Madeleine George, Ph.D. candidate from Duke University, stated, “On days at-risk adolescents use technology more, they experience more conduct problems and higher ADHD symptoms compared to days they use technology less.”

There’s no doubt that our younger generations are dealing with some issues concerning technology, but what about adults? Holistic health refers to a person’s mind, body, and spirit, as all three entities that make up our lives are interconnected. With holistic health, we focus on the whole person rather than one particular ailment or symptom their experiencing. Technology fits into this by tapping into all of our holistic elements, which can make us more susceptible of developing anxiety, depression, and other related disorders.

Harvard Medical School stated earlier this year that technology can lead to hand pain, hand numbness, and tingling, as well as neck and back pain. Of course, this has a direct impact on the body – but it can also take a toll on one’s mind, causing more stress and anxiety than necessary. Our spiritual element is made up of a number of things, including:

• Being able to help others
• Feeling as though we have meaning and purpose in this world
• Volunteering

Technology does have the propensity to take us away from these things if we let it. If we become ever consumed by social media and online news reports, we may be taking away precious time with loved ones or helping others in our community. The next time you use a piece of technology, ask yourself, “Is this benefitting my health and wellness?”

Stop the cycle of merry-go-round treatment and find the solution you’re looking for in trauma treatment. Through effective residential treatment, Khiron House helps you find the path you need toward health and wellness in recovery. For information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).

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Hours: 8-5 or 10-7 Monday to Friday

Fees: £850 per week on a self-employed contract (negotiable based on clinical experience).

The successful candidate will satisfy the following requirements:

• Degree in psychology or similar studies in behavioural or mental health. Masters level is preferred.
• Training in Somatic Experiencing and/or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
• Training in EMDR in addition to somatic training (preferred but not required)
• Clinical experience with individuals and/or groups of at least three years is required; clinical experience with trauma patients is preferred.

Also important and strongly preferred:

• Experience working in a residential treatment centre for mental health and behavioural disorders is required
• An ongoing commitment to personal and professional growth
• A willingness to learn the Khiron House approach to trauma treatment (may require some study outside of work hours)
• Ability to collaborate with a team of colleagues
• Excellent interpersonal and collaborative skills

Please send a CV and a 300 word statement describing your reasons for applying to Romana Akram, romanaakram@khironhouse.com. Closing date for application is 24th February 2018.

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Khiron Clinics provides treatment for people suffering from mental health and behavioural disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD at five different units to provide for the needs of a wide range of clients with varying severity of symptoms. These units include:

• Khiron House: a 10-bed residential clinic in North Oxfordshire
• Khiron Hospital: to open in 2017
• Khiron Cottage: a 4-bed halfway house which helps residents from Khiron House transition into independent living.
• Khiron Day Care: Monday to Friday intensive outpatient programme. To open in 2017.
• Khiron Outpatient: outpatient services based in Harley Street, London.

All treatment is based on neurobiologically-informed treatment which focuses on the effects of dysregulation in the nervous system on both mental and physical health. This means that apart from patients having one-to-one sessions with therapists, group sessions, equine therapy and mindfulness, treatment also focuses on bodywork in the form of tai chi, yoga and other fitness classes.

Job Description

The Primary Therapist will be required to deliver one-to-one therapy and group therapy interventions provided to a client during their treatment. The primary therapist will co-ordinate clients’ treatment alongside other modalities such as yoga and equine therapy.

You will be based in our residential clinic and working closely with our Clinical Director, Director of Psychological Services (Dr Janina Fisher), and other therapists so the ability to communicate is paramount as well as being comfortable working in a team environment.

This is a full time permanent position, available immediately. The position is Monday to Friday in Wantage, Oxfordshire from 8am to 5pm, or 10am to 7pm (at the company’s election). The role comes with in house supervision.

What we offer:

• Competitive pay comparable to NHS pay rates for clinical psychologists
• Training
• Supervision

Person Specification

This position is available immediately. To apply, please email Romana romanaakram@khironhouse.com with:

• CV
• Earliest possible start date
• 300 words explain why you feel you are right for this position

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This is a full-time position for a qualified practitioner with experience and training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and/or Somatic Experiencing.

You will be an experienced, self-managing, mature professional with great communication skills, personal ethics and self-care, and willing and able to work as a cooperative member of a team.

