“Don’t look down Ajay!” shouted my friend/torturer Michael as we clambered over craggy rocks in 50mph winds.

My heart was beating so fast that I was sure I could see it actually pumping through my many layers of clothing.

I could taste my own adrenaline mixed in the boiled egg we had eaten on our last break.

This was a bit different to siting in comfy therapist chair. I was both smiling and crying simultaneously.

This was my annual get away with friends. I had decided this years' edition would be a hike, to avoid the jeopardy involved in bikes, skiing, running and so on. I chose people based on the following criteria:

1. Could they walk all day long?

2. Could they avoid ending up in A&E?

3. Would they be good company?

4. Could they wash up/buy a round unprompted?

But to be honest the main criteria was A&E avoidance. In midlife, this was not a simple ask.  Over-inflated or deflated egos, failing bodies, and a quest for adventure make a dangerous and potential painful cocktail. If anyone was going to be the group patient, I decided, surely it was my turn! I was having a few days off and everyone else could take care of me. Hiking was the safest and easiest group activity. Hiking is basically walking with a piece of cheese in your back pocket, and posing with a pair of technical "hiking boots" – that surely is NOT dangerous! Barely a sport. More a convivial way of standing up with a bit of gentle swaying I reasoned to myself.

To make the decision easier, a friend had moved from my part of South London to Keswick in the Lake District, and was keen to guide us and share his backyard with us. He is an experienced climber, hard as nails, and runs 100 mile ultra marathons in his spare time in the cold and dark. So we knew we were in good – if somewhat cold and weathered –hands. However whenever I asked him what we would be doing he would say, shaman-like, "dunno."  I guess he knew that our city-based ego-centric ways would be useless here in the wild lakes. We were in the hands of the weather gods! He pulled up specialist weather reports only for the initiated that used phrases I had never heard of before like "whiteout" and "zero visibility"... What was I thinking?!

Fortunately, I was well prepared for the job (£7 Lidl bargain black ribbed base layer and an old £5 polyester running top). The wind was howling as I scrambled across Haystacks (not the fluffy rural idyllic golden sort but a severe brooding grey rocky sort) in the Lake District. Storm Bert sounded like a friendly uncle but this was unlike any weather I have experienced in the UK!  There was slush and ice all around. I recalled some of the words I had come across when doom scrolling Mountain rescue reports before coming up…hypothermia….cragfast…fatality…

For a few a hallucinated seconds I imagined I was in the death zone (above 8000 metres) on Everest grinding out steps into a head wind (yes I do get carried away sometimes), when in truth I was five hours from London (thank you Avanti trains) and probably 500 metres above sea level. The air was full of rain and bluster. I was both hot and cold as my last minute Decathlon arctic hiking pants panic buy was slowly cooking me from the inside. My hat and glasses had been blown clean off my bearded face. I scrambled about on all fours, like a clueless goat, trying to recover them, whilst both trying to look heroic, as Michael was taking pictures, and without falling off the edge of the ridge.

Yes reader, I was having the time of my life! I wasn’t at the level of those incomprehensible people who walk on top of the world’s highest buildings, but this sure did beat walking up and down the stairs to my consulting rooms.

This was a different type of drama than the one I often encounter in the hushed and private container of the consulting room. I know that when the Greek gods of relationship – Zeus and Hera – have an argument, thunderbolts roll!! But there is something different from living in the realm of text and language compared with throwing yourself in to an actual storm! Therapists often deal with powerful archetypal materials – raging internal storms, frosty sexual relations, psychological tsunamis – to name just a few. In such cases we need to keep our footing, to avoid being blown away in the ensuing psychic storms. We need bolts drilled into the cliff face to prevent us from falling into the abyss. We think that if we can hold on for long enough there is a chance for the sun to breakthrough, eventually.

Climbers often wear the skin out on their hands and fill the cracks with glue. Therapist’s don’t use their hands, but need to keep a psychic grip on things.  Just like solo climbing is extremely dangerous, and potentially fatal, so perhaps is a solo therapist working alone. A safer arrangement is for a therapist to be tethered to other therapists, in order to manage material that would blow them off their feet.

And so it was in the Lakes. Storm Bert died out. My group of eight friends, assembled over many decades, joked and talked. This trip had been several months in the planning. Several hundred WhatsApp messages had covered train times, routes, kit, marinades, wine and beer preferences.  We wrestled with the following questions:

• Does the house have salt and pepper? (no)
• Are there toilet rolls? (a few)
• Does the house provide towels? (no)
• Is there wifi? (no)
• Is there an electrical car charging point? (no)
• Is the road icy and dangerous to walk on at night? (yes, I fell over and lived out my fantasy of being looked after in the wilds without actually hurting myself)
• How do we split the bill? (In my favour)

I guess the group messages were about the administration of taking care of the group.  Alongside the adventure of hiking in Storm Bert, we balanced more introverted questions of kit and cooking. There is a wonderful thing in groups, that each person is able to contribute something; each person finds their place.

All in all I recommend throwing yourself into a bit of "weather" alone or with friends. And then going home and putting on the fire, or wrapping up warm.  There is something in those sublime extremities, feeling small in the face of Storm Bert and the wild landscapes of the Lake District that will stay with me a whole lifetime.