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The First 5 Years

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 and many of us will encounter disruptions to our wellbeing because of parental illness, a lack of resources, social isolation, or neglect.  Trauma is used here to describe not necessarily an event but the often small every day psychological injuries inflicted on us whilst growing up in a dysfunctional family.  When we enter therapy, we are often unaware of the events and hidden daily routine attacks on our ego that happen in families.  How do we find a way of developing a mentally healthy approach to our role as parents, during the first 5 years of our children’s lives?

What is it about these first five years that are so important?

Both parents and caregivers need to recognize the importance of creating a safe and happy space for children to grow up in.  There is an equal need for parental closeness and nurturing of the infant regardless whether a male or a female partner.  Both parents in the household are equally important in the maturing process. Fathers can feel they have little to offer during the early weeks, months and years of a child’s life, however, it is clear fathers have an essential role during this period. 

  1. Neurobiological development – the development of the brain depends on a secure and safe space where the child can explore the environment for development and learning to take place. This lays down the neurological potential for later life and mental health.  If the family is dysfunctional whereby the parents are unable to regulate their emotional state or act out with physical or emotional abuse towards the child or partner, then the child will internalize these experiences, which come to the fore later in life.  Or if parents are not emotionally present and sibling rivalry is not contained, a child is bullied or goaded by other children. 
  2. Attachment and separation – from the moment of our birth we begin the process of separation from our mother learning and adjusting to the world around us.  We enter a world that will influence us on a personal, social and cultural level that will take us a lifetime to understand.  As a newborn we are completely dependent on those around us to keep us safe and secure. This is a demanding period for parents who have to sacrifice time and energy to looking after our needs.  It can be a difficult period of adjustment for parents as their role as parents will be unfamiliar.
  3. Language acquisition – language is not something we learn in a “book learning way” but we acquire it through interaction with our families and those around us.  Children in families where more than one language is spoken have increased number of neurons in the brain.  

 

How do you prepare for becoming parents?

If we are not to pass on to our children unwanted patterns or similar patterns of relating to our own children that we experienced; particularly if we have been exposed to trauma during our childhood, then we need to firstly look inwards at our experience of family life.

  1. Make a connection to your experience as a child.  What was the atmosphere like at home was it a calm happy place or full of energy and busy. What was your role in the family? What was the general atmosphere like at home? Did you feel recognized? Where do you come in the family are you the eldest child, the middle child or the youngest.
  2. Connect to your family history: Was it a safe and stable environment or were there lots of moves during your first 5 years. 
  3. What do you know of your parent’s childhood?
  4. Were there any problems of addictions in the family?
  5.  Were there any major events, loss of family members, new siblings in the family, catastrophic events, which put the family at risk?
  6. How did people respond to feelings? Was anger suppressed or expressed and understood? 

If at the end of reading this you realize there were family matters that need to be explored, thought about and processed, before the new baby arrives. Find a counsellor, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst who can help you and your partner understand how you might mitigate the impact of your dysfunctional family experience.  This might break a cycle of suffering, for you and allow you to improve your mental health whilst become a good parent to your children.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech –

How do I know if I am ready to become a parent?

Our emotions are shaped by our relationships?

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late to start therapy

The Unconscious Mind

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Let’s not go round again – How we repeat ourselves!

Earworm

Have you ever had a song go round and round in your head for longer than you’d like? I certainly have. It’s a common enough experience for which in recent years the term ‘earworm’ has been coined. More academically, it’s known through American Psychological Association research as Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), defined as ‘the spontaneous recall and repeating of a tune in one’s mind’. 

A persistent earworm of mine belongs to a radio staple of my youth: the Scottish funk group Average White Band’s disco hit, ‘Let’s Go Round Again’. 

If you’re unfamiliar with it I hesitate to recommend you listen, lest I pass its catchy stickiness to you. But in the song the singer returns from unspecified travels to entreat a former lover to reconnect with him in the way they were and so ‘turn back the hands of time’. Mining a commonly held nostalgia for revisiting the passionate phases of former loves, I think the song’s sentiment succeeds most through its appeal to the very human need for repetition in relationship.

