In Educational Psychotherapy (1), I explain how Educational Psychotherapy first evolved and how, as an approach, it can help promote social and emotional development as well as the thinking skills required for learning. This was illustrated through the aspects of a child’s first six months in therapy. Here, I highlight three areas of further progress…
When talking to young children, most people know that ‘open’ as opposed to ‘closed’ questions are helpful. That is, questions that cannot easily be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” answer and invite the child to give more information. These questions typically start with “who..?”, “where…?”, “what…?” and “how…?”. What many people don’t realise,…
Since the early 1960s, psychologists have been interested in the relationship between parenting and the emotional, social and behavioural development of children. Of particular significance to this field of study, is the early work of psychologist Diana Baumrind and colleagues, who conducted the first longitudinal study of more than 100 preschoolers through to their adolescence,…
In this blog, we explore postnatal depression and summarise a classic paper by Lawrence Blum, an American psychiatric and psychotherapist. It was originally written in relation to postnatal depression in mothers, but also explores the conflicts that appear when becoming a parent and applies to fathers, same-sex couples and couples where caring for the child…
As much as we might fight it, our own experiences of being parented, create within us blueprints or ‘internal working models’ of what it is to be a parent. These models only become fully activated when we become parents ourselves, and often take us by surprise. For instance, we may find ourselves ‘turning into’ our…
Professor Richard Layard, one time ‘Happiness Tsar’, wrote, ‘in every study, family relationships, (and our close private life) are more important than any other single factor in affecting our happiness’. It’s hard to grow and feel safe and content in the world if our family stories are causing us distress and discomfort. This is especially…
The Paradoxical Theory of Change[i] states that we can only change aspects of ourselves when we first become what we are. Likewise, in order to support children’s development, we also need first to see them for who they really are and accept where they are at. This can be a difficult thing to do. To…
The phenomenon of parental ‘blocked care’ is a term coined by Clinical Psychologists Dan Hughes and Jonathon Baylin and Psychiatrist Dan Siegal. It represents a central feature of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) approach to treating children and young people with a history of developmental trauma and attachment disruption. Neuroscience research into the areas of…
Babies are not born with the neurological capacity to understand distress, or even to differentiate between discomfort and mortal danger. To ensure their survival therefore, babies are biologically programmed to communicate all forms of distress to their primary caregivers through very primitive means (e.g. crying, screaming and reaching out). Under ideal circumstances, these ‘signals’ from…
Perhaps it seems odd to you to even think of emotions having an intrinsic value, isn’t it all rather cold and controlling. However, alongside purchasing a house, a car or other valuable object our relationships will need energy and investment of time to make them work well. So in the next twelve months, wherever you are…
Warning – This article contains spoilers for anyone who has not seen the movie Lady Bird. A critical success, this film about a mother and daughter relationship falls into the ‘coming of age’ genre, however it is also so much more than this in considering the systemic and unconscious processes at work that make…
Christmas can be an emotionally challenging and difficult time for many of us. There is such expectation on how Christmas ‘should’ be. Yet like the weather fails to deliver on the ‘winter wonderland’ scenes on the TV adverts, for many of us, our family experience often falls far short of the loving idyllic family reunions…