Thomas Smithson interviewed by Dr Peter Blundell for the #TherapistsConnect Podcast

In this episode of the #TherapistsConnect podcast, Dr Peter Blundell interviews  Tom Smithson.  Tom set up New Horizon counselling in 2018. He's a BACP registered therapist supervisor, and tutor with many years of extensive therapeutic experience. He's provided over 5,000 hours of clinical counselling and psychotherapy to adult clients. And he specializes in working with people from the LGBTQIA-plus community. And he's also writing a book about his work, which he tells us about in this episode.

Links for Tom
Weblinks: - https://linktr.ee/NewHorizonCounselling
Instagram - @newhcounselling

Links for Peter
Social Media: @drpeterblundell
Website: www.peterblundell.com 

#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
Website: www.Therapists-Connect.com
Twitter: @Therapists_C
Instagram: @TherapistsConnect
Facebook: @TherConnect

Origins of #TherapistsConnect

Transcript

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Dr Peter Blundell 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode. It's a therapist connect podcast. My name is Dr. Peter Blundell and today I'm here interviewing Tom Smithson. Tom set up new horizon counseling in 2018. He's a BACP registered therapist supervisor, and tutor that with many years of expensive therapeutic experience. He's provided over 5,000 hours of clinical counseling and psychotherapy to adult clients. And he specializes in working with LGBTQ. A plus community. And he's also writing a book about his work, which is going to tell him, tell us about in this episode. If you liked this episode, please leave us a review in your favorite podcast platform. Hello, Tom. Welcome to the Therapist Connect podcast.

Thomas Smithson 0:40

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Dr Peter Blundell 0:42

No, it's wonderful to have you here and we haven't chatted that much before this podcast. So it's going to be really interesting to ask some questions, find out a little bit more about you and I'm sure our listeners are going to be interested about you and your career so far. So maybe to help our listeners get to know you a little bit, can you chat a little bit about how you came to be a therapist in the first place and what drew you to the therapy profession?

Thomas Smithson 1:03

Yeah, sure. So I, I feel like I've, this is like a story that you tell often. So I feel like I've got it down. It was never like a plan. Most of my life has never been a plan to be honest. So I had, I wasn't happy when I was 21, the kind of I think it's quite universal that people expect 21 to be amazing. But I didn't go to university, all this stuff wasn't going on. So I ended up, long story short, I ended up in therapy. And in that kind of process, I started to think, hang on, this is something people do for a job. This is I, it changed my life. And I was like, oh, is this something that I could do, especially when I was really lost at where I was at. So I got a bit curious about it and then I did a open university course in psychology and realized that was way too academic for me. So then I dipped my toe into the level two course, I could then not commit to anything longer than that. And then as soon as I started level two I fell in love with it quite quickly. And my tutor was amazing and I made some friends and I was really isolated back then as well so I was connecting with other people. And then level three happened and then level four and then I had my placements and there's very rarely anything bad I have to say about that whole experience other than, the few things that come up. So yeah, it was pretty much just like step by step for me. And then I think by the time I was in my year two of my level four, I think that's when I actually started thinking, Oh, I'm probably going to do this as a job now. I don't know if I ever, I can't remember ever putting two and two together. I think I was just doing it. And then people started talking about what they were doing after the diploma. And that's when I recognized that. I want to do this. And I had three placements whilst training and I loved all of them. So yeah, it was, I really fell in love with it very quickly.

Dr Peter Blundell 2:47

That's really interesting. Listen to you talk. It resonates a little bit with my own career and how I progressed because I did a psychology degree and then started the level two and I was a little bit similar to yourself actually in terms of starting the courses and not really thinking about counselling as a job necessarily, just Oh, I really enjoy this and like keeping going and going up the levels. And but it's interesting, it wasn't until your second year that you thought, Oh yeah, I'm going to, this is going to be my career.

Thomas Smithson 3:14

Yeah. And that was the exciting thing about it. One of my closest friends that I'm still close with now, I think she started talking about what she was doing and she was setting up websites and stuff and then it dawned on me and ever since then we've bounced off each other. But I really, do you know the classic thing that tutors say of enjoying the journey? At the time, I think, especially in that last year, I was like, I don't want to enjoy the journey anymore. I, I want to be done. But it's so true of actually was what worked best for me. I was in a fortunate position where I was living with my parents, my job let me do the hours that I wanted to do. So it was relatively stress free. And so I was trying to enjoy it as much as possible until the end where you're desperate to finish.