Repetition compulsion

Just over 100 years ago in Freud’s essay, Beyond The Pleasure Principle , he outlined long observed patterns of behaviour in his many patients as manifestations of a ‘compulsion to repeat’. He cites a case study of a little boy who created a game of regularly throwing and retrieving from his cot a favoured reel on a piece of string. He would throw it out to a word meaning ‘gone’, then retrieve it with a joyful sound meaning ‘there’. Within the context of the family, Freud offers the interpretation that the child’s invented game of disappearance and return was a way ‘to revenge himself on his mother for going away from him’. 

He goes on to speculate that children repeat unpleasant experiences in order to gain some kind of mastery over them and then observes that many of his adult patients show behavioural repetitions resulting in misfortunes ‘for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences’.

Psychological games

Later in the 1960s an analysand of one of Freud’s followers developed this notion of repetition in human behaviour, identifying common relationship patterns in those reported by his own patients. He named these patterns psychological ‘games’: repeated transactions played out of conscious awareness by both parties in a relationship. Eric Berne’s ‘Games People Play’ (1964) became a 60s best seller and is a founding text in the development of the modality of Transactional Analysis.

In essence, Berne extended Freud’s earlier insights to suggest that each of us in infancy develops a repertoire of repetitive behaviours that we use to protect ourselves. The proposal is that at a deeply unconscious level we seek relationships with others who will allow us to repeat roles and situations that for us confirm fundamental beliefs about ourselves and other people, in order to keep ourselves safe.

Whenever we encounter relationship issues in our lives, it can often seem as though our difficulties take the form of repeated patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The process of psychotherapy can support us with self inquiry into the types of repeated behaviours we favoured when small, with a view to us breaking our adult patterns. It can help us pose the interlinked questions, ‘How might I be different with myself, so I might be different with others?’

In the penultimate verse of Let’s Go Round Again, the lover sings, ‘Baby, I know that you think I will be different now. Inside of me nothing has changed. So, I’m asking you again, please.’ And of course, the prerequisite for repetition is for nothing to change inside. 

I like to think the old lover he is addressing greets the singer warmly but invites him this time into a different kind of relationship, where they can both explore new ways of being together that don’t leave them going round and round.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Chris Horton, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Chris Horton is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and a psychotherapeutic counsellor with experience in a diverse range of occupational settings. He works with individuals (young people/adults) in private practice.  He is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Chris Horton

How are you?

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

 

References – 

1 Jakubowski, Kelly; Finkel, Sebastian; Stewart, Lauren; Müllensiefen, Daniel (2017) Dissecting an Earworm:

2 Melodic Features and Song Popularity Predict Involuntary Musical Imagery,

3 Freud, S (2015) Beyond the Pleasure Principal, Dover Thrift Editions 

4 Berne, E. (1964) Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York: Ballantine. 

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How do I know if I am ready to become a parent?

No, I am not addressing this to women caught in the age old story of young women fearing the passing of time and the urgency of finding a partner to start a family, although this is an important fact of life.  I am thinking of what questions we might need to ask ourselves before we even begin our search for the right partner. 

Questions such as:

  • Am I sure that I am psychologically ready to take on the task?
  • Are there aspects of my psychological self that I am unsure of that need attention before I make such a life changing commitment? 
  • Have I discussed this fully with my partner or am I happy to be a single parent?
  • What was my own childhood like and how would I like to be a different parent to my own? 

Understanding what being a parent means

For us to make these choices we need to be conscious of the demands on us as new parents. The need to understand, to discover for ourselves, our childhood experiences and the patterns we have inherited along the way that will support us or hinder us in our role as parents.  Some will be good, others need working through before entering into this new phase of life. 

A lot of what we bring to our parental role will be hidden deep in our unconscious mind only emerging once we are faced with the situation of being a parent. What is unknown before having a baby is now ‘out of the blue’ post birth, confronting us with what can be difficult emotional feelings.  

For example, I may feel jealous of the baby taking my partner away from me by demanding a lot of him or her time.  These may not be the feelings we were prepared for, would it not be better to have spent sometime reflecting on this before entering into parenthood?

Parental choices

We live in an open and free society where we have choices in the matter of whether to be parents or not. And we have the choice of when to have children.  The LGBT community has influenced the narrative towards a child-centered and mindful approach to becoming a parent; the process by its very nature has to be a conscious act on the part of the couple.

Too often parents enter into parenthood without thinking about whether it is what they really want and in failing to consider how equipped they are to parent – especially where they have been failed by their own parents.

