Ystradgynlais Psychotherapy

05/12/2025

https://www.wilfredhazelwood.com/walking-the-summerlands-remembering-keith-john-shrewsbury

A heartfelt tribute to Keith John Shrewsbury (1928–1983), reflecting on 41 years of loss, a father's hidden Pagan soul, and a shared spiritual legacy involving

05/12/2025

Remembering Keith John Shrewsbury January 25th 1928 to December 6th 1983. It is on dark December days like this that I think of my father the most and miss him the most. Forty one years ago on Saturday he left the world and stepped away. There is so much in those long 41 years that I wish I could have shared with him. His Grandson Morgan Rhys Rowlands and observations, pains, pleasures and perceptions that I wish I could have talked through with him. A life of learning and struggle, triumph and defeat, disaster and opportunity and a stone of self worn smooth, made able to roll, recover and redesign. A phoenix from the ashes and the accounts of the sacred and the profane. A man of passion out of his time and a Pagan soul behind a thin veneer of state Anglicanism. A lover of mythology, of the mystic, a man of solid reading and of enquiry often hid behind a slightly eccentric persona. A spiritual humanist and opponent of prejudice. An anti racist before formal anti racism, a materialist of the mystic and doubter of many truths. He left me with a nascent anthropology of society, a student of faiths and a powerful legacy cut short. Yet I carry much of his thoughts and feelings adapted and changed by experience and adventure. He loved other cultures and accepted all but prejudice and ignorance.

Some six months before he died he had a near death experience where In a dream he walked through a green Greek valley and then suddenly he came to a hunting lodge and met the old Gods and Godesses of Greece. The Great God Pan told him he was not wanted yet and he awoke. He told me the dream and I have been the radical left wing neo Pagan from then often hidden but never denied.

My father was a reader of comparison and a thinker par excellant. He wanted to be buried at sea but family politics at the time did not favour it. And somewhere in a church yard in Swansea a Pagan, practical person, of loving nature and giving nurture walks the Summer lands . I suspect as he was buried the old ones came for him and a doorway opened in a soft shaft of sunlight as he stepped aside avoiding Augustine and Paul and found Pan and Dionysus despite all his rational appearance and professional aura.

And so I celebrated him today and all his works . On the day of the birth of my son I smelt his ci******es in the bathroom of my house in Alltwen. He never met his Grandson much to my sadness. And as I write these words I celebrate him once more. He would argue both for my account as metaphor and imagination, as literature and learning and as perception and possibility. He would say its up to you what you believe and describe. But I know that one day as a door opens in the veil I shall step through and walk with him in the Summer lands and laugh. And in my near 68th year i often sense him..knowing the base and knowledge and love he gave me. Here's to you Dad 'rage rage against the dying of the light" and here I stand unbowed and proud....as time ticks its path around the full Moon in the night sky...and you did not nor will I go gently into that dark night after the fading of the moon light....and I the Marxist! ' the old Pagan and the Hellenistic Astrologer follow the cycle of birth life and death....

08/11/2025

Room to let in busy clinic . Free on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays Fridays and Sundays. We have a busy team of ten therapists already. Cost is £25 pounds per day inclusive of heating, fibre optic broadband and more. Available from now. Please ring 07592330467 for more details. Clinic in Swansea / Uplands area. Ideal for practitioner, therapist, psychic. Available to view on Wednesdasys and Thursdays.

31/10/2025

And so the long journey to Kernow, Lostwithiel and the drowned land of Logres begins today. I am the Old Pagan on the day of Samhain. As Gaza us raised and genocide continues I walk with the dogs on a dark night. Linear explanations are always lies . Reality is more than narrowness of vision and denial of truth. In the struggle both to unite and separate from the divine feminine toxic masculinity reveals both its limits and its liminality. I am a Grandfather an elder, a holder of all that must be considered. Yet on the route to the crossroads and the Ruffian upon the stairs I seek the Triple Will. The questions run on and the answers are few and famous in obscurity. I am of the tribe of Levi and the Priests of Aaron ...yet as the chil down to the dren of Ishmael and Haggar are ground down to the dust from the ethnic cleansing of Jericho to an eternal Nakba the tide of death sweeps across the land. Call me Ishmael now and call it loud and clear..

From surah 109 the words are clear and relevant " I do not worship what you worship. Nor are you worshippers of what I worship. Nor will you be worshippers of what I worship.

As the Israeli government continues its slaughter and the pathetic centrists run far from the truth..

