Interview with Ian Wallace

Another great interview in the run up to the BSSK show at the Monastery this weekend!  Today our interview is with Ian Wallace, many thanks to him for answering our questions.  The subject of mental health is too complex to tackle in this little interview but Ian has given us some remarkable and succinct answers.  He can be found online at www.intuitivetherapy.co.uk

To start with you could you tell us a little bit about yourself.

I have been working with people all my life and have been fascinated by how people communicate or not as the case may be. I have honed my intuitive sense of this over the years to appreciate how people can alter their communication to get a better result. “It’s not what you say it’s how you say it that matters” I always tell my Client’s. I have been through most of life’s issues over the 57 years of being on this earth and I use this experience to help other people who need to understand life and all its complexities. I never tell people what to do, just help them to explore their options and ways to do things differently. I create clarity and positive options for people in helping them move forward. People say I have a unique intuitive way of explaining things, in a straightforward and non-confusing way, explaining it in their language, which helps them see things more clearly and make better choices.

Do you think as a society we are still too scared to talk about mental health?

There is still a lot of Stigma around mental health issues and fear of what that might mean having a mental health problem. I see things as being in two camps.
The people who have a physical mental condition which makes it hard for them to interact with the world in a way other people understand I called this group differently abled. As even in this group they have heightened skills in other areas which can be used to help them and others. An example of this would be a person with Asperger’s, a condition which limits their emotional understanding and interaction in their world. They find it very hard to be in relationships but have an exceptional skills in making practical choices without being restricted by emotional impact. I would rather have a surgeon operating on me who had Asperger’s than one who was emotionally unable to cope with the medical decisions to be made.
I see others who go through life’s hardships and don’t have the capacity to deal with it, these I would put into the category of depressed, a term which others see as a mental health issue, and I see this generally as a state of mind which we all go through at some time in our life. These people can alter their mind and alter their life with help in understanding that life, which has taken control of them, Depression is usually linked to an out of control situation and that by being depressed the person withdraws from the people and things around them, so just controlling themselves not being responsible for anyone or anything, this is why it can be so deliberating. Understanding why it has happened, that it’s normal for all humans to experience this and that they are not the problem, helps them to shake off this state of mind and start to move forward.

Can people who think they are mentally healthy still benefit from counselling from time to time - like a health MOT almost?

Absolutely talking therapies, as we call them, are in my opinion an essential part of any process in unravelling things and making sense of the world. We cannot be objective in our worlds, even Counsellors, as we are emotionally involved in the process and we cannot separate that from the issues which we are experiencing.
I have lots of Clients who contact me periodically to have that MOT just to check that they are going in the right direction and to clear the clutter as I call it.

How did you get into counselling, was it a sudden "calling" or a gradual move?

I think I have always been a Counsellor, even though that was not my job description. I have always been the person who people talked to, shared things with. I am an exceptional listener and I feel the words, which might sound strange let me explain. I feel peoples interactions someone might be talking about something light hearted; they might be saying the words that express that but underneath the words they are feeling differently. I can pick up on these subtle differences and ask the real questions that need to be asked to take the conversation to a deeper level. This helps them to engage with the real issues they wanted to talk about but were scared to say. I call this an Intuitive Encounter, using my empathic sense to make a deeper connection of the interaction of listening with all my senses not just my ears. This is more explored on my web site www.intuitivetherapy.co.uk

I came through a difficult time in my life which basically took me from the comfort and security I thought I had in my life and threw me into a place I never expected to be. This total confusion state and negative process, which I thought it was at the time, blew my world apart, literally. This made me question everything I had held dear in my world and I started to ask, what was this all about, why me, the poor me syndrome, the victim. After the pain and anger had died away I saw that it had been my fault as well and that if I had been able to see the writing on the wall earlier it would have helped to change the outcome. This transition helped me to understand the process of loss and depression in a very real way. I believed that the experience I had gone through, and the fact I had come through it still alive, would be something that could be helpful to other people, so then I asked the universe to show me what my life was about and where I was going and then the universe, as it does, did a whirlwind process picked me up and dropped me at the start of the journey into counselling and beyond, the next part of my life, and one I fully enjoy and feel privileged to be doing.

Which writer/thinker has influenced you the most.

This may sound odd but actually no writers or thinkers have influenced me at all, as far as I know, as I have had to read an awful lot over the last 17 years, which was feat in itself, and some of it may have assimilated into my thoughts. My greatest influence has been all the Clients and people I have interacted with over my life. Because of my differently abled way of interacting in the world, I am dyslexic and find reading hard to do. I learn by experience and that gives me the real aspects of life in all its many forms, not the theory of it. This way of learning and growing has always been a part of my life but I did not fully understand that until I started to become more aware and questioned why I do what I do. This helped me to see that I was not thick, as had been expressed in my formative years, just that I did not take information in the way academia wanted me to, I learnt differently.





What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given.

Wow well many things have been said which have been profound over the years, most it by my Client’s to be fair, but I suppose if I had to find one thing that I hold on to it would be something that was said to me by a Supervisor called Pam, who unfortunately is no longer with us, her words were:

“It’s not wrong to think you are good at what you do, it’s only wrong to compare yourself to others and say you are better than them. Ego is in the comparison not the self-belief”

Would you name 6 “Desert Island” books or films (ones you would like if you were stranded on a desert island - for young ones who don’t know about Desert Island discs!)

In no particular order of importance:

There is something about Mary, it always lifts me and makes me laugh.
Danny Boy: it was my Grans favourite and we used to sing it together and I always cry when I hear it
Angel by Robbie Williams: This makes me see sense of the world and is the song which helped me to feel again.
Bat out of hell by Meatloaf: Energises me and makes me dance like a mad man.
Your so vain by Carley Simon: Makes me remember that I am not the Guru just a guy who does things because he believes they help.
Imagine by John Lennon: Makes me believe that the world can be different and there is hope as, long as we loose the dynamics of power, control and the greed of humans.