Mr Peter Howie

A conversation with Peter Howie

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  I found people so interesting and then I found that following that interest turned out to be a form of therapy as well. I was exploring myself through psychodrama groups when I realised that I wanted to understand how psychodrama worked and what this meant about myself and others. Once I had done lots of training, I began to work with people.
  
  Simple really.
  
  Then I continued to train and learn and understand other ways to work with folks, and other ways that folks learned, and began to apply these as well.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  I wrote an article on the philosophy behind the chap who developed psychodrama and it can be found here: https://psychodramaaustralia.edu.au/philosophy-life-j-l-moreno%E2%80%99s-revolutionary-philosophical-underpinnings-psychodrama-and-group-psychot
  
  Principally the idea that we create meaning between us as social creatures. There are few meanings that are independent of real living people. And when we get together we swap our ideas with others and are effected by their ideas and we developed ideas in common. This is usually called something like social constructionism or constructionism.
  
  Along with this is the diea that each person's individual perspective is valid for them and makes sense for them and in their context. This perspective may not serve them and be 'objectively' unhealthy or simply unreasonable. However, while a person's perspective may be wrong-headed, it is still their perspective and somehow they have lived a life where it makes sense to see things like that. Without seeing what someone else sees, and understanding how they understand the world, how can I claim that they are wrong. This perspective is often called phenomenology.
  
  There is also an existential element to psychodrama. The whole process is based around following the warm-up of the individual or a group, if done in group psychotherapy. This presumes that people have a purpose or at least are acting as though such a purpose exists. Often this purpose needs to be clarified. Often a purpose needs to be unearthed. Often a purpose needs to be created. Sometimes the purpose has been given by others and a person is unaware of this and needs to work out their own purpose. This is called existentialism.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

  I am working with individual and couples views of sex and how to make it work. I am interested in how people make sense of their context and their world as this particularly applies to sex.

• What methods do you use?

  Generally I use action methods, specifically psychodrama. I use these simple and powerful processes in with individuals. This means that sessions are not dependent of language or understanding or me having to know everything about another person. Psychodrama is used to develop the spontaneity of a person so that they may themselves determine their next steps. Spontaneity allows a person to develop new responses to old and stale situations that they have had trouble with. It also allows a person to use their own skills and abilities more easily to solve their own problems.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  Usually during the first session.

• How has therapy made a difference in your life?

  Its made me a better learner. I have become good at learning for myself. I have also become good at learning about other people.