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368 – When Media Coverage Enters the Counselling Room
Attachment: What Counsellors Need to Know – Why Check-Ins and Check-Outs Matter
In Episode 368 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, your hosts Rory Lees-Oakes and Ken Kelly guide you through three key areas of counselling practice, learning, and development.
In Ethical, Sustainable Practice, Rory and Ken explore when media coverage enters the counselling room, examining how major reporting on trauma and abuse can increase client contact and shape presentations.
In Practice Matters, Rory is interviewed by Sarah Henry about his latest CPD lecture on attachment, exploring why attachment theory is central to therapeutic work.
And in Student Services, Rory and Ken discuss the role of check-ins and check-outs in counselling training, and why these processes matter far beyond the classroom.
When Media Coverage Enters the Counselling Room [starts at 03:18 mins]
In this section, Rory and Ken explore when media coverage enters the counselling room, examining how high-profile reporting of abuse and trauma can trigger an increase in client enquiries and influence therapeutic presentations.
Key points discussed include:
- Major news stories can act as a trigger, prompting clients to seek therapy for historic trauma.
- The “Savile Effect” explains why disclosures often surge following widespread media attention.
- Therapists may notice increases in presentations such as flashbacks, shame, hyperarousal, and crisis responses.
- Working in a trauma-informed way prioritises safety, pacing, choice, and avoiding re-traumatisation.
- Having a surge plan in place helps therapists manage capacity, referrals, and ethical boundaries.
- Supervision is essential for managing risk, vicarious trauma, and professional decision-making during these periods.
Attachment: What Counsellors Need to Know [starts at 26:54 mins]
In this week’s Practice Matters, Sarah Henry interviews Rory Lees-Oakes about his recent lecture on attachment theory and its relevance to counselling practice.
Key points from this discussion include:
- Therapy itself is an attachment process, with the therapist offering stability, presence, and emotional availability.
- Attachment styles are patterns, not pathology, and shape how clients relate to themselves and others.
- The therapist can become a secure base, supporting repair and earned security within the therapeutic relationship.
- Boundaries, consistency, and predictability are central to creating safety in attachment work.
- Ruptures and repairs are inevitable and can become powerful corrective relational experiences.
- Attachment dynamics show up in first contact, transference, countertransference, and endings in therapy.
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Why Check-Ins and Check-Outs Matter [starts at 51:42 mins]
In this section, Rory and Ken explore the purpose of check-ins and check-outs in counselling training and how these practices translate into professional work.
Key points include:
- Check-ins help students transition from the outside world into a reflective learning space.
- They allow tutors to assess group safety, emotional readiness, and potential risk.
- Sharing emotional states builds empathy, cohesion, and self-awareness within the group.
- Check-outs support reflection, integration of learning, and emotional containment at the end of sessions.
- These processes mirror therapeutic practice, modelling how sessions begin and end with clients.
- Developing this discipline in training supports ethical, present, and grounded practice post-qualification.
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