I was lucky enough to see West end production Dear England just before it finished its sell-out run in London last month. As well as being entertaining and brilliantly staged, for myself as a counsellor it was thought provoking in terms of the relationship between pressure and anxiety.
The basis of Dear England is an open letter from England Manager Gareth Southgate to the nation, which was published in The Daily Mail ahead of Euro 2021. Southgate (only too aware of the pressure of his young squad to perform and undo ’30 years of hurt’) encouraged kindness and compassion towards his players, condemned racism in all its forms, and asked fans to re-consider what it is to be patriotic in the 21stcentury. Behind the scenes at FA HQ Southgate had his own barriers to face. Convinced that something in the squad’s collective psychology was holding them back from performing their best he determined to unpick the issue by enlisting the help of sports psychologist Pippa Grange.
Much of the play's drama focussed on the pressure of taking penalties: always England’s Achilles heel (and a touchy subject for Southgate). For the players their fear of missing a shot was so huge that it cast a shadow over their collective and individual performances, leaving them stilted, risk-averse and always second-guessing the reactions of the media. Although most of us can only imagine having the weight of the nation’s expectations on their shoulders, the effects of external pressure are known to us all in one form or another: manifesting in worry, fear, anxiety or stress.
When we internalise the expectations of others, they often become magnified by factors such as guilt or shame, and we can become our own biggest critic, perpetuating the pressure we feel. Counselling allows us the time and space to analyse these expectations and consider where they are coming from. When clients look at their ‘conditions of worth’ they often find that they do not align with their own values after all. Crucially Grange and Southgate asked the players to consider what defined patriotism and what football represented for them: encouraging them to re-evaluate cliched, and narrow-minded interpretations, and get to the core of what they valued and believed. In addition to this Grange delved into player’s individual psyches, uncovering a tendency for self-worth to be linked with achievement, for failure being unthinkable, and self-blame being prevalent. For some of the players this had its roots in the messaging received as children: that being loved was conditional on doing or achieving. For several players who had experienced family breakdown or estrangement, this had led them to the natural conclusion that their perceived rejection was a direct result of their own mistakes or ‘failures’. These are themes that are brought to me regularly by my clients. Through my work I can help them recognise and value their authentic self, reconsider the conditions put upon their own worth, and gradually become more forgiving of themselves. In time this builds resilience and confidence, providing a secure base from which to take risks and make positive changes.
From a counselling perspective I was really heartened that at its core Dear England’s message is that talking about our fears can help us manage them effectively: that by acknowledging and articulating them we can free ourselves from their grip little by little. It highlighted that if we can allow ourselves to feel our feelings and to notice anxiety objectively, we can work towards accepting it as an understandable, natural, and crucially – a transient response to stress, and not to berate ourselves for experiencing it. In turn we can feel supported in learning to ‘sit with’ the anxious feelings we have been trying to suppress, allowing them time and space, tolerating them and in some cases even managing to harness their energy towards a positive purpose.
Another takeaway from the play was that relationships heal. When the England squad started to be more honest with each-other, dropping some of their defences (no pun intended!), and offering one another support, they felt more resilient and more able to cope if they missed a pen. Fundamentally counselling is about the relationship between client and counsellor in the room, the sense of trust and care it engenders and the conditions it fosters for healthily relating in the outside world. Of course Dear England doesn’t claim that being more open and self-aware instantly solves psychological issues (or results in a winning strike), but a crucial message from the play is that the process of exploration can enable us to start to feel differently about ourselves and our relationships. Given the right conditions, assumptions and fears can be re-evaluated during counselling, and little by little we can find the confidence we need to take risks and reap the rewards. As for its implications for England’s Euro 2024 chances… we’ll wait and see.