Rhiannon Hill, Psychotherapy & Counselling

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Books and articles by Rhiannon Hill - psychotherapist, business counsellor and writer.

TEN STUPID THINGS THAT CAN MESS UP YOUR LIFE. Email me for a copy - use the PayPal button or I also accept cheques.

Who can benefit from this book?

Everyone could potentially use therapy at some point in their lives, and here's the book that tells you the main issues people address in therapy and describes some of the benefits of resolving them. Other people who might need this book are those who have already made a decision to get into therapy but are a bit concerned about what might happen.

Feel like you don't fit somehow? Not comfortable in your own skin perhaps? Relationships always difficult? Worried about dying? Stressing out all the time?

If you have ever thought of getting into therapy and exploring some issues but were too afraid to ask what might happen, this is the book for you!

It's not a book full of difficult jargon, analytical waffle or practical advice.

It's a down to earth, often humorous but insightful guide to the main things that bring people into therapy, with some helpful exercises you can do yourself to get you started.

TEN STUPID THINGS THAT CAN MESS UP YOUR WORKING LIFE

Being bullied at work? Trying to run a small company and suspect people are sabotaging or manipulating you? Suspect a work colleague has mental health problems?

TSTTCMUWL is the book for you!

A look at the things people do at work to mess YOU up and how to identify them, understand them, cope or when to take action.

NOT SURE IF THERAPY IS FOR YOU?

Want to know what’s likely to happen, how to find a good therapist and what sort of issues can be addressed?

Both books:Just £7.99 to visitors to my website, click here to request PDF download or mailed as CD-Rom.

PLEASE email me once you have purchased one of my books. Please write the full title in the email subject box so I can send you the correct one.

This book outlines all the major issues which people bring into therapy. It’s easy to read with exercises and examples to get you started. It is not a self help book, but a primer, intended to allay some fears about what therapy might demand from you as a client, and also to enable us to get clear about what our particular issues might be.

What People Say About the Book:
'I wanted to thank you for your Ten Stupid Things… I have loved the reading and the quizzes, I remember some of them very specifically, number 5 for instance, made me realise I am quite adult and have good common sense.

In number 4 your sense of humour was great when you were describing your attitude towards relationships. The one about Stress was also very good, but painful when you say that stress doesn’t really exist and it is down to us how we deal with it. The last one about death, it was a great choice for the end…………'

'Thanks for the 10 Stupids. I don't know if you believe in synchronicity but it plopped into my inbox just as my wife, arrived home from visiting her dad who is is suffering badly from cancer and she is suffering just as badly. She really needs to talk to him about the fact that he's going to die but she can't bring herself to raise the subject. Neither can anyone else. So, the stuff in your Tenth Stupid was spot on and very timely………'

LOVED your 10 Stupid Things and have really been going over the Addiction one since this has been a recurring theme in my life ……………'

Just dropping you a note to say thanks for the 'ten stupid things' as it has helped me think about my own situation…………'

Utterly brilliant, 12 years into my relationship and this all resonates - it would alot easier if you knew much of this before the whole thing started - I am printing out your notes for my husband and we will discuss them together, I think they'll really help us with this journey we are on…………'

I've looked at your book and I think it's excellent. I'd really like to give it to all new clients that have never been in therapy before. It provides a lovely, straightforward guide as to what kind of things can be worked on in the session - that is particularly for people who interested, not just in solving a particular problem, but who are more into personal growth.

PROBLEMS AT WORK?

Why not get a copy of my second book:
Ten Stupid Things That Can Mess Up Your Working Life by Rhiannon Hill. Email me for a copy once payment has been made.Please put the correct title in the email subject box so I can send you the right book.

Just £7.99 to visitors to my website. PDF download. Please use the PayPal button below or I accept cheques.

This book is based on a range of experiences myself, colleagues and clients have encountered both as employees and managers, and from using group process to troubleshoot issues in business and organizations.

Many people put up with bad behavior and a variety of mistreatments at work simply because they don’t know how to counter it, or do not value themselves highly enough to stand up to bullies, or are afraid, without justification, of losing their jobs.

The book also contains a fascinating exploration of attitudes and behaviours towards work in our culture, including common work motivations, negative ‘games’ people play in the workplace and basic tips on how to spot people who are addicted, or have serious psychological problems, in order to inform ourselves as employers, managers and colleagues.