Dr Peter Blundell 3:48

Yeah, it's so funny as we're recording this our second year students have just finished and they are in a place where you can just see they're ready to finish now.

Thomas Smithson 3:58

You don't know more books, nothing else. Exactly. It's I can't write any more essays, like it's time to be a therapist and kind of, and not have to think about some of that other stuff.

Dr Peter Blundell 4:07

Yeah, no, I absolutely get that. So you qualified and then you obviously. decided, this was going to be the career for you. Can you tell us a little bit about your career so far and how, what that looks like?

Thomas Smithson 4:18

I quit my job immediately, which is, I tell the story quite a lot. Not, I wouldn't recommend that at all. I had this fantasy that I was going to go into private practice and be full of clients and be super successful. Lots of people nudging me into weaning into it, but I didn't want to The version of me back then was just like, let's just do it. So I quit my job had three weeks off. And then I hired a whole office, like a 24 seven office in Croydon. I start my private practice, sat down day one and realized I had no clients and was paying 600 pounds a month for this office. But if anything, that. That made me that, that experience because I had to rapidly learn how to run a business, which of course, very rarely do courses teach you that side of stuff as well. But I knew I wanted to go in private practice straight away because I was told that I would never get a job post qualification. I don't actually think that's true anymore. But I was told back then and I was like, I'm not working in a call center anymore. So I did that. One of my placements is working with LGBTQ plus clients. I'm a gay cis man myself so I started to advertise and working towards that group because I've been doing a lot of reading and there was hardly any kind of private specialist services in Croydon either. And that started to take off. And. bar a few really tricky months. That was October. Come February, I felt a bit more stable, but it was very much hand to mouth for a while. But that was my private practice and I did that for I'm still doing it now, but after a couple of years I get itchy feet quite a lot. I a saying where I that's one of the best things about being a therapist. You never really get bored. So I was ready for something new. So then I did a master's and that was while we were in lockdown. So that was online. which I had no problem with. And it was really flexible. You could write about stuff you're passionate about. So I wrote about queer experience and all of this sort of stuff. Then I did supervision. I had some time to spare with the whole COVID situation. So I did a supervision course. I do supervision now, but I just never fell in love with it. My, my love is still with client work. And yeah, and that's where I've mostly got to. And then over the last couple of years, I've been starting to write recognizing that I'm not bad at it. I always used to, one of the, when I was a kid, I didn't have the best time at school. So I left school thinking education or writing wasn't an option. And then from there I started playing around with an idea of writing a book for other therapists because I kept on hearing all of these stories about how obviously you're not trained much in, in writing. a lot of courses about working with LGBTQ plus clients, any sort of difference in diverse, to be honest. I think we, we had two weeks each year, which is nothing. And one of those weeks I did a presentation to the class. So it was okay. Where's my paycheck? So yeah, so I thought I wanted to write a book. I know there's loads of books out there, but when it comes down to educational texts, I really struggle with them because my mind, I don't know what happens when my mind is relatively neurodiverse, so something happens. So I thought I'd want to write a chatty book incorporate some of the stuff that I've learned and done through my work with LGBTQ plus clients. Many rejections later, I've got a contract with Karnac, so that should be out next year, but that's where my focus is right now. So it's been a long journey. But yeah, I feel like I'm parking lots of things so I can focus on that now. Yeah, it's all exciting stuff. I've loved most moments of it, bar the thousands of words you have to write.

Dr Peter Blundell 7:31

There's loads in there. So you doing your masters and then a supervision course and then and then writing your book. So is the book finished and you're ready to go or are you still in the process of finalizing that at the moment?

Thomas Smithson 7:45

It's not a lot more to go. So I was. I had written a book that is on a shelf somewhere and it's not very good. And so I adapted it. And this time around I thought I'm not going to bother writing a book until I have a contract, I was quite stubborn about that. So I created like a, I had a lot of help creating a proposal, and then Karnac took it up, they were my, lucky, I think they were my 13th that I went to. So then I was like, Oh God, I actually have to write this. So it's split into three parts. The first part's about things to look out for with queer clients. The second client, the second part is about like our narrative the lives that queer people might think that they are supposed to live versus the life that they want to live. And then the last part's about things that you can do to help foster a joyful life, for lack of a better word. Part one and part two. I drafted part three is 500 words in and have 25, 000 more to do. I figured that out yesterday and that was slightly daunting. Seeing 25, I've got a countdown as well. So it says 20, 25, 000 and it's okay,

Dr Peter Blundell 8:45

just to really hammer it home to yourself.

