{"id":1431,"date":"2026-08-13T11:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/?page_id=1431"},"modified":"2026-08-13T11:17:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:17:36","slug":"autobiography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/blogs-news\/autobiography\/","title":{"rendered":"Autobiography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<style>\n.anastasis-post{max-width:820px;margin:0 auto;color:#2A2A28;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:18px;}\n.anastasis-post strong{font-weight:700;}\n.anastasis-post em{font-style:italic;}\n.anastasis-post a{color:#1F4E4A;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#9A6B1F;}\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"anastasis-post\">\n\n<figure style=\"margin:0 0 1.8em;\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wendover_counselling-40-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Autobiography \u2014 the telling and hearing of our own story in the Anastasis Model\" style=\"display:block;width:100%;height:auto;max-height:420px;object-fit:cover;border-radius:8px;\">\n  \n  <!-- <figcaption style=\"margin-top:.5em;font-size:.85rem;color:#6B6B6B;font-style:italic;text-align:center;\">Anastasis Logo<\/figcaption> -->\n<\/figure>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.8em;line-height:1.5;\">\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WUxjeXGvR18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" style=\"display:inline-block;padding:.7em 1.4em;background:#1F4E4A;color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:none;border-radius:6px;font-size:1rem;border-bottom:3px solid #9A6B1F;\">\u25b6&nbsp;&nbsp;Watch the film \u2014 <em>Autobiography<\/em><\/a>\n  <span style=\"display:block;margin-top:.6em;font-size:.85rem;color:#6B6B6B;font-style:italic;\">Opens on YouTube in a new window.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\"><strong>Healing begins when we are seen and heard. The Domain of <em>Autobiography<\/em> is where a fragmented story starts to find its voice, and where a survivor learns, perhaps for the first time, to listen to themselves with compassion.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Most of the people who come to see me enter the <em>Labyrinth<\/em> of their recovery somewhere around the same two thresholds: <em>Trust<\/em> and <em>Tell<\/em>. They arrive carrying an urgency to be connected, heard and seen \u2014 to be validated by the simple, steady presence of another human being. <em>Communion<\/em> provides what Carl Rogers meant by the <em>necessary and sufficient conditions<\/em> for growth: the congruence, the unconditional positive regard, the empathic understanding that make it safe to begin.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">The Domain of <em>Autobiography<\/em> is where that beginning happens. It is the telling of our story \u2014 and, just as importantly, the learning to hear it. The trust that we need to begin telling our story needs to be not only in the other (<em>Communion<\/em>), but in ourselves (<em>Committee<\/em>). We can only begin to change when the hope and desire to move forward outweighs the fear of languishing in loops of constantly repeating old scripts. We need to feel the fear but not give in to it. This requires the most mature and rational part of us to be Chairing the <em>Committee<\/em> effectively.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">Why we have to externalise the story<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">For a long time, many survivors carry their narrative entirely inside, where it churns as chaotic overthinking and hypersensitivity (the <em>Vortex<\/em>), keeping them easily triggered and even re-traumatised. Getting some of that story <em>out<\/em> \u2014 even in small ways \u2014 can make an enormous difference to how overloaded and full a person feels. I regard this debriefing as an imperative for all trauma survivors: a way of finding catharsis and letting trapped energy begin to move again, relieving the stuckness. <strong>And the person who most needs to hear the story is the survivor themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">There are many ways to externalise narratives, and not all of them are spoken. Trauma is so often held in the body, and a person\u2019s \u2018story\u2019 may first present as shaking, heat, breathlessness, a flashback, a wave of anxiety \u2014 often accompanied by a deep shame that makes the telling harder. When the narrative is too painful or terrifying to speak directly, we learn to listen to the unspoken: the implied, the implicit, the small \u2018tells\u2019 that reveal the inner world. I often refer to my three-year-old self as <em>\u201cLittle Annie,\u201d<\/em> speaking of her in the third person. That small distance lets me stay unenmeshed from the shame and toxicity I felt at her age, and \u2014 crucially \u2014 it lets me feel empathy for her, which is the beginning of integration.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote style=\"margin:2em 0;padding:.1em 0 .1em 20px;border-left:4px solid #9A6B1F;color:#1F4E4A;font-style:italic;font-size:1.18rem;line-height:1.4;\"><p style=\"margin:0;\">Within the safety of a trustworthy relationship, we can learn to hear our own story and develop self-compassion. The telling is not for the therapist\u2019s sake. It is so that we can, at last, listen to all the parts of ourselves and begin to trust our own truth and intuition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">It helps to say a little about those two thresholds, <em>Trust<\/em> and <em>Tell<\/em>, because they belong together and in that order. Trust comes first, and it cannot be rushed or manufactured. It involves the <em>Committee<\/em>, each personality or character learning to listen to the truth that the others are telling without shaming, blaming, denying or minimising. Then comes the <em>Communion<\/em> experience of trusting ourselves to share the truth with the other and let them respond with a loving and respectful heart to what we have disclosed. <em>(\u201cCan I trust myself to be myself? \u2026 Can I trust myself to let you see me?\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Only as both these kinds of trust grow does telling become possible \u2014 and even then, it tends to come out sideways at first, in fragments, in the wrong order, circling the hardest things before approaching them. That is not evasion; it is the psyche doing exactly what it needs to do to stay within its <em>window of tolerance<\/em>. A skilled companion does not hurry the story along or mine for detail. They wait, they stay close, and they let the narrative arrive at its own pace, trusting that <strong>what needs to be told will be told when the teller is ready and not before.<\/strong> They may invite characters within the <em>Committee<\/em> (who have been silenced or denied) to communicate their feelings, needs, perspectives and memories.