you would give first person statements that try and capture what the client says, capture the implicit messages or the emotion. So you might, as a therapist, for example, start speaking to the empty chair to model how the client might speak to it. And there’s such a beautiful process of them sort of finding your voice together. So, you know I might say, to try and help a client with empty chairs, you know, so maybe we could start by saying something like, you know, seeing you here, it’s making me feel, make me feel a bit scared. Does that fit? And do you want to try that? So you can offer statements for people to try out and check against their experience. So there’s a kind of shift from asking lots of questions, which might move folk up to the head to kind of give first person statements. So you’re finding sort of elaborating a voice together, which I really like how much they work.

 

Hayley Quinn
So it’s a really nice, gentle, supportive, encouraging processing. 

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah and then sometimes it gives you a chance to really, you know, if the client’s really stuck to step in and advocate for them. So would it be okay, if I speak to the critic, I know, it’s really difficult when you face the critic, could I speak to them? Maybe say what I’d like to say, for you know, us together for a compassionate team? 

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah. That’s beautiful, compassionate team.

So like many of us, you have diversity in your work, you know, you write and you research and you do this stuff with the chairwork, and you do therapy, and you teach at university, busy, busy man, you’re a parent, you do lots of stuff. What would you say are the pros and cons of having that diversity in your work?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I think the pros are when they when it all works together, and you feel like you’re weaving them together, and there’s some connective strands. So you might be doing some research and you find something from speaking to clients in the research way. And then you bring it into your supervision or your therapy and then that forms your teaching, and then furthers research questions, etc. But it doesn’t work. It’s just like you’re doing multiple things that aren’t connected, and you just want to work on one project.

I think lots of projects have been really slow lately. But I think there’s potentially something to be said about stopping things, leaving things, coming back things with a fresh head with a different mindset, with a different kind of self on board type thing. And you see things very differently, and they start to become more woven into who you are, I think.

I’m not particularly a quick researcher. But I suppose it’s picking things that you feel really passionate about.

 

Hayley Quinn
Sometimes it feels like this really flowing ecosystem where everything kind of works together and other times it can feel like things are drawing your attention away from the other things you want to be doing.

 

Tobyn Bell
I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. So I think it’s hard,

I think therapy, therapy and working therapy, is just really difficult and I think, you know, it kind of should be difficult in lots of ways, because we’re working with lots of uncertainty when we’re not following set protocols ideally.

It needs that time, space, supervision and reflection with others.

 

Hayley Quinn
So I guess, bringing compassion to the situation as well, for ourselves, isn’t it when it’s not all flowing in the nice way we might like, that’s okay. Like you said before, sometimes it is about stepping back and saying, actually, I don’t need to do this right now, I need to set this aside and come back to it with fresh eyes or at a different time.

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I think so.

I think for me the trust thing and using other people’s not come particularly easy, but it’s been something I’ve really, really valued more and more really, I think that sense of doing all those tasks in our community and with other people. Just makes it so much easier, in so many different ways, sustaining you, encouraging you, sharing ideas, sharing energy when somebody is flagging, I think, research for example, and then that space to reflect with multiple people you know, I have quite a few different supervisors now and I love hearing different ways of seeing the same clinical problem and for me that’s not a problem, that’s great. It just sort of enriches the process, gives lots of options. I personally think creatively and flexibly.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think like you’re saying, it can be hard to sort of reach out for help to people. For many people, that can be difficult, but I think when you can, it really does change things doesn’t, it really does make a difference in what we do, and what we can do, and what we choose to do. 

Tobyn Bell
I think that sense of sort of carrying people into the individual works, I mean, some work you do individually, but isolation, you know, the idea from chair workers that lots of the voices become internalised and they become either resources or like sources of conflict, but the idea of almost centering therapy with a client, but actually you feel like you have a compassionate team around you, you have folk there, who you can take things to and you did some research, as just a small bit of research that I’d like to continue building internal compassionate supervisor says the idea of from Patrick this internal supervisees take things to from psychodynamic work, but I thought, you know, can we could we train up somebody to have a compassionate internal supervisor. And we did some sort of imagery practices for trainee clinicians and I suppose it was the idea really, that they can take their problems to resource in their own mind that’s built up and that can be used, and they said it, you know, but the research showed it was people were able to use it after session to manage fears and concerns. But they’re also able to sort of use it in session, just to sometimes it was something they might this supervisor in their head might reflect or share with them or, but it was more just a sense of somebody being with them, somebody supportive. This sense of encouraging presence, I think, allows them to do the work they wanted to do.

 

Hayley Quinn
I remember doing a wonderful training around that with you in Lismore, I believe it was, when you came out of pre COVID that time that we had. Yeah, fantastic. So you’re currently completing a PhD? Are you finished? 

