William Pullen

In this episode, Dr Peter Blundell interviews William Pullen about his life and work.

William is a qualified psychotherapist registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).  He offers short and long-term psychotherapy to adults and young people on an individual basis in West London. He works with people who experience depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, negative childhood experiences, relationship and work-related issues, substance abuse, as well as other issues. William has a book and an app that explores the relationship between running and therapy.

William's Details
Website: https://williampullenpsychotherapist.com/bio/
Twitter: @pullentherapy

Peter's Details
Website: www.peterblundell.com
Twitter: @drpeterblundell

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Transcript

Peter Blundell: 0:41

Hello and welcome to another episode of the therapist Connect Podcast. Find name is Dr. Peter Blundell. And today I'm delighted to be interviewing William pullin. William is a psychotherapist registered with the BAC P, offering short and long term psychotherapy to adults and young people in West London. As well as offering clients in person therapy, William also offers dynamic running therapy to his clients. He has an app. And he's also author of running with mindfulness, both of which he talks about in this episode.

William Pullen: 1:13

Peter

Peter Blundell: 1:14

Hi William, really nice to meet you.

William Pullen: 1:17

Thank you.

Peter Blundell: 1:18

So yes, my first question then is gonna be - cn you tell us a little bit about how you became a therapist in the first place? Like what is it that drew you to the therapy profession?

William Pullen: 1:28

I don't know how many of your fellow listeners are fellow therapists, but I'm assuming quite a few, or the majority. And so I know I'll be in good company. When I say that drama and becoming a going into therapy myself, that common path for us, or, specifically, I had a sort of romantic meltdown, I suppose a woman I loved from a different nation, different age, different, different everything, as many differences you can imagine, and put myself out on a limb to try to make the impossible work and of course when it didn't. I was still out on a limb at a time I couldn't afford to be out on a limb. That's the nature of limbs and, and had a bit of a meltdown. It was much more complex. And now of course, and went back to all sorts of childhood abandonment issues. But anyway, therapy took me into becoming a therapist, just like most people, I think.

Peter Blundell: 2:25

So a real kind of sense of experiencing it first before before kind of wanting to train. And did that happen quite quickly after going into therapy? Or was it quite a while after you kind of had that initial?

William Pullen: 2:36

No, I think took took, I would say, a year and a half or something of therapy. And I never thought I would train. In order to become a therapist. I didn't think I was well suited for it. But I did have ambitions to I'd always been interested in the human condition and self help books I'd read a bunch of and I thought, Well, who knows I find the space interesting. Maybe I'll write a book, maybe nothing will come of it. I'll take it as it comes.

Peter Blundell: 3:02

Brilliant. Where did you train them as a therapist?

William Pullen: 3:06

Regents, London,

Peter Blundell: 3:08

and how did you find the training?

Unknown: 3:10

Well, you know, they're very, they're very old school at Rengents, aren't they? It's, it's incredibly, I suppose it's probably compared to most other training places in England, extra white and extra middle class. And so I fit it in there quite nicely. It's a beautiful campus. There was a lot of emphasis on ethics, and it was quite terrorizing at times. But all in all, I was very grateful to be there. You know, it was, it's such a beautiful place if nothing else.

Peter Blundell: 3:46

So you did qualify? Can you tell us a little bit then about how your career is developed from then, I got essentially done quite a few different things, I think.

William Pullen: 3:55

Yeah, I don't have to remember now. So yeah, well, as you know, as part of your qualification, qualifying, you have to do your placements, etc. And, and so I did those, and then discovered that being a therapist actually was rather rewarding. And, and so I after I finished my, I think it was 400 hours have many was I set up private practice and did a bit of advertising and, and got some clients, like, like, quite a few other people do.

Peter Blundell: 4:35

How did you find that setting up in private practice and some people's struggles? Some people find it quite easy. What was it like for you?

William Pullen: 4:42

Do you know, I didn't have a burning need to do a lot of hours and pay a lot of bills. So I was probably like, I was probably quite fortunate in that sense. And so I, I got, I managed to get enough hours to keep myself busy and keep myself happy. I didn't know how I think I was just on the BACP website. Mostly I might have been other places. I built a bit of a social media profile for myself, maybe I got some business through that and better word of mouth maybe.

Peter Blundell: 5:14

And it's been no looking back since then. And your still in private practice now.