I am suggesting that approaching life with an open and inquisitive mind is preferable to allow events to overtake you and this is where psychotherapy and your psychotherapist as an ally can be extremely helpful.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech – 

Our emotions are shaped by our relationships?

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late to start therapy

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

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How psychotherapy groups can help change our internalised family systems

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 is a key aspect in determining some dominant aspects of the family system, in this piece I am more concerned with the unique emotional variations of individual families. Thinking about our own families of origin, for e.g., we might ask ourselves – what emotional values dominated? What feelings were allowed and what feelings were not allowed?

As we enter adolescence, and then adulthood, we become more able to step outside our original family systems and compare them with those of others. This can help us also see how our own family culture has impacted and shaped us as individuals.

These insights can lead to some deliberate rejections of family values and behaviour. There are many decisions, significant and small, many make as adults to try and separate and ‘do it differently’. What is more difficult to disentangle from, however, are those parts of the system which have been unconsciously assimilated and which we therefore can’t recognise in ourselves or perhaps even in our family. This unconscious maintenance of our family culture is at its most complicated and hidden in our emotional life and is very likely to surface in our relationships.

The family system and the psychotherapy group system

When someone joins a psychotherapy group, they unconsciously expect the group (as well as the therapist) to behave like their family. A little like the stereotyped ‘Brit abroad’, they are expecting things to be like it is ‘back home’ even though they have made the journey initially for something different. Because their own family culture is what they know, the individual feels in some way that they’re going to be safer if the group behaves in this expected way.

In these scenarios two things are likely to happen.

Firstly, the group will, at times, unconsciously repeat for the individual experiences that replay the family culture.
In psychotherapy, past experiences will always resurface in some shape or other. This is an opportunity for the individual to tackle difficulties head on and ‘in the moment’. While the group will inevitably repeat some aspects of the family system, it is not the family and as a therapeutic system it will allow these experiences to be explored. Sometimes, this can happen quickly but often it is an ongoing process over time.

Secondly, the group and therapist will, also at times, confound the unconscious expectations that the individual’s family culture will be recreated.

As I said above, the therapy group develops its own culture and system based on therapeutic values rather than the old family values. This new group system will eventually override or at least reshape the old system of the individual’s family.

This is quite explicit when group members expect a shaming or critical response when they reveal or expose some thought, feeling or behaviour that would not fit with their own family values – consciously or unconsciously. It can be a moving and an important experience when they’re met with a typical therapy group response of acceptance, empathy and understanding.

In addition to those more obvious moments, as the individual becomes immersed in the group culture, they allow this new – more benign, and therapeutic – system to replace the old. This deeper process takes place in a complex way over time.

Summary

We are all shaped by our family cultures. Problematic aspects of our emotional lives and relationships can often be traced back to our family experiences and the systems we have internalised. Group therapy offers an opportunity to engage with these internalised parts of ourselves and through the group therapeutic process separate from limiting or harmful family assumptions and values.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Claire Barnes, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.  She offers a free telephone consultation for anyone interested in exploring further the possibility of joining a therapy group.

 

Further reading by Claire Barnes – 

Is a Therapy Group Right for Me? Am I Right for a Therapy Group?

What happens in Therapy Groups? The role of the Therapist

What happens in Group Therapy: Mirroring

The Problem with Change

What is it like being in a Psychotherapy Group? Case study – Joe

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Parental Alienation and the impact on children

Separation or divorce are painful, difficult and time consuming processes and more so where children are involved. Few couples manage to amicably separate and sadly, this applies to couples who have a child or children together too.

Although it may seem obvious, my experience is that couples who are separating and have children often fail to recognise that they in fact will always have a relationship with each other as parents of the same children. Whether this is openly and maturely acknowledged as in the case of couples who co-parent, or not, as in the extreme case of parental alienation, there remains, nonetheless a relationship.

What is Parental Alienation?

Broadly, parental alienation occurs when a child becomes hostile, fearful and generally unwilling to engage with one parent as a result of the either the psychological manipulation of one parent or, more often, the toxic relationship between both parents. It is extremely damaging to children and can lead to mental health issues including self harm and suicidal ideation.

Parental alienation is on a scale from a parent making negative remarks about the other parent, or one parent ‘forgetting’ their responsibilities on relation to their child (an agreement to pick them up etc.) through to psychological manipulation and control.