 

Tobyn Bell
Next week, actually.

 

Hayley Quinn
Oh, that’s so exciting. Wow. I mean, that’s no small feat, especially when you’re also working and parenting. So I’m curious, because there are a number of people who are in the helping professions that are studying or doing extra things on top of work. How do you take care of yourself during this process and what do you find your biggest challenges with that?

 

Tobyn Bell
First, I was like, not not very well, but I think that’s not quite true. I mean, I think it’s just difficult. And I think it’s, I’m going to suppose it’s not trying for it to not be a difficult process of doing anything whilst doing the important job of parenting is difficult. I think I found that the most difficult part because it’s a part time, PhD that lasted many years and is older than my son is. But I think that the bit of like, having small amounts of time to pick up the project, and then taking a while to get into, and then doing being only able to do a small piece of work, you know, feels really defeating, I suppose, in terms of like, past depression and things that they’re part of depression, I suppose, is that sense of sort of defeat, that you can experience when you’re trying to do something that pulling back and shutting down? So it was, I suppose it’s a really helpful piece of work, and part of the process is to learn how to, you might try and pick up a task and it’s sort of tolerating and working with knowing that you can only do a small amount and knowing that you’re gonna feel it’s not enough. But still dealing with it, you know, and I think that was, I mean, that’s been quite an important personal process, I think. Because it’s really difficult, partly things are, you know, if this, I’m not going to do this anymore, because it’s not going to get any done. I can only gonna do about half an hour and it’s not worth the pain it causes but that would involve basically giving up on it. So it’s finding that, navigating that route through it really, I think it’s been hard but important. I think the things probably I found helpful using the body to work with problems as much as the mind really so using sort of soothing practices but also kind of drive based practices using the body and shifting the physiological context, rather than trying to change the mental context makes such a difference for me. So, you know, a run or a swim is worth hours of thought.

 

Hayley Quinn
So getting active? I imagine, you know, there would be lots of opportunities for the self critic to show up in that process. Like you’re saying, this is not enough, I’ve not done enough. How do you then work with that?

 

Tobyn Bell
Working with the self critic has been such an important part of, for me, that’s such an important part of compassion focused therapy, I suppose we’ve worked on it a lot. It doesn’t really, I suppose when it shows up now, it just shows up as almost as a flag or a piece of information or a reminder. So I suppose when I do notice getting critical, I suppose it’s less leaning into the content and arguing with the content or working with the content and it’s just thinking, right, so I know, when the critic shows up, it means it’s usually in response to feeling like I’m failing or being rejected in some way. I mean, I think that’s probably the same for most folk. So I suppose if I see that, and I see it as that’s what its function is and what its role is and what’s triggered it, then it allows me to work on what’s primary underneath it. So just feeling like I could fail, being vulnerable around that feeling concerned that I might be judged and then I work on the fear of judgement. So I think it’s almost like a flag, wanting to tend to I think that’s been the most helpful way I think about it. And I suppose the more you practise, the compassionate voice, the more it offers itself.

 

Hayley Quinn
I can so relate to that I had an extremely vicious and brutal self critic. I’ve done a lot of work with that and building the compassionate self and I really hear what you’re saying is it becomes less about that content of the critic, and it’s like, oh, you shut up. What’s that about? What do I need to be aware of?

 

Tobyn Bell
I think curiosity is the kind of opposite to, to threat and the energy of threat. That kind of centres that springs from it, like being interested being what it is that’s hurting here is, it comes back to sort of our definitions of compassion? What is it like being sensitive to suffering? What is it that hurts, really? And then, what is it that I need?

 

Hayley Quinn
Absolutely. So well worth building a compassionate self.

 

Tobyn Bell
Hard work though.

 

Hayley Quinn
Hard work.

But most things that are worth it are, aren’t they? Yeah, absolutely an ongoing practice, but certainly something I’ve spoken many times about, it’s been life changing for me, and I think you have spoken to about that sort of thing. That it just makes such a difference doesn’t turn in, in all areas, as well and I think, you know, as helping professionals, we really do need to take care of ourselves. The work we do is challenging, and can be very triggering, depending on the situation, the client that you’ve got with you. So I think it’s a good investment in ourselves to be practising this.