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">Journalling, and the third-person view<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">One of the most useful tools I know for this Domain is the humble journal. Writing something down and then looking back at it gives us the chance to read our own words from a third person\u2019s vantage \u2014 to revisit our narrative with a little more objectivity, and to feel for the version of ourselves (or the member of our <em>Committee<\/em>) who was speaking. I mostly use words; occasionally a diagram or sketch captures something faster than a paragraph could. I have had clients who keep blank, unlined journals precisely so they can draw their entries, others who work in mind-maps or spider-grams, others again who turn to art, music, drama, movement, poetry and song. Creativity lets us give shape to an inner truth without words, and to claim a kind of mastery over memories that once mastered us. <strong>The memories may still rise up, but they no longer get the final say.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">Gremlins and zombies<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Before we meet the gremlins and the zombies, one gentle caution about journalling for survivors. For some people, writing freely about the worst of what happened can tip them out of their <em>window of tolerance<\/em> rather than help them process \u2014 the page becomes a re-immersion rather than a release. So, I encourage people to journal with the regulating resources of <em>Archaeology<\/em>, and with <em>Omnibalance<\/em> close to hand: to write in short, bounded sessions; to keep a grounding object or a comforting image nearby; to stop and breathe, or walk, or make a cup of tea, the moment the writing starts to overwhelm rather than relieve. The aim is never to force the story out, but to let a little of it out at a time, safely, so that the telling builds mastery rather than re-traumatising. <strong>Pacing, here as everywhere in this model, is not a luxury but a clinical necessity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">As we explore and experiment with our story \u2014 telling it from different angles, through different lenses, even from the perspective of everyone who was present \u2014 we begin to notice the learnt narratives we have carried, and to debunk them. I think of these old narratives as <em>gremlins<\/em>: mechanisms we once adopted to keep ourselves safe, which have long since passed their usefulness and become part of the problem. Alongside them are the <em>zombies<\/em> \u2014 traumatic memories that simply will not stay buried, rising out of the grave to remind us of old dangers and to control us with fear.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Both the gremlins and the zombies belong to a misguided internal risk-assessment system that goes on high alert every time we dare to grow, to move on, and to outgrow our bonds. Their intention is protective; their effect is imprisoning. So, we have to challenge them \u2014 gently, curiously, testing the old beliefs and early choices for the contradictions and inconsistencies within them. <strong>This is not an attack on ourselves. It is an act of compassion towards the frightened, resourceful child who built those defences in the first place.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"margin:2em 0 .45em;line-height:1.25;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.45rem;\">The danger of unskilled help<\/h2>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">I have worked with many people I think of as <em>counselling refugees<\/em>: brave souls who took the courageous step of addressing their pain, only to find their experience of therapy was not very therapeutic. They did not need to be asked <em>\u201cand how does that make you feel?\u201d<\/em> after every disclosure. Nor did they need the unconscious neglect of a counsellor who did not understand the complexity of developmental and relational trauma, or who lacked the capacity to walk with them where they truly needed to go. What they needed was <em>containment<\/em> \u2014 a sense that the other person would not be overwhelmed by their disclosures, nor downplay their experiences for want of knowing how to hold them.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">I say this not as a criticism of well-meaning colleagues \u2014 most of us, myself included, have been the unready helper at some point \u2014 but as an honest invitation. Working with <em>Autobiography<\/em> asks more of us than warmth. It asks for the steadiness to receive a terrible story without flinching or fixing; the skill to listen to the body as well as the words; the patience to let a narrative be told and re-told as it slowly changes shape. Those changes, by the way \u2014 the minute but unmistakable shifts in how a story gets told over months and years \u2014 are some of the surest evidence of integration and growth we will ever see. <strong>They are a reason to feel genuinely hopeful.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">Learning to offer that quality of listening, and to recognise the gremlins and zombies for what they are, is core to the Level&nbsp;7 work. We practise it experientially, on our own autobiographies first \u2014 because we cannot companion another person into their story if we have not been willing to face our own.<\/p>\n\n<h3 style=\"margin:2em 0 .4em;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.15rem;\">A few questions to sit with<\/h3>\n\n<ul style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;padding-left:1.25em;\">\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">How readily can you hear a client\u2019s most difficult disclosure without needing to soothe, fix or reframe it?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">What is your own relationship with your story \u2014 and is there a \u2018Little You\u2019 who still needs to be heard with compassion?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:.35em 0;line-height:1.5;\">Which <em>gremlins<\/em> (outdated protective beliefs) might still be running quietly in your own life?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<hr style=\"border:0;border-top:1px solid #d9d2c4;margin:2em 0;\">\n\n<h3 style=\"margin:2em 0 .4em;color:#1F4E4A;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.15rem;\">About the course<\/h3>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">The <em>Anastasis<\/em> Model sits at the heart of a <strong>Level&nbsp;7 Diploma in trauma-informed, advanced therapeutic practice<\/strong> \u2014 written for counsellors and psychotherapists who want to work more deeply with developmental and relational trauma, and who are moving towards senior accreditation (SCoPEd Column&nbsp;C).<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">It runs online, with three in-person residentials, over fifteen months: <strong>October&nbsp;2026 to December&nbsp;2027<\/strong>. The group is deliberately small \u2014 capped at twelve \u2014 so no one is ever just a face in a crowded screen. The fee is <strong>\u00a35,250<\/strong>, with payment plans available.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\">To enquire, email <strong><a href=\"mailto:training@authentictandt.uk\">training@authentictandt.uk<\/a><\/strong> or call Annie on <strong>07949&nbsp;677405<\/strong>. We shape the cohort together through conversation, so do get in touch early.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 1.5em;line-height:1.5;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.authentictandt.uk\">www.authentictandt.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1101,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1431","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1431\/revisions\/1432"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/authentictandt.uk\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}