Thomas Smithson 8:47

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I hate it because I think one, once I deleted loads and it's, it tells you the minus. So I think one day I had written minus 2000 words, but that's part of the process, yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell 8:58

Congrats on getting so well, one getting the book deal and then being so far into writing the book. It sounds like it's going to be really interesting and it sounds like what you're saying as well is that you can leaning away from like the academic kind of language and trying to make it more accessible read for practitioners.

Thomas Smithson 9:12

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if this is it potentially just in terms of the people that I speak to, but sometimes I find that a lot of queer people are reading the queer textbooks. And it's everyone should be reading them. So I'm really trying to push that this is a book for all therapists to read. Because, in many ways, the queer therapists are the ones that are writing them and understand them. And we go to them because we want to top up our knowledge but, this is something that everyone needs to be reading. Especially because of the lack of training there is in courses.

Dr Peter Blundell 9:43

No, I think that's really important. And I was speaking to somebody the other day and they put on some kind of training working with queer clients in psychotherapy and 90 percent of the people who turned up were queer people.

Thomas Smithson 9:54

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something I've also heard and experienced as well. It's these courses are for everyone, but why is not everyone turning up? And I think sometimes there's a fear, isn't there? That's one thing I struggle with I guess all humans, where a lot of shaming can be done about why don't you know about this identity or why don't you know about that? So I think it can put off some people to go to those courses because they're scared of getting it wrong, but it's come to the courses, So you can get it wrong to get it right, if that makes sense.

Dr Peter Blundell 10:19

Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose people need those texts, books and books to enter into a subject area that they might be unfamiliar with in a kind of safe way. So they can start to educate themselves around things like that. So it sounds sounds really interesting. I know you're still working on it, so you can't give us the kind of full details of the book and stuff like that. But when it's ready to go, let us know. We'd retweet about it. on the Therapists Connect accounts. The other thing I just wanted to pick up on which I thought was really interesting was you said that you did your supervision qualification. Yeah. But it was not something that you particularly fell in love with. And I just thought that was, I just thought it was an interesting point because I wonder whether that's something that isn't talked about that much in terms of people qualifying as supervisors.

Thomas Smithson 11:00

Yeah, I guess I think I had to in my head that's like the next thing that's worth doing. It's all about, especially in private practice, diversifying your practice and doing these things. So I thought, I'd really like it. I don't know. I was quite excited about working with other therapists and hearing how they do stuff, which I do enjoy. Don't get me wrong. I still see supervisees, but. For some reason, I think I had an idea that I'd be a 50 50 split, whereas now it may be like 10%. And I think when I think about it, it's because in client work, you can really build that relationship. Whereas in supervision work, yes, you have a relationship with the supervisee. The clients, it's just really, it's quite bitty. And that's where I figured out, Oh, actually, I'm more. For lack of a better word, emotionally invested in the clients. And I'm a nosy person and I always want to know, I want to know what's going to happen next or could, What's the history of something so I think it was, it's too detached in a way, whereas with client work you're in the deep end together.

Dr Peter Blundell 11:58

And I was thinking about supervision especially don't always get that update about what's going on, because they might have moved on to somebody else or they're talking about a different client or they're talking about their own experience. experience. And you probably don't see them quite as often.

Thomas Smithson 12:09

Yeah, exactly. And a few of my supervising, I don't know if this was just how it worked out, but a few of them work in placements where it's a six week model. So it's very I can't feel anything about it. About these clients and it feels really horrible because they'll say something about a a client they're working with. My brain will immediately go, Oh, this would be really helpful to work on. But actually most of the time I'm telling them what not to work on. So it doesn't open up a can of worms. So I think maybe I just need to be working with therapists that work long term perhaps that'll change it for me. I don't know. And that's how it worked out.

Dr Peter Blundell 12:41

I think that makes sense to me because I suppose working with students who I see on placement and, maybe working for clients for the first time and a client brings five, six issues or significant trauma and they've only got six sessions to explore stuff and trying to be sensitive to that and explore what the client wants to explore, but not open up like a huge issue for the client where they don't have the space and time to work through it. Yeah. Yeah. It's challenging. So how would you define your therapeutic approach then? And has that kind of changed over the time that you've been qualified?