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, it’s in service of our clients to really think that I mean, so much that the information we get from, from a clinical session is often like how we feel and being open to that, within ourselves, I think it provides a great stream of information from the clinic too and then if you don’t sort of shame and blame yourself about it, then it becomes important source to take supervision. And I think that for me it would be the most important sort of take home you can do from CFT. So you know, there’s loads of wonderful exercise and compassion focused therapy where you learn to teach folk how to create a safe place and to create compassionate others and you know, often it doesn’t work, but it doesn’t work for good reasons. Like somebody might become really angry or be full of grief and tears or dissociate when you’re doing it and it’s so easy to think that it is not working or you failed in some way. You’ve kind of made a procedural error, if only I used a better voice tone or better pacing but if you can clear that stuff away, then it becomes such important information about the client and their fears and blocks compassion. I think that’s a real shift from like being right at the beginning of CFT, where you think, oh, I’ve got to do this, right and it’s got to land in this way, to let me just sort of drop this in the sort of caring signals into the client’s world and see how they land. And you know, when they land, and other things come back, rather than sort of feeling soothed and safe, then that’s what makes the therapy become important. It’s hard to clear the way of your own stuff, I think, to be able to appreciate that.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, because we’re human too, with tricky minds, right? I remember Paul Gilbert saying, you know, fears, blocks and resistances is the work of CFT. You know, it’s such important work, isn’t it? And looking at our own fears, blocks and resistances. To how we are in the room and how we are in terms of taking care of ourselves as well as therapists.

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, it’s great learning, isn’t it? So like treatment, so-called treatment failures are actually the most important thing to attend to and I suppose that translates to personal life and things you feel like you’re failing at. Maybe you need attention and generate the most learning really.

 

Hayley Quinn
And how can we look at those in a gentle and compassionate way?

So what would be I don’t know, it can be hard to distil it down to one piece, but what would be one piece of advice that you would share with our listeners?

 

Tobyn Bell
Probably what we’ve just talked about, I think, is that if you do so for example, when I work more and have a compassionate focus, when things aren’t going well, it’s so easy to fall back on self shaming, and blaming. And I suppose if you can find ways to be steady and compassionate with yourself, then it becomes, as a clinician, the most important pieces of information and ways to connect to the clients, most important unmet needs really. I suppose in terms of, for myself, and clinically, that idea of self multiplicities, I just found so helpful. The idea of you know, there are multiples in oneself, there are multiples and other people. And I think for me, that sort of allows me to own more in myself, you know, I can, I can, and there’s a part of me that might hate being a parent. But I know that because I can trust that there is another part that loves it and so it feels like it allows you to lean into different aspects of your experience without worrying that it is all of you. Then I suppose it allows for the complexity and richness of inner relationships to be discerned and worked on and yeah, changed, adding in different voices. And I suppose that’s the other thing. You know, in CFT, we’re adding in, we’re creating, maybe not adding in, but we’re reconnecting to, or cultivating a voice that maybe hasn’t been very strong or dominant, it was lies. And so I suppose the idea of, we have multiples, but we can bring in new voices, and we can start changing relationships within ourselves and support outside relationships.

Hayley Quinn
Absolutely. I think it’s a beautiful vehicle to change in the relationship with yourself. That’s certainly been my experience in life. And I think you touched on before that, you know, when we know we’ve got this part that we may struggle with, if you just kind of thought, you know, this part of me that doesn’t enjoy being a parent is the whole of me, then you probably get quite self critical and perhaps shaming of yourself. But because you can trust there’s this other part of you that loves being a parent, you’re able to go toward that part of you that doesn’t love parenting, and actually meet the needs of that part of you, that part of you might need to have time away from your darling child, go do some stuff that you you’d enjoy doing for yourself. But if we can’t go close to those parts of ourselves, we can’t truly take care of ourselves because there’s needs that we’re actually ignoring.

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of my my understanding of it too, that these I think that’s one of the most helpful things with chairwork and CFT is that you know, these patterns and voices or parts or what have you, they you know, they do have valid they do have function they are worth listening to and I think some therapies typically would have a programmatic voice and then try to reduce it but I think there’s so much value in giving it more space and allowing it to speak to elaborate and naturally then we get to understand where that comes from and what it’s trying to do and seeing what it needs, like you said, I think the idea of self multiplicity is so powerful because it means you don’t have to get rid of parts, you can. No, you’re just building another part to work with it and understand that. So therefore, it becomes more about how do we build and integrate, rather than kind of reduce or reject kind of thing, which I think just feels so much more healthy. And it works. But that kind of idea of doing that, I suppose works on a external way, too. I mean, that’s how it ideally, social groups should work, shouldn’t it work rather than try and reduce and reject we should appreciate difference and work together? There’s lessons you learn for internal life, kind of great lessons for external life and I think, in terms of compassion, the idea of being inner and outer multiple flows. This is a real gift, I think.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, I think that’s a really beautiful point. You know if we can look at society like that and be more inclusive not just wanting to get rid of the people that don’t fit for us but actually seeing them as they are with the strengths that they have, and how can we all actually be together? And that as well for us internally, you know, because it’s not try and get rid of the parts we don’t like, but see why they’re there and understand them and meet the needs they might have.