Your annual compensation will be around £40,000 depending on a bonus element of pay.

If you are interested in this position please write to romanaakram@khironhouse.com and enclose the following information:

• 300 words on why you want this position
• a brief summary on your professional and personal experience with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and/or Somatic Experiencing
• a brief summary of your other relevant professional experience and trainings
• an indication of when you could start full-time work
• a CV

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Hopethruhorses

Bronwen and Jo Corfield

Khiron House has a new partner, Jo Corfield’s Hopethruhorses, which is an established equine involvement facility in Oxfordshire.

Residents at our Khiron House Clinic have been going and receiving benefits of equine therapy with Jo and her natural herd of eighteen horses during their stay with us.

‘Hopethruhorses’ is something of an unusual equine therapy centre for the United Kingdom as the therapy it offers is grounded in the process of being with, and learning from, horses rather than using horses in any way. This style of equine therapy is more common in the United States.

Jo is a qualified therapist, who has made an extensive study of horse and human psychology and the therapeutic potential of horses.

The Stillness Of Horses

The work Jo Corfield does through “Hopethruhorses” is about drawing people into the quiet presence of the horses.

As Jo explains:-

“The horses really know when they are having to help someone and they go very, very still. It’s fascinating to watch people being drawn into that quietness. The horses bring us back into our own body and whole system and then into a state of balance. However, people have to be open to it,and I find I need to concentrate on getting humans to the point where they are ready to receive”.

A Magnificent And Generous Beating Heart

I was lucky enough to meet Jo, amongst this natural herd, last week. I was therefore able to witness, at first hand, how she subtly and skilfully guided me in my interaction with the horses, so that I then began to notice the horses themselves in more detail, how they responded to me and how I felt to be with them.

It wasn’t long before I had my head resting on one large and beautiful horse’s neck and was being gently guided, by Jo, to feel this horse’s magnificent and generous beating heart – with two hands carefully placed (again guided by Jo) on her chest.

Jo also drew my attention to the fact that none of this would have happened without this particular horse generously letting me, and inviting me, to make contact with her and I felt privileged. I watched this horse companion as she watched me, and her presence was still and I saw her eyes change and soften as I became more relaxed with her.

Being ‘In The Moment’ With The Horses

Jo explained to me that equine involvement is about allowing people to experience and feel themselves in the moment and in so doing they naturally become more mindful.

I saw that Jo does not do this in a “what do you feel now” kind of way but she guides you to notice what is ‘coming up’ for you when you are around the horses and helps you to make connections – both a connection with the horse, itself, and with memories and associations that come to mind.

A Gift From The Horses

As Jo points out, the horses are never forced to be with us. Contact with them is a gift from them, and Jo encourages people to look at what the horses are themselves valuing in us. People may not see their own value, but the horses help us to ‘feel’ what they are aware of in us, at a soul level.

Jo explains:-

“It is simple, it is about releasing the fear when it comes, the horses are receiving so much from you and for you. We keep it simple, we are bringing light into the darkness” – and as she says of herself – “I am the best evidence of how this works”

“I Am The Best Evidence Of How This Works”

Jo, herself, struggled with a severe eating disorder, suffering from anorexia and bulimia, and this began when she was 14 years old, and lasted for thirty years. When she was younger Jo had been in and out of psychiatric hospital, which had not helped her with the disorder.

Fifteen years ago she found herself in a place where she was ‘surviving’ but with real difficulty. She had become very disillusioned as nothing she had tried to help her eating disorder had ever helped, even remotely – she was severely bulimic and fearful.

But it was then, fifteen years ago, that her ten year old son persuaded her that he needed to put an advert in the local shop for a pony, this was to be his future – a career with horses!

He got a reply from an elderly lady who at the time owned Gus, a ginger pony, and Gus became his pony. However, Jo’s son began to lose interest in the pony and Jo found herself solely responsible for him. Horses were a mystery to her at the time, and she was actually fearful of them. But she knew she had to look after Gus’ needs.

Bronwen – The Healer

“We got a Welsh horse, Bronwen, as a companion for Gus. I had no knowledge of horses, I couldn’t ride, I was actually very afraid of horses, but at the time I was, of course, very afraid of everything. When I got Bronwen I had very poor self esteem, I was actually a wreck. But, thankfully, I had this deep rooted feeling that I wanted a proper relationship with this horse. I saw people with their horses, pulling at their mouths, the horses always had their heads high and their eyes were bulging, the riders were kicking them to go forward and I knew I didn’t want that”.