Work should be fun and satisfying – this book helps identify difficulties and ways of improving relationships in every workplace. SEE MORE ABOUT WORK ISSUES IN ARTICLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

What people said about Ten Stupid – Work

I have to admit that at first I found this book quite challenging, because I realized that while I had been having problems myself with other people treating me badly at work, I’d also been guilty of doing stuff to other people in the past…thanks for helping me get clear, I don’t feel so alone with the bullying now…………'

I didn’t realize how much of what people think is just messing about and teasing is serious at work. It’s made me open my eyes and I don’t let people get to me so easily now…………'

Thanks so much for this – it’s about time someone gave some tips and support to people who are miserable in the office. Scary but easy to read and even funny sometimes, I read it from cover to cover....'

WORKERS BEHAVING BADLY


Rhiannon Hill drags some skeletons out of the office cupboard......

If you're thinking of changing jobs, beware.

It might look like the best job you ever have but it can badly affect your mental health too.

In Corporate World, recruitment packages are pretty amazing, great salary, interesting work, fabulous pension, maternity and sickness care. Perks include free dry cleaning, car expenses and cheap gourmet restaurants and the job may also mean meeting exciting people and gaining enormous satisfaction.

Everything is rosy, you feel like you're right in the zone.

But most workplaces are full of other people who have very different agendas. Some, absolutely nothing to do with work itself. Behaviours which ruin your working life and even your mental health.

Working environments have improved dramatically in recent years. Yet still millions of us daily face eight or more hours of living hell.

And Hell is Other People.

In November 2004 the Health and Safety Executive issed a directive requiring multiple employers to establish resources to counter workplace stress.

Work itself is stressful. Sometimes hard, sometimes boring, people would rather be snowboarding or playing with the kids.

It's not just about being 'nice'. People have feelings, they need confidence and a calm atmosphere. This may not cut much ice among people who assume we're all robot slaves to the salary cheque but it's a fact that happy workers are productive, money making workers.

Humans are a company's most valuable resource so for it to be profitable it's vital they are productive. People can run a certain distance if it's an interesting job and good salary but they need more. If they are suffering they may just leave. The fallout carries a high price. They'll take the firm's intellectual property and possibly customers. It will also cost a lot of money to recruit and train replacements. For a £30,000 a year job about £10,000.

I've been there. I bagged myself a great job toward the end of my first career. Everything went really well until my boss discovered I'd won a company award.

For the next four years he criticised me daily, bullied me, monitored my every move, made extraordinary demands on my time and actively prevented me getting recruited elsewhere.

By the time I left, the relationship had broken down so much and he'd worked so hard to undermine me with my colleagues and also his superiors, that no one in the office spoke to me. Including, I later discovered, five other frightened people he was also persecuting, who had also suffered in silence.

Every morning I would force myself to go there and would sometimes actually throw up in the office car park. My anxiety levels were off the scale. I was drinking a bottle of wine a night, slumped in front of the TV while my husband struggled to cope with our two small children.

In the night hours I'd lay awake fantasising various methods of getting even with him! Extreme? I'd been working for nearly twenty years and this had never happened before. I'm not perfect, but I wasn't responsible. I was paralysed with shock and disbelief.

With a huge mortgage, and constant sabotage of my escape plans with poor references and other kinds of undermining, I was stuck.

I'm no shrinking violet, but a concerted effort to dismantle someone's self esteem when you've got all the power is actually easy.

By the time I left, I was a wreck. He ruined me for Working for the Man, for a long time.

Stress is too small a word for what many people face simply struggling to earn a living among others whose sole aim seems to be to demolish them emotionally.

Training and development is ok and we've all had good experiences as managers with these projects. But I'm a psychotherapist now and it's obvious that no matter how much training we have, some people behave badly at work. These people are often You and I. The difficulty is we don't realise we're doing it.

A lot of training solutions ignore this.

Money, ambition, competition, mental distress, all contribute to workplace misery.

In the years I have been practising the majority of my employed clients have had unresolved work problems. Many are forced to spend their hard earned on counselling as a result.