William Pullen: 5:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Blundell: 5:22

How do you define your therapeutic approach? And has that has that changed at all over the years or is it consistent?

Unknown: 5:29

Well, I would say it has I mean, I met I'll give you an example of this. I met a chap recently who is involved in a charity who reached out to me and asked me if I might become involved in their charity. They had a company that was providing free counselling a certain number of hours to the clients of this charity that that company had dropped out. And he wanted to ask me whether what he'd imagined as some sort of supervisory role whereby I would supervise his his colleagues at a charity not therapists themselves, but these his frontline guys that were working with these clients, and they're essentially already therapists to them. Anyway, to answer your question long, long way around is, is that back in the day, as I mentioned, Regents very, very ethics, ethics, ethics, very traditional, you know, don't don't, don't, don't break the frame, don't don't do anything. Since then I have more and more and more and more relaxed. And when, as I said to this guy, I said, "You're in danger of, if any of your clients ever get into trouble, and you're, and the people that look after them are claiming to be therapist, sort of therapist, even if not totally therapists, it could all go very wrong for you" I said that "I'm happy to stick my head out in the neck, neck out on a limb or whatever the expression is, if you are" I would could go very badly for both of us, there's your answer. Yeah, much more relaxed now than I was. And, you know, I do this running therapy that you know, about, and of course, that that's a very much a moving frame. So yeah I'm much more relaxed.

Peter Blundell: 7:17

I mean, I love that. And I think it's quite common, I think, for therapists maybe to come out of training, feeling almost like a little bit anxious, like about moving outside of that kind of therapeutic frame and doing anything that was advised against on their training, and then over time, kind of relax into their own approach and style of therapy. And how

William Pullen: 7:35

do you know, when you've relaxed too much?

Peter Blundell: 7:39

Well, that's a really good question

Unknown: 7:43

When your client is coming around for dinner and holidays with you.

Peter Blundell: 7:48

Yeah, I think that might be too much depth. But I think that is an interesting question. And I I personally think it's a really exciting time to be a therapist, because I see lots of traditional boundaries being bent or broken or shifted, you know, an interesting conversations happening about that, I think, a lot now. And I think people are practicing in ways that they, you know, many years ago would definitely wouldn't have done.

Unknown: 8:11

Yeah, no, no, it is, it's really exciting. And I don't know if it's right, or it's wrong, but it's, it's where it's happening. And, and I'm happy to flow with it until proven wrong.

Peter Blundell: 8:25

We'll talk about kind of being outside the frame, you mentioned it a little bit there. And so you have developed dynamic running therapy. And I just wonder if you could tell our listeners a little bit about what that is, and how you ended up kind of developing it.

Unknown: 8:38

Yeah, so as I mentioned, you know, after this meltdown, I became a, I started training to become a therapist, and well, after the meltdown and went into therapy, and, and I was very depressed, and I was at home, it was more than just depression. And I was just, I felt very isolated. And I knew I needed to get out I knew needed to move, and I knew I needed help. So I got therapy, but I also took out running with a friend very slowly. He had problems, I have problems, we talked about them. What I noticed is, it's a lot easier talking about your problems when you're on the move, walking, even in a car or running. And I thought what a great idea for therapy. This is working for me so well in tandem with my therapist. What would it be like to combine the two and so it was always an idea that I had. And as I went into private practice, I sort of tested out with friends and runners that my regular runners who knew we were always having deep conversations on my regular run as they came so easily. So I slapped a name on it and gave it a little bit more structure. But essentially, it's just sort of, I suppose you'd say mostly Person Centered therapy on the move.

Peter Blundell: 9:52

I love that. I'm just wondering how your understanding of that has developed over the years is it has it stayed the same? Or is it changed adapted like how you how you do it?

Unknown: 10:03

No, I don't think it has. No I think all all the things I wrote a book about it called 'Run for your life' in this country. Having this in there is the same as it was originally all the same ideas have made it, when I tried to work out why it worked everything from the fresh air, to the photoplasms or whatever that comes off the plants that you have forest bathing and all of that good stuff combined to with all of the change in mechanics around power. Side by side instead of facing off out that favors people, camaraderie, accelerated therapeutic alliance, I believe all of these things are the same today as they were, when I first when I first started. It's very much client led, I think that's really important. I move, I tell I tell the clients, this is regular therapy, it's open ended, every session is led by you, if you want to say I am no more directive here, then I will be out there. But that includes movement. So I'm following your movement, you want to walk, we walk, run, sit down, whatever it is, I'm following you. And that's interesting, because it just, it gives them I think, it forces them into quite a proactive role, you know. And I think is better than just that classic position that clients often find themselves in where they're unsure what to say, which makes them anxious, which can make them resentful, fearful, all sorts of things that tend to lock people up. With the addition of the body and the possibility of movement, it allows them to distract or burn off, or sideline that anxiety, and mop up that 10% of self consciousness and just get moving. And, and then the words flow when we're not watching ourselves watching ourselves. Everything else flows.