Thomas Smithson 13:15

Yeah, it's definitely changed. I was thinking about this question a lot because the more as the years go on, the more I can't answer it. I still struggle to answer it. So I have a technical answer and then I don't know, a waffle of an answer. My technical one is that my training is integrative, person centered and psychodynamic. I love them both. My favorite is probably psychodynamic. But there really is a foundation of the person centered in terms of, in its basics that holding space. Then Since qualifying, there's an existential element to my work. I absolutely love Irvin Yalom and the way he works, elements of that I wouldn't do, but try to incorporate that into my practice. I'm very much an existentialist in terms of I often think about what's the point of life. So I get quite excited when we can have those conversations with clients. So that's like the technical side of it, but, The waffle part is that a lot of it just goes out the window, I think, depending on who you're working with. And sometimes I do things and I think, God, if my tutor is watching this, what they think, what are you doing, Tom? But I know that it's for the interest best interest for the client, and I know it's ethical and that's, you have to, for me, I do this kind of, I tried to do this way up of, okay, I feel like I should be doing this, but it feels right to do this. And is that okay? What am I saying? The million questions you have to ask yourself. So these days it's more. I will just change depending on who's in front of me and what they want. Sometimes we, I do creative stuff. Sometimes I go, we go for a walk with some clients that are local to me. So I just like mixing up. There's a, I feel like this is a dangerous word, but there's an experimentation but an ethical one. Where with my clients, I'll say, should we give this a go? Feel free to say that was a complete waste of time, Tom. But sometimes it works out more than often than not I'd say. I could also say I actually sometimes I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. If clients are happy, I'm happy.

Dr Peter Blundell 15:00

Yeah. But part of this feels like that's part of being a therapist, isn't it? It's being in there and going, Oh, where is this going? What's actually happening here? Yeah. I know seeing students learn the theory as they're going along and it's yeah, you can learn all this theory, it backs up what you're doing, but then when you're in the room are you really sat there thinking about this theoretical idea or whatever, or are you actually just in relationship with the client, aren't you?

Thomas Smithson 15:20

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's the key thing. We're like, that's something I don't know where I read it or whatever. It was very much like what's the In a way, what's the point if you haven't got a relationship? Yes, technically you can do some work. But that's one of the things I love about private practice is that people come to you for a reason.

Dr Peter Blundell 15:36

Wondered how do you see the wider therapy community and how connected do you feel with other therapists?

Thomas Smithson 15:44

I loved this question because I'm very pro therapists connecting with therapists because it's a proper saving grace for me. I think social media is obviously massively toxic in many ways. I know even the stuff I post, it's very much one side of the story. So I play a part in that. But the people that I've met through social media, the therapists I've met through social media I've got such like a collection of friends now that we have. We've exchanged numbers, we're on WhatsApp I've met with a few of them. We ask each other for kind of informal advice at times. And I never would have had that because private practice, you're pretty much alone. I'm a bit too introverted to be going to meet up groups. And also I live out of London now. So having this pool of people on Instagram, it's a platform that I would use is so lovely because you get that support. Meeting up with people and going all over the place just to have someone that kind of gets it because I suppose I really miss the one thing I miss about working in a call center was that you could just have chat with people. You could just sit down and go how's your day going. Whereas, you don't get that whereas now on Instagram you know you can have that conversation. Of course, there are people you don't resonate with there's people that won't resonate with you, but I think as long as you're good with your boundaries in terms of follow the people that make you feel good, don't follow the people that don't make you feel good then you're good to go. And that might change, people come and go. But I think without it, I don't actually think I would have progressed very far either. That being said, I list this long thing of achievements that I do, but a lot of that comes from one, there's an element of privilege that comes from it, but others, the amount of people that stood there with pom poms cheering me on when I'm doing stuff who are all therapists, I get way more support than my family. And that's not a dig at my family. It's a celebration of the community and the connection that we all have.

Dr Peter Blundell 17:28

I wonder whether there's something about because it's maybe other therapists or people within the profession they know the work it takes and so they know what works and so they want to be encouraging, they want to help push you forward. Whereas family, it's just oh, you're doing your job or whatever, they don't always fully understand the Exactly, yeah. passion behind it or whatever. It's nice to hear the positives that you've got from social media, because as we all know, yeah, it can be really challenging and difficult, but I also like the way you were almost talking about cultivating your own kind of community, if you like, or people that you can connect with and making sure that you've got those supportive voices with you.