The child as centre stage

Whilst the process of separating can be extremely painful and difficult, it is critical that parents find a way to establish a working relationship in co-parenting their child. This starts from the point of agreeing together the narrative they are going to tell their child about the separation through to long-term parenting commitments.

The role of psychotherapy

Experienced couple’s psychotherapists are able to work with a couple to move beyond their
grievances and establish a framework within which they will work together to fulfil the same job: raise their child and create emotional stability for them.

The impact of divorce on children

Society and parents tend to enormously underestimate the impact that separation and divorce can have on a child. For children, their entire stability is predicated on the stability of the parental unit and when this gets rocked or shaken to its foundations, the impact on a child can be enormous.

Studies have been undertaken measuring the impact of divorce on children and in many cases the psychological impact can be greater than losing a parent through death. The reason is because, generally, when a child is bereaved, the other parent (along with the broader family and society) enables the child to grieve a very tangible loss. With divorce, and especially where the split is contentious, children often feel they need to ‘pick a side’ and are unable to grieve the loss of the parental unit.

Top tips to focus on when separating and a child or children are involved –

  • Separate out grievances towards each other about the end of the relationship and your job as parents;
  • Agree a narrative that is age appropriate to tell your child about what is happening;
  • Reassure your child that you continue to both be there for them;
  • Avoid displays of conflict in front of your child;
  • Recognise that you NEED to put your child first and that all children want two parents and would prefer their parents to stay together;
  • Allow and facilitate the grieving process for your child.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Mark Vahrmeyer, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

Space: The Final Frontier of Manic Defence

Do Psychotherapists Need to Love Their Clients?

Unexpressed emotions will never die

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

Why ‘Cancel Culture’ is about the inability to tolerate difference

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Love and 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 the social environment, the hopes, fears and attitudes of the day. It is the bedrock of our most durable and intense emotions and the fertile soil of our satisfactions and discontents. The family reconfigures with each new life that enters and exits. Constantly changing, constantly staying the same it is both dynamic and flexible, coded and predictable. We are all indelibly touched, one way or another by its authority. We learn to love in the context of ‘family’, each in our own idiosyncratic way. Every family has its own cast of characters ((step)parents, grandparents, (step) siblings, aunts, uncles etc). All players in a unique drama. Family is a stage where universal themes are navigated, power, sex and money, hierarchy and democracy, passion and ambivalence, in all their dark, tumultuous, devastating and innocuous glory.

Universal themes

From Greek myth to Shakespearean tragedy, the depths and breadth of family relations provide a turbulent, brooding backdrop to moral, ethical and philosophical considerations of a universal scale. So often in these epic tales, we are reminded what an unruly emotion love is, indeed how uncomfortably close it resides to its shadowy counterpoint hate. Disowning his most beloved youngest daughter Cordelia, King Lear in a fit of vanity and rage is consumed by vengeful hate, abdicating love and reason in its wake he casts her out. Her failure to satisfy his insatiable need for flattery and primacy, to go against her own nature, disrupts their bond, unleashes chaos and eventual tragedy. This is an epic tale of family conflicts, of power, love and greed. Most family dramas do not play out on such a grand scale, but remain hidden in the shadows of secrecy, shame and trauma, creating a legacy that can trickle (or cascade) down through generations to come.

Changing Families

Whilst the major human themes endure in families across generations, the architecture of family life and living is continually changing with the socio-political and economic tides. Every generation spawns its own raft of experts on the family and its constituent members, from the institutions of religion, state, medical and social science and philosophy. The current moment, in particular, is one in which the couple is the central organising pillar upon which the success of the family depends. Bred in ever smaller numbers, the modern child is also a major focus of scrutiny and opinion. As the birth rate has decreased so children’s value has increased. Parents invest heavily in their offspring financially, emotionally, educationally etc. We dedicate ourselves to their health and happiness, often discounting our own in the process. As an antidote to our high tech fast-moving, demanding lives we create a utopia of childhood and perhaps (without knowing) locate many of our own unmet hopes and passions in our beloved and precious innocents.

