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About Denis Postle
I was educated in the UK art school system at a time when it provided a rich and fruitful creative experience. Fellow students included painter David Hockney, and director of Bladerunner and Gladiator, Ridley Scott. A couple of decades later, after working initially at the BBC, and later as a freelance filmmaker (European-style author of one-off documentaries for broadcast TV), I realized one day, that what I was filming, emotional education, was more interesting and relevant to me than making films.

After a long and extremely arduous re-education as a facilitator of personal and professional groupwork, I started in parallel to work one-to-one with people who saw me as a helpful resource. Over the last 20 years this has grown into an independent psycho-practice that is unattached to healthcare institutions, leaving me free to join the people I work with in enquiries that suit their purse and their life situation.

I became engaged in professional politics when attempts started to professionalize psychopractice, as if eliminating its 'wildness', and pulling it into the arms of the NHS and government were a good thing and would guarantee client "security". However, recognizing the need of practitioners AND clients for some sort of safety net, together with other like-minded practitioners, I was a founder in 1995 of the Independent Practitioners Network [IPN] an organization that provides an ethically sound form of accountability for my work. I am participant in a full-member IPN group that has been meeting for over 10 years. Depending on the person and their needs, I call what I do counselling, psychotherapy, coaching, mentoring, or supervision and The Mind Gymnasium reflects what I have learned over the years that seems relevant to these forms of working alliance.

What else do you need to know about me? There is a sense in which both book and author are mavericks, outsiders who aren't inclined to run with the herd. Gaia Books thought the first (book) version was 'much too original' and indeed as a dip-in, browsable text, it anticipated the then still being invented World Wide Web. The present edition embraces the form of a web-site. However I have learned, that it is important for mavericks to know where they ultimately belong and I see myself these days as belonging wherever there are people who prefer nurturance to dominance and cooperation to fighting.

Happily such communities seem to be on the increase, I hope The Mind Gymnasium will support this.

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Publications:

BOOKS
Fabric of the Universe, Macmillan London, Crown New York, Umschau Berlin 1976, Hakuyosha Tokyo 1983
Catastrophe Theory, Fontana 1980
The Mind Gymnasium

ARTICLES
Putting the Heart back into Learning, in Using experience for Learning: Eds. Boud, D., Cohen, R., Walker D., Open University Press 1993

The Alchemists Nightmare: Gold into Lead, the annexation of psychotherapy in the UK The International Journal of Psychotherapy Vol 3, NO.1, 1998.

Counselling in the UK: Jungle Garden or Monoculture? in IMPLAUSIBLE PROFESSIONS: Arguments for Pluralism and Autonomy in Psychotherapy and Counselling Eds. House, R., and Totton, T. PCCS Books 1997

Stealing the Flame, with Anderson, J. Self & Society Vol.18 No 1, January 1990

Psychotherapy Professionalisation and Statutory Regulation talks to the Bath Psychotherapy Association and to the British Confederation of Psychotherapists Conference on Statutory Regulation June 1999

The statutory regulation of psychotherapy: still time to think again: debate. The Psychotherapist 18 Spring 2002

The Glacier Reaches Town Self & Society Vol. 23 No 6, January 1996

How Does Your Garden Grow? Counselling News June 1997

Shrinkwrapping Psychotherapy British Journal of Psychotherapy, 16 (3) Spring 2000

FILMS
40+ films mostly for broadcast tv 1963-83

Except where otherwise indicated, these screens are maintained and © 1995-2005 Denis Postle. All rights reserved. Last updated 27th December 2005