Confidentiality rules prevent identification but these are genuine quotes:

"Taking over a company which had had the same managing director for many years,I could see that a lot of updating was needed so I did months of careful management troubleshooting. Everyone co operated and it seemed to be going brilliantly. At the end, I asked the line managers I'd been working with to write reports on the outcomes.

"The majority absolutely trashed me. They lied, misrepresented and attacked me personally. It was awesome how two-faced they'd been.

"I dreaded going there and spent all my breaks in tears. Eventually there WAS a shakeout, but the people who caused all the trouble kept their jobs. I was stunned."

"I was the only woman in an accounts team. From day one I was routinely teased, and subjected to sexual harassment. Personal attacks on my abilities were frequent. They organised work practices to make my job harder. In meetings I was unable to focus. Whenever I picked up my coffee cup and saucer it rattled uncontrollably they just smirked and openly laughed.

"I'm a single parent, I couldn't walk out. I developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome and had so much time off they fired me. I'm highly qualified and experienced but now I'm on benefits."

"I'm an IT consultant. I'm quiet and shy, not the kind to go drinking with the lads. I arrived in a macho office, where the men looked at porn and skateboarded round the office and the women played flirting games whenever the boss' s back was turned. I did not want to participate in any of this, with the result that I was cold shouldered. They hardly spoke to me and were sarcastic and personally insulting.

"I could not get co operation for my project. People password-protected their systems and when I went to the boss the passwords miraculously disappeared. I have now had a breakdown and am on medication.

"A recruitment agency sent me to work in a small firm. I had to learn someone else's job. I got little information and when I asked for help she sighed and frowned. I am on the ball so learned the quickly. She herself had never really got the job nailed, and bitterly resented this.

"The agency called me after a few weeks. I'd been fired. They admitted the last three people they'd sent there had the same problem. By the time I left no one spoke to me, made me a coffee when it was their turn, and actually slammed a connecting door to another office in my face several times a day. My crime? To do the job well."

Envy. Resentment. Defending a job you can't do. These are common examples. You may find yourself working with someone with psychiatric problems or even criminal intent. Everyone pretends it's not happening, and you may end up carrying the can.

Workplace bullying and bad relationships cause absenteeism, addiction and even suicide.

Many people who are routinely ill treat colleagues and staff really believe this is the way to succeed. It isn't.

The answer is simple but the procedure is complex. Unconscious motivations is the key and it must be addressed without frightening off perpetrators, by being compassionate.

It's no good just sending in consultants to 'motivate' or 'train' people. Peronal Growth cannot be applied. It has to be acquired. And it's just that: Personal. Workers bent on sabotage, dishonest ways of fulfilling ambitions, or dumping personal distress on colleagues won't respond to training and coaching solutions long term.

Companies waste millions a year on consultants whose only tool is advice.

Root causes of bad behaviour need addressing. Everyone needs to be involved, including management.

This kind of consultancy is a distress purchase. No one wants to admit that there is something nasty under the floorboards.

Anyone who watched the 2006 TV programme The Ferocious Mr Fixit may be shocked by the appalling situations the presenter exposes, many will recognise the scenarios.

Hidden cameras and confrontation bring up people's defences making it hard to turn things around.

Respecting everyone in a team, giving perpetrators compassion and understanding and creating space for them to self assess behaviours and how deleterious they are to colleagues, themselves, the company and its bottom line, works. One of the best ways is through a group dynamics model. Groups malfunction easily but more and more consultants are finding that a properly facilitated group experience is the most powerful way of fixing workplace trouble.

This sounds idealistic. Until you hear the sequel to my earlier story.

Five years after leaving I bumped into my old boss in the street. I prepared to run but he said he was glad he'd seen me and would I have a drink with him? The old fears and physical discomfort came up but I was intrigued, so I agreed.

We sat down. He launched into a long explanation of his behaviour and apologised. He had been under the inappropriate pressure from his line manager. His career was on the slide - he was a lot older than me. His coping strategy had been to dump this on us.

He'd left the company about a year after me and was trying to scratch a living as a consultant.

I forgave him. He was a sad spectacle. I was lucky, most people never get acknowledgement, let alone an apology.

Everyone has good and bad in them. Companies just need to face up to it and get professional help.

Rhiannon Hill