Thomas Smithson 18:04

Yeah. And I think, you Where would we be without it as well? Cause if you think about our training, we're in a massive group of people. And then suddenly you're off. And even if you get a job in an agency, you're just by yourself as well. So it's I wish the tutors had said, keep this, a bit more seriously than they might've done.

Dr Peter Blundell 18:21

Yeah. There's a lot of, I know a lot of students a bit might not be on social media and as they're qualifying a little bit apprehensive. And I can understand that because maybe you're still finding your feet as a therapist. But I think once you have an identity of who you are as a therapist, I think there's loads of opportunities to connect with other people who are from similar backgrounds. And if you're in private practice, it can be very lonely. Yeah, absolutely. On your own.

Thomas Smithson 18:43

Especially now it's online as well. When I worked in, I had an office in Croydon, I'd still, there'd be people in other offices, so I'd still have a chat. Whereas when, if you're solely working online, which most of my work is, there's no one. And, I live with my partner, but Jesus, we spend all of our time together. We don't want No more

Dr Peter Blundell 19:01

need other people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Thomas Smithson 19:03

There's enough of you. Where's where's everyone else?

Dr Peter Blundell 19:06

No, I get that. Yeah. What do you think is the biggest challenge that the counseling and psychotherapy professions face right now?

Thomas Smithson 19:14

I think modernizing is the, it's a, it is a huge one for me. I'd say this a bit selfishly, but I had a, an article that I did with BSP about self-disclosing going on adoption leave at some point. And. the guidance, there was hardly any guidance for the specifics of adoption and being a gay man. And every time I asked people, including the BACP, what should I do? They were quite unsure for lack of better words. So I think modernizing in terms of working with the wider intersectionality of therapists because even though the diversity within therapy as therapists still isn't huge, I think it isn't like from what I see at least, and maybe I've just got blinkers on, but from what I see more people accessing it. So catching up to that, catching up to like laws. I won't go into a rant about certain organizations, actually catching up to protect every client, not the clients that a, wider does society thinks deserves more than others? Does that make sense?

Dr Peter Blundell 20:13

Yeah, it does make sense. I've not heard it phrased like that modernizing the profession, but it's understanding that life through that intersectional lens, but also making sure that there's the advice and the guidance available for therapists. I was also thinking about that difficulty in terms of like when you're training, like making sure that the. training organizations are up to date with the current kind of research and education, but also then when you're in private practice, like making sure that you keep up to date with it as well which is like a personal responsibility. And then obviously the membership body's responsibility as well. Yeah, that's very interesting. So I've come to the end of our questions which is, that's just absolutely flown by. I suppose my last question just would be what are your future plans that you'd like to tell us about? I know you've got the book but is there anything else that you've got going on?

Thomas Smithson 21:00

My Instagram and I have a newsletter where I do some random writing stuff. But my main focus of my book, I'm going to take off a bit of time from everything in a few months hopefully. But yeah, the book is the push because I think no one ever tells you, it's like the fantasy of a book is fantastic, but when it comes down to actually writing it, I joked with my friend who's also writing a book I've probably spent more money than I'll ever make on this book. And I'm not making it for money anyway, when it's actually the amount of time I've taken off, the amount of coffee and pastry I've paid for, we're well in the red now anyway, but I've got it. I've got a deal. So I'm just cracking on. So yeah, just the book and concentrating on family as well.

Dr Peter Blundell 21:35

I think. That's lovely. I heard Sheila Haugh say that she hates writing, but she loves the outcome.

Thomas Smithson 21:41

That's right. Yes. Yeah.

Dr Peter Blundell 21:43

You're not quite there yet, but hopefully if we're ready soon we will put all your social media details in the show notes, but I don't know if you want to say your Instagram account, people who want to find you.

Thomas Smithson 21:53

Yeah, thanks. My Instagram's @newh counseling. And yeah, that's it. I'm just on Instagram. That's brilliant. Everything else is too busy.

Dr Peter Blundell 22:01

Tom, it's been wonderful chatting to you.

Thomas Smithson 22:03

Thank you so much.

Dr Peter Blundell 22:04

Good luck with the book when it comes out.

Thomas Smithson 22:06

Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.

Dr Peter Blundell 22:07

Take care.