Tobyn Bell
Respecting these are strong patterns or forms in themselves, we don’t have to cut down their edges and make everything similar and the same much about how do we I guess you can’t get rid of anger, you can’t get rid of, you know, the tough parts of being human. I suppose it’s how do you work with them?

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, so it becomes futile and exhausting, right? Whereas if we can be more compassionate and go, okay, well, how can I work with this part of myself? It’s just an easier journey in the end.

 

Tobyn Bell
It kind of feels counterintuitive doesn’t it? It’s difficult and finding its worth in place and value.

 

Hayley Quinn
Yeah, absolutely. So I ask this to all my guests, and I’m always curious about the answer. If you could meet your 80 year old self, what do you think they would say to you?

 

Tobyn Bell
It’s really weird. Because I never thought I’d make it past particular ages. So like, I never thought I’d get 30 and 40. I suppose I’m already sort of appreciating that certain aspects of life are finite, and particularly like my body and what I’m able to do so I think that capacity to really enjoy and maximise this sort of stage of life really where I can do the things that I’d liked, you know, which it’d be, I’d love to be kind of more like grateful for it’s hard I think when you’re so driven when you say driven and tasks are there to appreciate that so I think I’ve probably said work a lot less. Listen to that. The partner feels defeated and exhausted. It’s not something you need to plough over it’s something you actually need to provide space for and listen to more because it’s I don’t think it is just exhaustion. I think it’s yearning for something. Something different outside of therapy, I think too.

 

Hayley Quinn
How can you slow down and listen to the wisdom that that’s offering you?

 

Tobyn Bell
I think there is a value in just doing that slowing down and giving that those other voices a chance really to be heard.

 

Hayley Quinn
Greatest life hack ever slowing down I think. Chronic illness forced that upon me but gee, I learned some stuff through it.

 

Tobyn Bell
It’s funny that the you know, there’s some forms of therapy sort of say that you know, if you don’t listen, if you do disowned parts of yourself will come looking for you in different ways and I kind of have that sense of if I don’t slow down stop and you know, you will hit you will be stopped by an illness or something. And we’ll buy something that forces you to do it. So I think practically doing it would be good.

 

Hayley Quinn
Maybe you can check in with your 80 year old self in the mornings and just say what do you reckon?

 

Tobyn Bell
I’m getting glimpses of it with my sore knees already, I think.

 

Hayley Quinn
So could you tell us a bit about any current projects that you’re currently working on?

 

Tobyn Bell
Yeah, so I mean, the majority of work at the moment is, is chairwork orientated really and so we’ve got a project just starting up about using the compassionate other. So in CFT, you might imagine this caring figure that becomes an internal resource and forms a sort of internal relationship. But for some folk imagery is quite tricky. So we’re doing some research about doing a chairwork version of it so creating the sense or the image, if you can do that, have compassion for another chair, but then role reversing and becoming the compassionate other. So you add embodiment to it, being the compassion out there, and then speaking to the empty chair, where you were. And so I think for me, it sort of takes the imagery one step further by adding embodiment and then adding sort of embodied dialogue. You can swap backwards and forwards and receive the care and think it highlights the different flows of compassion really nicely. I’m also doing some research on the compassionate other and social anxiety. So if that’s helpful, cool. 

 

Hayley Quinn
So if people want to find out more about the things you’re doing or get in touch, where can they find you and engage with you and your work? And I’ll put links in the show notes.

 

Tobyn Bell
So the website of the organisation along with my colleague, Matthew, Matthew has done amazing work in chairwork in CFT, but written about chairwork, but more broadly. So we run an organisation called Chairwork. And it’s chairwork.co.uk. And if you go to the website it’s got trainings that we offer that that are mainly online still. So we can reach different folk, but it’s got lots of resources there. It’s got sort of prompts or dance steps for multiple different chair work, interventions. And we put all our papers on there as well and some things that we need protocols from research and things. So if you’re interested, it’s quite good, free resources to have and have a look at.

 

Hayley Quinn
Fantastic that’s so generous.

 

Tobyn Bell
It’s good practice to try and articulate it. And so it’s good for us to simplify, clarify and communicate what we were trying to do. I think for a long time chairwork was like a mystique around it’s powerful thing that you do and like magic sort of happens. Theatrical thing. So I mean, that is still true I think, you know, continuity and creativity. But I think there are some fundamental principles and processes that actually provide a lot of structure for people to then let go, and really try. 

 

Hayley Quinn
Fantastic. Well, I’ll put links to everything in the show notes. It’s been an absolute pleasure, chatting with you, and I look forward to catching up with you at the conference in Edinburgh. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

 

Tobyn Bell
Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

 

Thank you for sharing this time with me today, I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you would like to leave a review wherever you tune in. Reviews really help to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated as I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray, thanks Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with Your Self and may you go well and go gently.

 

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Disclaimer
This transcript may not be an exact representation of the audio