We are here at the place between the worlds, at the space of tension between the vision and the voice. And where the door is closing .

We discover a storm upon the horizon as genocide becomes a weapon of state .....

The Starmer governmenthas been far worse on foreign policy than Blair ever was. To play games of resistance in infinite ways are always and forever possible...

I wait at the cross roads for Dame Fortune and the Norns. I will not go quietly into the dark and choose resistance ....it is the time of the Crone and we won't wait any longer . The burning times are here again and from the lands of the wild men comes the authoritarians with the flames of the monotheisti and its brutal imperialism surging around the Middle East. The myth of Orientilism is manufactured whilst the old gods and Goddesses cry, weep and call out over and over . There are no true or false dieties, or ideologies any more. We are lost in a post modern mystery and I am sick at heart....I need coffee and I know that there is no truth outside the text... and I am the prophet outcast and unarmed but I will not surrender.. have a great day....the storm is arising and it is Samhain and the day of the dead at the Celtic new year..it is both metaphor and meaning delivered by Hegel a mighty judgementcis coming ...and it won't be long....Rhodd 'te Rhaib? Tric or Trît? Be' ddywedwch chi? 🎃👹👻

13/10/2025

The astronomical enigma of the Dogon of Mali from the Wilfred Hazelwood blog 'soldiers of fate'

Discover how the Dogon people of Mali possessed detailed knowledge of the invisible Sirius B star centuries before modern astronomy. Explore this fascinating co

13/09/2025

I am the Washer at the Ford, I am the weaver of fate, I feel the Norns create the thread that is birth, life and death of so many that I know. And in the days counting down to the Autumn Equinox in the season of the Reaper, the Morrigan and the Death Crone walk in my anima. How long have I lived outside the world, shielded by zoom, what's app and android?

I feel the reluctance to come back to the world as the masks begin to fall like the Autumn leaves on the edge of the falling times. I walk towards Samhain in my sixtty third year to the Summer lands when the world is mended. I am the Priest born again and again who raises their fist at the Sky Father's and shouts again and again ' No Pasaran. The world is grey cast in the shadows if one truth, one reality, one true God and faith and with it the world has become grey and disenchanted. The dance of ecstasy has left the Sky Father's and we who keep the faith of an older world that ever renews seem less and more cut off. We have survived the burning times and yet the persecutions are more subtle, yet bland, and more empty than easy. The hollow men are here and I do mean men, the last men walk amongst us and the psyche and the soul than resist such times are transgendered and transpersonal. I am Sam left behind at the shore of the great sea in the Grey Havens, I am Ovid staring out from exile across the Black Sea and I am Dante in exile.

As the year nears the Equinox and the Veil of the older world becomes more transparent and porous and we prepare to honour the ancestors with bread, we use salt to keep them in the realm between the worlds . The words of the ancestors, the ancient and recent dead and those on the liminal portal between life and death bare witness to things seen, done and denied. I honour the Morrigan today in all her power, Mother Hecate at the Cross roads and celebrate the lives of those taken by pandemic, war and time. Hail at this season to the Ancestors and friends taken by the Ruffian on the Stairs. I shake myself and take a sip of Coffee. I am Sisyphus again the wounded healer celebrating life and its possibilities...have a good day...

09/06/2025

Monday musings....I live in a land that is east of the Moon and west of the Sun. And I know that as I rage against the coming storm that I will not go gently into that good night. The world rushes headlong to catharsis with all of our fatal flaws exposed to others. The world turns slowly...oh so slowly. And the tedium goes on and on...the hollow men, the stuffed men debate like patients etherised upon a table, locked in a morgue....

It's Monday a multiplicity of images float through my mind . I hear of a flood of death or endings....and uncomfortably I shift aware thst but for chance I could have been there.

The hint of change dangles like the curse of Tantalus as a crypto Fascist revolution begins to eat its own children ...and a conservative force Starmer led flounders in power...

Social media is grumpy, snappy and strained.

As more Palestinians die slaughtered by the IDF the images run on and reply to those who ask.

These are schizoid days, days of slaughter and schemes hatched and hoped for.....its Monday and the world is grey beneath its breath.....