Bronwen Was To Show Jo The Way Forward

“Bronwen was such a perfect horse, she was so giving and kind, but we had all kinds of problems. She wouldn’t go out on the road, she would spin round. But, thank goodness, I knew the problem was me, not her, and that was my saving grace, really. I could do something about that”.

Jo then found a horse whisperer and he began to teach her how to communicate with Bronwen:-

“All she could see, bless her lovely heart, was fear, and for a horse that is about as far away from a leader as you can get. She used to bolt to the other side of the field when she saw me. The horse whisperer taught me to see how she was seeing me and learn to read what she was feeding back about me”.

Bronwen taught Jo about the fear at the heart of her eating disorder.

“I began to let go of the fear and unfold each bit of fear as it arose. Bronwen would actually reward me with that utter softness. She was thanking me for getting it right. Her heart was open, she forgave me for being incompetent. She was constantly encouraging me. She was magic”.

A Whole New Direction

Bronwen and Gus marked the beginning of a whole new direction for Jo, and she started to acquire more horses. She remembers vividly how, at the end of the first five years of this new interest in horses, a horse whisperer who came to help Jo trim the horses feet made a comment that marked a true turning point :-

“I hadn’t consciously realised I was getting so much better, myself. It had been gradual. Then this person, a horse whisperer, who was helping me, who was someone who was good with both horses and humans, said to me – ‘Jo, what a difference there is with these horses, they are so calm and relaxed, before there was stress and anxiety around here but now they are calm’ – and then, suddenly, it dawned on me – I am no longer afraid”.

Next week, in the next blog, we hear more about some of the clients who have benefited from working with Jo Corfield and her natural herd of horses at her Equine Involvement Facility, ‘Hopethruhorses’  and also about her hopes for the future of the facility.

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The goal of an advisory board is to provide assistance to the front-line clinicians in delivering the highest possible care to our residential and out-patient clients.  In different ways each of these experts brings decades of experience in the field and the profession to assist with the development and implementation of the Khiron House programme.

You can read more about the individual members of our Advisory Board in the section above on our people.

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Today we published our 2014 Outcome Report. You can download the report along with the reports for years 2013 and 2012 here: Khiron House Outcome Reports 2014-2012.

These reports have been prepared from the clinic’s data by CORE who are one of the leading authorities on outcome testing and reporting. This year is the third annual report published by Khiron House, an historical initiative which I warmly welcome as their newly appointed Medical Director.

The service has been building their evidence base by collecting, analysing and reporting their outcomes, using standardised measures and tools which most clinicians in the field use, or are familiar with, and then asking CORE to independently verify them on an annual basis.

These reports have demonstrated that Khiron House’s results are very good, and have improved year on year. I hope to help Khiron House to develop this into a small research programme in the future.

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Our new Medical Director

We are starting 2015 with incredible gratitude as we make the wonderful announcement of our new Medical Director.

It is with the greatest respect and happiness that I introduce to you Dr Rex Haigh, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry and 20-year veteran NHS consultant psychiatrist. He started his medical career as a GP, then trained in psychiatry, and group analytic psychotherapy. He is an internationally known expert in the field of therapeutic communities.

His expertise completes our goal of having an in-house clinical team working in tandem with our external network of referring clinicians, psychiatrists and general practitioners to ensure high standards of quality trauma healing treatment for our common clients.  This month I write in my blog about the value of collaboration.

Dr Haigh was a member of the guideline development group for NICE CG78 on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), where he emphatically stated that a standard psychiatric approach of ‘medication and review’ was not suitable for people with these conditions, as they generally have a history of complex trauma and disordered emotional development; which reinforces the need for long-term and coherently delivered treatment.

Personality disorders and trauma

The strong overlap between BPD and trauma and his embracing of our similar therapeutic philosophy implemented at Khiron House made him an excellent match for our needs from both our clients and our clinicians. Here is how he describes the relationship between trauma and personality disorders:

“Although different clinical disciplines have different languages for describing and defining the intensely painful and disabling consequences of disrupted emotional development, with psychologists usually calling it ‘complex trauma’, and psychiatrists diagnosing it as ‘borderline personality disorder’, the underlying mental ‘injury’ is the same – and the treatment for it needs to be biopsychosocial to be effective. This means that the social and the psychological need to be taken into account as much as the biological (meaning brain structure and chemistry, and genetics).

