The new Netflix series Adolescence has sparked conversation for its raw portrayal of teenage life and family tension. As an NVR practitioner for the past nine years, I’ve come to realise that I view my world now through an NVR lens. As I was watching the show I was struck by its affirmation of a…
One of the most profound experiences we can have is to become a parent. If you had a good experience of growing up in a happy home where your needs were considered important, you felt secure, this is the best preparation for becoming a parent yourself. However, life is not quite as easy as that…
Family backgrounds and values From our earliest times, we absorb the emotional systems of our family environment. As we make our way in the world we take our families with us, internalised and manifesting consciously and unconsciously in many, if not all, aspects of our lives. While the societal and cultural context of the family…
The family is our first social group. It is the crucible in which our passions are born and our capacities to love and to live are shaped – and misshaped. The family imbues its members with its own specific culture, habits and attitudes. As an organism, it too is shaped by the cultural moment and…
Quite a few people this week have asked me about tips for supporting children at times of high emotional stress (e.g. anger, rage or anxiety). For this reason, I thought I would share with you some generic pointers for parents that I use in clinic, but which could apply to most children. These are predominantly…
Children, like all of us, encounter loss in their lives, temporary and permanent. They may lose a treasured possession, a loved one who dies, a parent who leaves or is imprisoned, a friend who moves away, or a valued teacher in the transition between year groups or schools. Some are unlucky enough to lose their…
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…
Educational Psychotherapy was developed by Irene Caspari in the 1970s, an Educational Psychologist working at the Tavistock Clinic in London. She was interested in understanding learning difficulties from a psychoanalytic and attachment perspective. In order to address both learning needs and emotional difficulties together, she pioneered a method of blending structured (educational) tasks and free…
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…
“Watch your plants and see what they’re telling you” (Ollie Walker, Hosta grower, Gardeners’ World, BBC2, 14.6.19). Ollie Walker has fallen in love with the diversity of Hostas and delights in watching them grow. This is some dedicated watching: the nursery he works at stock over 800 varieties. Noticing small changes in thousands of plants,…
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…