Love them or hate them (and indeed it is within our families that we learn about both) idealise or reject them it is within the context of the family that we learn about the social world and our place in it. It is in this original grouping that we have our first experience of grief and loss, it is where we learn to trust (or not) and to express (or inhibit) our desires. Family life is fraught with misunderstandings and pain and is the vessel in which our virtues are forged, kindness, loyalty generosity and fortitude. Interestingly, even when we grow up and leave them we will most often seek out another with whom we wish to form a family. At this very particular COVID moment, we are all forced to reconsider what family means to us.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Gerry Gilmartin, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Gerry Gilmartin is an accredited, registered and experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor. She currently works with individuals (young people/adults) and couples in private practice. Gerry is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Gerry Gilmartin

Understanding sexual fantasy

Fear and hope in the time of Covid

Relationships, networks and connections

Paying attention to stress

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The Benefits of Yoga Breathing for Children with a History of Trauma

When children feel helpless, angry, or scared for long periods of time, it can be remembered in their bodies. This is particularly so in the case of trauma, whereby specific (trauma-implicated) body parts may start to feel somewhat disconnected to the rest of the body (e.g. headaches, neck pain, stomach aches, back spasms, etc.). Body tension is also common in children who were very young at the time of their trauma and, therefore, may have no conscious or verbal memory of it. This phenomenon can be hard for parents (and professionals!) to make sense of and can often lead to them seeking assessment and treatment for many things before considering the long-lasting impact of historical stress or trauma on child. An important task of a psychologist, therefore, is to help chronically stressed or traumatized children to tolerate physical sensations without being afraid of then. This includes teaching them how to regulate their own internal arousal.

The brain-body system that we target in this kind of work is known as the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) – also known as our ‘survival system’. At its most basic level, the ANS is comprised of two discrete branches called the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The SNS is associated with the release of chemicals such as adrenaline, which spur the brain and body into action. The PNS on the other hand, is associated with the release of chemicals such as acetylcholine, which enables us to be calm and to regulate important bodily systems such as our digestion and sleep. In a healthy child, the SNS and PNS work closely together to enable a child to have an optimum awareness of both themselves and their environment, so that they can respond to each appropriately. For some children, however, historical stress and trauma can cause the SNS too become too powerful, leaving the child vulnerable to quickly dysregulating in response to misunderstood internal sensations or external stressors.

One biological marker that has been identified as a strong indicator of how well the ANS is working is ‘heart rate variability’ (HRV). In healthy children, the very act of breathing leads to steady, rhythmical fluctuations in their heart rate, which in turn is a measure of their wellbeing. This is because inhalation activates the SNS (and therefore raises their heart rate), whereas exhalation activates the PNS (and therefore slows heart rate down). Good HRV – and therefore, good balance between the SNS and PNS, enables children to execute a reasonable degree of self-regulation, including being able to calmly appraise upsetting situations without dysregulating, such as disappointment or peer rejection. Poor modulation between the two systems, however, negatively affects how their body and brain responds to stress. Research indicates that people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often have poor HRV (Hopper, et al., 2006).

One way to improve HRV, has been shown to be through focused breathing techniques. Indeed, simply changing the way one breathes, has been associated with a wide range of positive physical and psychological outcomes, including marked improvement in mood disorders, asthma, and back pain (e.g. Pilkington, et al., 2005; Sherman, et al., 2005; Streeter, et al., 2010). Focused breathing techniques for children can be found in many forms, but one particularly successful form has been shown to be via Yoga. This may be because Yoga supports children to pay attention to what is happening within their bodies rather than just outside of it – teaching them that all sensations peak and fall, with a beginning, middle and end (Van der Kolk, 2014). This can be of particular benefit to children who rely on either sensory numbing or over-stimulation, or who may need additional support to feel ‘safe’ in their bodies.

In my clinical experience, I regularly find that children, even without a history of trauma, can still benefit hugely from mindfulness-based breathing exercises. For this reason, I am very grateful to Dr Emma Stevens (Clinical Psychologist), for recommending a lovely book of breathing for young children based on the principles of Yoga – “Frog’s Breathtaking Speech” (Chissock and Peacock). My children have loved reading this story and learning the techniques. I hope yours will too!

 

References:

Chissock, M. & Peacock, S. (2020). Frog’s Breathtaking Speech How children (and frogs) can use Yoga breathing to deal with anxiety, anger and tension.