Unless services realise this, and incorporate all the aspects into a coordinated treatment programme, people with these problems – whatever their label – will not be receiving the best treatment. Khiron House offers a state-of-the-art psychotherapy programme for trauma, which can now be fully integrated with the necessary medical care to keep people safe and best able to benefit from the intensive therapy”.

He writes more about these and similar matters in his blog: www.greenshrink.blogspot.com

Rex’s work as a Clinical Advisor to the Department of Health’s National Personality Disorder Programme involved commissioning 11 national pilot projects to demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of using therapeutic approaches which emphasise the quality of therapeutic relationships within a treatment unit.

Environmental care

Dr Haigh’s team also recently won the Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability Psychiatric Team of the Year Award in the RCPsych Awards 2014. This marks the highest level of achievement in psychiatry, recognizing and rewarding excellent practice in the field of mental health.   He made the following statement upon receiving this award: “Sustainability is about connecting people to each other and to nature, helping people to see that there is a life worth living, and a planet that is worth living on.”

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Space and Enabling Expansion

Khiron House’s residential clinic

Allowing space for where we are at and what we are feeling is often what the human system needs most.

Space is like balm for the soul; enabling expansion. It is the opposite of overwhelm’s sense of “breath-less.”

In trauma healing work, just being heard and supported can create a sense of calm for our clients; with their nervous system’s response of a deeper full-breath or an exhaled breath of relief; a sense of “that’s it;” serving as the foundation for the sense of “I can.”

This “I can” is perhaps the natural state of our life-force flow.

The Art of Allowing Space

As clinicians experiencing space within, we “allow for” our clients to resonate with the same. It is not the gloriousness of our knowledge that heals, rather the art of allowing space for the sense of expansion within our clients.

It is the nervous system’s purest expression of acceptance, allowing for: “ah, that’s it” to birth.

To be able to offer this in an environment itself that is open, spacious and clear feels so appropriate and that is a large part of our enthusiasm about our move to the Oxfordshire countryside.

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Exciting Job opportunity at Khiron House

I am leaving Khiron House to pursue developing my craniosacral therapy practice. Although I will be sorry not to be seeing clients and colleagues here at Khiron House on a daily basis, and I am hugely grateful for everything that I have learned here, I am also looking forward to developing my craniosacral therapy practice in Oxfordshire and London.

Khiron House is now recruiting my successor.

This is an exciting opportunity for an Intake Manager to join our residential psychotherapy clinic in Oxfordshire; a full time permanent position based in our office in central Oxford, available from Dec 2014 or sooner.

This role is the first port of call for the entire company and both residential and outpatient clinics. We are looking for someone with experience in counselling or therapeutic skills, as well as the ability to understand the therapeutic modalities we offer and explain them to new potential clients.

There are administrative duties in this role as well and you will need:

• Excellent organisational skills
• The ability to communicate effectively with clients and colleagues
• Compassion and empathy when talking to the clients
• High attention to detail
• The ability to adapt to a busy environment
• The ability to learn new computer software quickly

The main responsibilities of this role include:

• Providing full knowledge of our clinical services
• Supporting the clients throughout their enquiries, appointments and treatment plans
• Managing client information and working with the Practice Manager to arrange treatment plans
• Working with the clinical director, director and senior consultants regarding assessment outcomes and treatment programmes.
• Maintaining correspondence with all new enquiries to help create sales
• Updating key software to maintain accurate sales projections
• Working with the House Manager of the Residential clinic regarding any potential residential clients

You will be based in our residential clinic and working closely with our House Manager and Practice Manager so the ability to communicate is paramount as well as being comfortable working in a team environment.

The position is Monday to Friday in central Oxford 9.00am – 6.00pm.

Salary negotiable for experience plus possible bonuses.

The role comes with in house supervision.

To apply for this position, please reply with:

• CV
• Earliest possible start date
• 300 words explain why you feel you are right for this position

to Romana Akram at romanaakram@khironhouse.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

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