Book Review: How to Be Your Own Therapist by Owen O’Kane

I’m not a great fan of ‘self-help’ books when it comes to medical or mental health. Often they fit in the same category of new-age books by self-styled gurus who spout, at best, pseudo-science and, at worst, complete bullshit.

But this book caught my eye. Firstly, it is written by an actual expert – the author is a former clinical lead for the UK’s NHS. For me, this is just about as high a credential as you get. It means he isn’t just some academic expert teaching it at university and therefore probably rather distanced from the realities of therapy. This is a guy who used to walk the walk and be in charge of a team of others who did the same. To be a clinical lead usually takes years of experience and O’Kane certainly has that. This is no pie-in-the-sky theory.

Secondly, this fits with my views of therapy – very much as espoused by Jeffrey Masson in his classic ‘Against Therapy’ – that often the ‘traditional’ therapy sessions are not really that helpful if the therapist becomes a crutch and the patient/client doesn’t own their own progress to towards recovery. Most decent holistic practitioners will, these days, attempt to guide their clients towards finding their own solutions and restore themselves. In other words, empower the client rather than dominate in the client-therapist relationship. The therapist does this by training the client in techniques and guiding them to shift their perspectives and reframe situations: in essence the very things O’Kane teaches in this book.

And thirdly, there is a real crisis of need in the NHS right now with nothing like enough therapists. I have to speak personally here although I have friends in the profession who confirm the situation. I have experienced extreme trauma twice in my life (possibly three times but two more or less came together). The first time as in my late childhood and early teens. The second was about nine years ago soon after returning to the UK from living in Bangladesh. Both will be separate books one day – they are on my hitlist to write. The latter trauma didn’t just affect me. It took down my entire family. All of us ended up having separate therapy sessions. We needed help immediately, but it didn’t come. We all had to wait many weeks, if not months, for sessions (my son is only just getting them now, nine years later despite best efforts). When they finally come, you’re limited to just a handful of sessions – typically three I think – and that’s it. And in my case, I got a change of therapist after the first session because the original one had moved on to another job elsewhere. I never finished my sessions; they were a waste of time. I have lost track of how many friends I’ve had seeking therapy on the NHS who have gone through the same thing.

In effect, what I ended up doing is exactly what I had to do the first time: I fixed myself. It helps that I am trained in psychology and counselling so I do have a good understanding of the principles although I am no expert by any means. I function well and lead a pretty contented life thanks to my own ways of learning to deal with things, based on solid research.

That doesn’t mean it is perfect though. There are still certain kinds of stressors that bring me down. I still get occasional bouts of what I call ‘the black dog’. I know how to make it sit and not cause any damage, but still it can hang around for several days before going away again. I don’t know if I have the resilience to cope with anything majorly traumatic happening again in my life. I hope I don’t get to find out, but it does worry me.

So, O’Kane’s book looked a good fit. Techniques I could use for myself, at home, without need for therapy sessions impossible to come by and probably not appropriate anyway. I don’t need recovery work; I could do with maintenance and strengthening. That’s just what O’Kane promises. He stresses the need to seek professional help if you are going through intense trauma. He does not claim his book can help those in desperate need. This book is aimed at people like me: needing someone to talk to but functioning just fine in general.

O’Kane is partly successful. He offers short mental work outs that are supposed to happen through the day – namely beginning, middle and end of your day. They are mostly reflections on aspects of the day – the good, the bad and the ugly, as it were – and allow you to focus on what you need to reframe the day and build what some psychologists call ‘positive self regard’. This is good stuff.

O’Kane himself is very likable. He’s open and honest about his own traumas including growing up gay in very Catholic Northern Ireland and dealing with all the shit that comes with that. He is a gentle soul and someone you feel you can instinctively trust. I suspect he was very good at his job and helped a lot of people.

Yet, somehow, these techniques and O’Kane’s style, lovely though it is, doesn’t work for me. Fundamentally, he’s developing your ability to be ok with who you are and not be hard on yourself. I’m generally already a pretty positive guy. I like my life, I like me, I’m ok with being flawed. I can be self-critical where deserved and immediately turn to how I can improve myself or what I do. I wasn’t always like that. I understand self-loathing and seeing nothing but blackness about yourself – been there, bought the T-shirt. The journey was long and hard to get out of that but I did it. So these techniques don’t really hit the spot. I’m already there. I know and I’m grateful for the good in my life and I don’t have (generally) crushing worries or issues in my life.

I recognise that this makes me a little unusual in many ways but I’m not egotistical enough to think that makes me unique (and I’m not thinking of writing a book on it!). There must be many others like me and therefore that means there are many out there for whom this book won’t fit either. Thus, I can’t quite give it a full five-star rating.

Nevertheless, I have already suggested this book to others – particularly the audio version which has the the author himself reading and is particularly useful for the technique side itself. It is a little like listening to a meditation podcast but without the mystical stuff. This is just pure therapy. You could almost like back on that couch (which no therapist uses, by the way) and let the therapy do the work.

This is good stuff then. It’s not for those in the middle of deep trauma – that still needs your doctor’s help – and nor does it quite reach all our needs. But if you know that you need help to see things – yourself, your situation and so on – in a better, more positive way, then O’Kane’s method is as good as any; and you can get it now – right now -rather than wait months for a handful of sessions that may, or may not, help you at all.

My Verdict:

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

Get a free trial and 20% off Shortform by clicking here. Shortform is a brilliant tool and comes with my highest recommendation.

Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)