Hopper, J., et al. (2006). Preliminary evidence of parasympathetic influence on basal heart rate in posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 60 (1), pp. 83-90.

Pilkington, K., et al. (2005). Yoga for Depression: The Research Evidence. Journal of Affective Disorders, 89, pp.269-85.

Sherman, K., et al., (2005). Comparing Yoga, exercise and a self-care book for chronic low back pain. Pain, 115, pp. 107-17.

Streeter, C., et al. (2010). Effects of Yoga versus walking on mood, anxiety and brain GABA levels: A randomized controlled MRS study. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16, pp. 1143-52.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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Parenting Styles

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, specifically examining the impact of their parents approaches towards them on their subsequent development (Baumrind & Black, 1967). This study, which used a combination of naturalist observations and parental interviews, identified four ‘dimensions’ of parenting – (a) disciplinary strategies, (b) warmth and nurturance, (c) communication and (d) expectations of maturity and control. More than this, however, this influential study identified three ‘parenting styles’ which have since stood up to considerable empirical scrutiny. 

The first of the parenting styles identified by Baumrind is now more commonly referred to ‘authoritarian parenting’. This an approach to parenting which is generically low in warmth but high in control. Parents who fall into this category, typically hold very high expectations for their children’s behaviour and develop strict, non-negotiable rules for which they must live by. They are described as “obedience and status-orientated and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation” (Baumrind, 1991). Failure to abide by their rules, or to meet their behavioural expectations, is typically met with punishment rather than with empathy or understanding. This type of parenting is often seen in adults who they themselves were raised by parents with a similar style of parenting [see my earlier blog on ‘family scripts’] and who therefore hold an authoritarian working model or ‘blueprint’ of what it is to be a parent. This style can also sometimes be seen in anxious parents, who respond to a fear of losing control of their children by exerting total control. The implications for their children, however, is that they are often left feeling angry, confused or upset internally, but have no capacity to process or make sense of these emotional experiences as they develop. Their children are also often limited in their opportunities for free play and exploration of the world, which is equally important for healthy emotional and social development. 

The second parenting style identified by Baumrind is that of ‘permissive parenting’. This style can be broken down into two further parenting styles – ‘permissive-indulgent’ and ‘permissive-indifferent’. A ‘permissive-indulgent’ parent is broadly defined as a parent who is very high in warmth, but very low in control. In direct contrast to their authoritarian counterparts therefore, permissive-indulgent parents make very few demands on their children, rarely discipline them and typically seek to avoid confrontation. They are described as “generally nurturing and often take on the status of a friend more than that of a parent” (Baumrind, 1991). The implications for their children, however, is that whilst their internal worlds are largely attended to (although negative emotions can still be feared), they lack the developmentally appropriate structure, boundaries and expectations that they need in order to develop into healthy, socially-adept adults. ‘Permissive-indifferent’ parents on the other hand, present as very low in control AND in warmth. These parents offer neither structure and boundaries nor warmth and affection for their children. They are what we typically consider to be emotionally neglectful parents, who in extreme cases, may actively reject their children, leading to inevitable attachment difficulties as their child develops.  

The third parenting style initially identified by Baumrind’s study is known as an ‘authoritative’ parenting style. This style bridges the gap between authoritarian and permissive parenting styles and is known in research circles as the ‘gold standard’ for child development. This is because parents who are able to approach caring for their children with this style of parenting are able to establish developmentally appropriate rules and boundaries, but can at the same time, remain responsive to and curious about their children’s internal worlds. This means that they can be open to trying to understand a child’s internal world (e.g. their thoughts, feelings, motivations, perceptions, beliefs, etc.) even if they do not accept their behaviour. Indeed, when their children fail to meet their expectations, an authoritative parent is more likely to respond with forgiveness, nurture and find structured opportunities for new learning, rather than with punishment. Similarly, they can remain democratically open to questions and challenges from their children about their rules. They are defined as being able to “monitor and impart clear standards for their children’s conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative” (Baumrind, 1991). The benefits for children raised with this type of parenting style is clearly evidenced in their later performance on a broad range of emotional, social and behavioural indices. These include social responsibility, the ability to cooperate with peers and adults, independence, assertiveness, problem solving and high self-esteem. Support for this ‘middle ground’ approach to parenting is also offered by recent research which has identified that children with a history of severe developmental trauma and attachment disruption, respond most effectively to an ‘authoritative ++’ approach to nurture whilst in care – a specific type of parenting approach which is very high in both control AND warmth and nurture – also known as the ‘two handed’ approach to parenting (Hughes, Golding & Hudson, 2019). 

