Counselling psychologists and psychotherapists in the NHS: learning from their work with clients experiencing persistent embodied (somatic) distress

The intention of this research is to answer the question: Counselling psychologists and psychotherapists in the NHS: What can be learnt from their work with clients experiencing persistent embodied (somatic) distress? Somatisation can be considered the most common health problem encountered in contemporary society, at both primary and secondary care levels within the NHS. Clients in persistent embodied distress often sit at the interface between health and mental health services, and this can prove very difficult for the clients and professionals involved in their care. This research explores the gap in the existing literature relating to the psychological understanding of working with ‘persistent’ embodied distress in the context of the NHS. This research follows a qualitative constructivist grounded theory approach, and an explorative and reflective in-depth interview and focus group design. Eight counselling psychologists and psychotherapists with NHS specialist experience and knowledge of working with clients experiencing embodied (somatic) distress were interviewed as part of the study. The aim was to draw on existing experience and wisdom within the discipline to create a theory which can be used in future clinical practice. The data was analysed, and the model was discussed within a sub-group of the original eight participants, who formed part of a data refinement process, before the finalised grounded theory was proposed: The Embodied Therapist as a Bridge in the NHS, highlighting a number of complexities and important connections and tensions within the work. Unexpected findings from the study suggest that the cultural presence of the therapist is an important aid in the work with clients experiencing embodied distress due to the therapist’s own relationship with their body. In addition, new and exciting findings suggest the important contribution of the counselling psychology and psychotherapy professions ‘working at the edge’ of the NHS. Findings support a number of existing theories relating to attachment-informed practice in the NHS and the centrality of stress/trauma models and making mind-body-brain connections in work with clients in persistent embodied distress. The research and grounded theory proposed have implications for the future clinical training and practice of both psychological and non-psychological staff working in the NHS with complex client presentations, experiencing persistent embodied somatic distress

Evaluating Binomial Character Sums Modulo Powers of Two

We show that for any mod $2^m$ characters, $\chi_1, \chi_2,$ the complete exponential sum, $$\sum_{x=1}^{2^m}\chi_1(x) \chi_2(Ax^k+B),$$ has a simple explicit evaluation

Seesaw Spectroscopy at Colliders

A low-scale neutrino seesaw may be probed or even reconstructed at colliders provided that supersymmetry is at the weak scale and the LSP is a sterile sneutrino. Because the neutrino Yukawa couplings are small, the NLSP is typically long-lived and thus a significant fraction of colored or charged NLSPs may stop in the detector material before decaying to the LSP and a charged lepton, gauge boson, or Higgs. For two-body NLSP decays, the energy spectrum of the visible decay product exhibits a monochromatic line for each sterile sneutrino which can be used to extract the sterile sneutrino masses and some or all entries of the neutrino Yukawa matrix modulo phases. Similar methods can be used to extract these parameters from the Dalitz plot in the case of three-body NLSP decays. Assuming that the sterile sneutrino and neutrino are roughly degenerate, one can confirm the existence of a neutrino seesaw by comparing these measured parameters to the observed active neutrino masses and mixing angles. Seesaw spectroscopy can also provide genuinely new information such as the value of $\theta_{13}$, the nature of the neutrino mass hierarchy, and the presence of CP conservation in the neutrino sector. We introduce a weak-scale theory of leptogenesis that can be directly tested by these techniques.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

The Weak Scale from BBN

The measured values of the weak scale, $v$, and the first generation masses, $m_{u,d,e}$, are simultaneously explained in the multiverse, with all these parameters scanning independently. At the same time, several remarkable coincidences are understood. Small variations in these parameters away from their measured values lead to the instability of hydrogen, the instability of heavy nuclei, and either a hydrogen or a helium dominated universe from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. In the 4d parameter space of $(m_u,m_d,m_e,v)$, catastrophic boundaries are reached by separately increasing each parameter above its measured value by a factor of $(1.4,1.3,2.5,\sim5)$, respectively. The fine-tuning problem of the weak scale in the Standard Model is solved: as $v$ is increased beyond the observed value, it is impossible to maintain a significant cosmological hydrogen abundance for any values of $m_{u,d,e}$ that yield both hydrogen and heavy nuclei stability. For very large values of $v$ a new regime is entered where weak interactions freeze out before the QCD phase transition. The helium abundance becomes independent of $v$ and is determined by the cosmic baryon and lepton asymmetries. To maintain our explanation of $v$ from the anthropic cost of helium dominance then requires universes with such large $v$ to be rare in the multiverse. Implications of this are explored, including the possibility that new physics below 10 TeV cuts off the fine-tuning in $v$.Comment: 26 pages plus appendix, 13 figure

Rock 'n' Roll Solutions to the Hubble Tension

Local measurements of the Hubble parameter are increasingly in tension with the value inferred from a $\Lambda$CDM fit to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. In this paper, we construct scenarios in which evolving scalar fields significantly ease this tension by adding energy to the Universe around recombination in a narrow redshift window. We identify solutions of $V \propto \phi^{2 n}$ with simple asymptotic behavior, both oscillatory (rocking) and rolling. These are the first solutions of this kind in which the field evolution and fluctuations are consistently implemented using the equations of motion. Our findings differ qualitatively from those of the existing literature, which rely upon a coarse-grained fluid description. Combining CMB data with low-redshift measurements, the best fit model has $n=2$ and increases the allowed value of $H_0$ from 69.2 km/s/Mpc in $\Lambda$CDM to 72.3 km/s/Mpc at $2\sigma$. Future measurements of the late-time amplitude of matter fluctuations and of the reionization history could help distinguish these models from competing solutions.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures + appendi