Peter Blundell: 12:08

I love that idea. And I like the idea of person centered, like literally the client's taking the lead to like where you've where you've worked, you'd go to during the therapeutic hour. Do you do you stick to the therapeutic hour? Or does it? Does it depend on?

William Pullen: 12:21

Yeah,

Peter Blundell: 12:21

Yeah, so you stick to that kind of traditional time zone. So and, you know, with the clients, do you and two people have to be into running? Or can clients kind of come along? And as you say, like you're supposed to can walk so rather than rather than run if they want to?

Unknown: 12:38

Yeah, I mean, even even the ones that are runners mostly choose to walk during the sessions, it'll only be sort of 20 minutes out of 50, I would say, running. I say to everybody, look, you know, at the very least we'd need to walk at a good pace at times. Ideally, you're a runner, because I just think that helps a little bit. But but we can work towards you're getting around him. But I don't know, you know, I don't want anybody to be struggling, that's for sure. They need to be reasonably fit people because it's not about getting fit. And if you're not fit enough to do that, then that's a that's that becomes a thing. And we don't we don't want any more things in there than we've got already.

Peter Blundell: 13:24

Yeah. Yeah. Another question I suppose I have is do you do your supervision whilst running? Or is it just the therapy that you run?

William Pullen: 13:35

No, It's a good point, actually, I never thought about that.

Peter Blundell: 13:40

Also, as well as the running therapy, you have developed kind of an app, which I assume kind of picks up on some of those themes that you that you were talking about there. Can you tell us a little bit about it's called the dynamic running therapy app. And tell us a little bit about that and how it works.

William Pullen: 13:56

So there's a certain amount of free content on there, which is some mindful walking, mindful running, and meditation. And then if you choose to pay for the content, then you come across to two modules, one on anxiety and one on depression. And each one of those is 20 sessions long, each one of those is 20 minutes long. And you run or walk with me and I take you through a series of questions about yourself. And then you can reward or reward record the answers as as voice notes on the phone itself in the midst of the session, as I'm asking the question, and then you reflect on all of those answers. And you write them in your diary and and hopefully we explore your depression everything from childhood roots to the choices you're making today to the choices you might make to everything we can we go so far around it so many different ways that hopefully, you know, you become a lot more familiarized with it and, and either it gives you some relief. And if it doesn't give you relief, hopefully it gives you some focus and enough focus to push you into full time therapy where you can now address with with greater understanding and focus.

Peter Blundell: 15:27

That sounds really interesting and I suppose as well with it with it being an app you can obviously then do that in whatever setting you want. You know when you're outdoors or in whatever space that you feel comfortable in.

William Pullen: 15:38

Yeah, absolutely. They, in time, it would be nice if I mean, I'm going to add a relationships piece, which I'm just writing at the moment, that'll be another module. But it would be nice if in time I can, all of those answers that people have recorded, can be can be submitted to a therapist of their choice from the app, and then you know, they get a head start that way and be able to do still remote therapy with somebody or tele therapy.

Peter Blundell: 16:12

So, I mean, I'm coming to the end of my questions now, but I suppose my final question would just be to ask you, have you got anything coming up soon? Or next? Are your your future plans?

William Pullen: 16:23

Well, goodness, I'm actually working nonfiction book now. Which I'm enjoying writing, but I think that'll probably take three or five or 10 years to finish.

Peter Blundell: 16:39

So can you can you can you hint about what that's about? Or is it top secret for now?

William Pullen: 16:44

is top secret, I'm afraid, I think that and as I mentioned to you, a newborn son late in the day. And very excited about that rejuvenating and and yeah, just keeping keeping my life nice and healthy and well balanced. And, and, and lots to be grateful for.

Peter Blundell: 17:13

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. It's been really interesting chatting to you. And good luck with the new born baby boy as well. Cheers.