As alluded to earlier, the type of parent we become will be influenced in part by our own experiences of being parented. Whilst we can adapt this to a degree, however, when we are under stress, it is likely that we will move closer towards our ‘blueprint’ of what a parent is. For this reason, it is extremely important that as parents, we take the time to notice for ourselves when we are starting to a more extreme type of parenting style (authoritarian or permissive) as an indicator or ‘red flag’ that we need to take some time out to recharge in order to be the parents that we want to be, and which our children need us to be. If you are co-parenting, it can also be helpful to think about where you and your partner each naturally fall on the continuum between high warmth and high control as parents, and to spend some time thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of these respective similarities or differences in your parenting styles, as well as the impact that the combination of your parenting styles has on your child. When challenges or parenting styles feel unhelpful or entrenched, however, it can be worth seeking professional help. 

References – 

Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56­95. 

Baumrind, D., & Black, A.E. (1967). Socialization practices associated with dimensions of competence in preschool boys and girls. Child Development, 38, 291­327.

Hughes, D., Golding, K. & Hudson, J. (2019). Healing Relational Trauma with Attachment-Focused Interventions: Dyadic developmental psychotherapy with children and families. Norton

 

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Family Therapy for Beginners

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 true for children, and young people when their family is their world. When they are struggling with emotional and behavioural problems or maybe unexplained physical ailments a ‘systemic’ approach can be revealing.

Systemic therapy is relational, that means looking at the spaces in between people and their relationships with others, as opposed to looking inside individuals. Systemic therapists are interested in the ‘systems’ that people belong to, such as our families, school, work places, peers and friendships. Exploring the context of tension, distress and unhappiness can help us illuminate the possible causes.

For example we may find stories of divorce and separation, estrangement, sibling rivalry, family illness and disability, bullying, academic struggles, financial problems, loss and bereavement, or drug and alcohol use Family therapy is about having conversations that can be difficult, exposing, controversial, and upsetting.

But also about reconnecting, understanding, sharing and being surprised. Feeling heard, understood, loved and believed. Explaining your side of a story, hearing family stories that help you understand current struggles and appreciating other people’s point of view. Feeling proud and united, relieved and supported and wondering together how you can move on.

Any therapy involves taking a risk; family therapy provides an invitation to be brave and accept that families may be worried, sad or confused about someone they love. Or maybe family relationships are feeling tense and strained, or they are missing someone who played an important role in your lives.

Established, repaired and revisited relationships give families a rich resource for healing.  Family Therapy sessions usually last 90 minutes, and as many family members who are available are welcome.  Work would begin by exploring why it had been decided now was the time for family talking and noting individual and family goals to help focus the work. Some family members may be initially reluctant to attend, its important for them to be aware that just be attending they are showing their support. They do not have to contribute verbally if they do not want to – this could be agreed at the beginning of the session. By just turning up they are able to listen to other expressing their views and will usually join in when they feel comfortable and safe within the process.

A genogram or family tree is usually constructed looking at the current family structure and remembering older generations. This provides a map of the family and a cultural context for the current problems. It generates stories, sometimes forgotten, about how positive and negative patterns and traits may have been inherited by the family in the room. This can be a revealing and emotional, with younger people hearing about relations that may have died before they were born and older ones remembering stories that help build to a clearer understanding of the family’s identity. A time-line constructing a chronology of family births and deaths and other family events is also useful. Again, this begins reveals its own narrative, which can help a family begin to plot the life story of a problem.

Family Therapy is always driven by the goals of the family and continual feedback allows the therapist to ensure that the family are having the conversations they want and need to have. Sometimes it may feel useful for family members to meet individually, in couples or sibling groups as part of the therapy.

It is not necessary to meet weekly; sometimes families find one or two sessions are enough to feel they are able to move forward. In my experience family therapy can be a powerful process with the family leaving more connected with and appreciative of each other.

Sharon Spindler is an experienced Systemic Family Therapist with twelve years experience within the NHS and private practice.  Sharon is available at the Brighton & Hove Practice.