The Moon calls out and the voice echoes between the lidless eyes looking out of high windows as we walk the road with dog and wolf...where is June taking us? Fascism lurks in the far hills and we are sore afraid..And as the Fascists surge in the USA and LA riots and as the centrists fade ....do I see visions of the UK to be under a centre right pro market , anti trade union Labour Party plunging to the far right. You can't fight fascism from the centre....be warned Keir and the waves of change and challenge sweep towards....apres moi le deluge ..at least I hope so

08/06/2025

A statue of the goddess Athena from the office of Freud in Vienna and then in London. Sigmund Freud, the Jewish Viennese psychoanalyst, had a large collection of antiquities which he kept in his office. For him, psychoanalysis was connected to archaeology in a number of ways - a "digging up" of the past both in patients, and also in reminding both himself and his patients of the ancient Greek and Egyptian world (where most of the antiquities, but certainly not all) came from, whose myths and stories could be "free associated" during the session, perhaps opening new discoveries and fields of inquiry for the patient and the analyst.

This statuette of the goddess Athena was a favorite of Freud's. After the N***s seized power it was feared that Freud would lose his entire collection of antiquities as well as his library. When he left Vienna in June 1938 he smuggled this statue out of Vienna, bringing it with him to Paris and then to London. On arrival in England, Freud wrote "we arrived proud and rich under the protection of Athena." As luck would have it, the rest of his antiquity collection was able to reach London thanks to the financial aid and influence of one of his former patients. (See comment section below).

Today the statue of Athena and the other antiquities originally in his office in Vienna can be seen at the Freud Museum in London.

30/03/2025

Sul y Mamau Hapus!
Happy Mothers’ Day!

23/03/2025

21/03/2025

What does true resilience look like? How do people survive unthinkable trauma and go on to rebuild their lives? Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner takes us deep into the extraordinary journeys of five patients—people who endured extreme abuse, neglect, and hardship but found the strength to heal.

Through the lens of therapy, this book explores the human capacity for survival, the long road to self-acceptance, and the profound impact of past wounds on present lives. It challenges us to ask: What shapes us more—our trauma or our ability to overcome it? And how do we break free from the pain of our past?

Each of these five individuals teaches us something powerful about endurance, courage, and the transformative power of therapy. Are you ready to step into their stories and witness the resilience of the human spirit?

Here are lessons from Good Morning, Monster

1. Trauma shapes identity, but it doesn’t have to define it.
Many of Gildiner’s patients carried deep scars from childhood abuse and neglect. While their past shaped their fears, relationships, and behaviors, healing came when they realized their trauma did not have to dictate their future.

2. Emotional resilience is built through struggle.
Each patient in the book endured hardships that seemed insurmountable, yet they survived. Resilience isn’t about avoiding pain—it’s about enduring it, processing it, and coming out stronger on the other side.

3. Therapy is not just about talking—it’s about rewiring how we see ourselves.
Through therapy, Gildiner’s patients learned to challenge the beliefs they had about themselves—beliefs shaped by abusive parents, neglect, or toxic relationships. They had to rewrite their own narratives to move forward.

4. Love and kindness can be unfamiliar and even frightening.
For those raised in toxic environments, love and kindness may feel foreign or undeserved. Some of Gildiner’s patients struggled to accept healthy relationships because chaos was all they had known.

5. Survival mechanisms can become obstacles to healing.
Many coping mechanisms—like detachment, people-pleasing, or emotional suppression—are useful in abusive environments. However, these same behaviors can later prevent deep connections and personal growth.

6. Confronting the past is painful but necessary.
Healing doesn’t come from burying trauma—it comes from facing it. Each patient had to revisit painful memories, unpack suppressed emotions, and challenge their past to reclaim their future.

7. Forgiveness is not always necessary for healing.
While some people find peace in forgiveness, others heal by acknowledging the pain and choosing to move on without forcing reconciliation. Healing is personal and looks different for everyone.

8. Breaking cycles requires immense courage.
Some patients had to actively break patterns of abuse, neglect, or dysfunction—choosing a different path than the one they were raised in. Change is difficult, but it’s possible with conscious effort and support.

9. True healing comes from self-acceptance, not external validation.
Many patients spent years seeking approval from others before realizing that self-worth must come from within. Healing means learning to accept oneself, flaws and all.

10. The human spirit is incredibly strong.
Despite enduring unimaginable pain, each person in Good Morning, Monster showed an extraordinary ability to survive and rebuild. Their stories are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of transformation.

Good Morning, Monster is not just a book about therapy—it’s about the raw, unfiltered reality of human suffering and strength. It reminds us that trauma does not have to be a life sentence and that healing, while difficult, is always possible.

Are we truly aware of the hidden battles people around us are fighting? And more importantly, how can we show more understanding, patience, and kindness—not just to others, but to yourself