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Lady Bird: a Psychotherapist’s Perspective on Key Themes

Ladybird

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 this film both poignant and painful to watch.

There are many key themes present relating to those clients bring to psychotherapy, however I would like to pick out a couple that stood out for me which are perhaps better posed as questions we can imagine that Lady Bird (Christine), the protagonist, is grappling with unconsciously:

What is my desire?

How do I leave my family?

These two questions are in reality interconnected, as it is through desire that we leave the family.  However, in a family where the roles are blurred, and for a young woman whose desire has always had to be curtailed to cope with her mother’s envy, the two questions are complex and the unconscious conflict immense.

From the opening scenes, we see a mother who struggles to see her daughter as separate to her.  She clearly loves her, but also invests her own unfulfilled desires in her daughter.  This is suffocating for Lady Bird, to the extent that in an early scene, she flings herself from the car to escape the literal confines of being with her mother: existence is impossible with her mother and hurling herself from a moving vehicle is less a thought-out action of leaving, than a murderous gesture – self destructive to her and to her mother.

As the film unfolds, the usual twists and turns of teenage experience are interspaced and amplified by the complexities of Lady Bird’s family.  Her father is impotent – he loses his job and cannot separate mother and daughter.  However, what he does know is that Lady Bird must leave, and he facilitates this through making financial arrangements for her university education, without involving his wife to whom he seems to be unable to stand up against (or to come alongside).  This arrangement is pragmatically what Lady Bird needs, however, psychically it further undermines her autonomy and blurs any clarity of who she is in the family and who she is in relation to her mother.

An Envious Mother

Lady Bird understands, like so many of us who have had envious mothers, that she needs to ‘split off’ (disavow) her desire and get it met secretly, if at all.  Or she can turn it into something destructive.  Both choices aim to protect her relationship with her mother.

She gets in with the exciting, but bad crowd and swaps her boyfriend (who it turns out is gay) for an aloof boy who, like his friends, is nihilistic in his outlook on life.  Neither her gay boyfriend nor her disinterested one will help her leave her family, as neither contain her true desire.  Here Lady Bird seems to be asking herself less about her own desire and more about that of others: who am I for others and what do they want from me?  A question she asks herself repeatedly in the relationship to her mother.

Owning her Desire

There are two scenes in the film which fill us with hope for Lady Bird: the first when she owns her wish to go to the school prom and be with her old friends, thereby stepping away from her less nihilistic friends who are ‘too cool’ for school, but who in reality actually have no idea about what they want, other than to rebel.

The second scene of hope is at the end of the film where Lady Bird is at an unnamed university in New York.  Lady Bird’s father has slipped a pile of discarded attempts at a letter her mother tried to write to her into her suitcase which she finds.  This is significant as Lady Bird’s father is finally able to help mother and daughter separate: he encourages his daughter to leave but provides her with the evidence her mother loves her; he assumes his rightful position as his wife’s husband by consoling her at the airport when she, as a result of her struggle to let her daughter have her own desire and individuate, misses her daughter’s departure.

To Individuate or Rebel?

Towards the finale, there is a perfectly ordinary scene with Lady Bird, at what me must assume is her first party in New York, she drinks, meets a guy and they end up at his or hers.  She then becomes ill and the next scene is at a hospital where we learn she has drunk far too much.  This scene is a reminder of the powerful unconscious forces at play in Lady Bird – whether she can find a way to individuate and own her desire or create distance from her internalised mother through self-destructive acts (think back to the hurling herself from the car).

Ultimately the viewer is left with hope as she seems to have enough psychic distance to claim her birth name – Christine – and to find ways to be like her parents (visiting a local church), without having to be defined by being them, or not being them.

Christine  makes a call home to speak to her mother but she gets the answerphone.  The message here?  That her mother and family can survive her going and that they can too move on with their lives.  She is free.

Sam Jahara is a UKCP registered psychotherapist, certified transactional analyst and clinical supervisor. She works with clients and supervisees in Hove and Lewes.

 

Image copyright: A24

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Five Top Tips for Surviving Christmas Day

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 depicted in those same snowy adverts.

What makes Christmas particularly difficult?

Aside from the expectations we put upon ourselves, it has all the classic ingredients of being either an explosive disappointment or a damp squib.

Family of choice versus family of origin

Christmas is often a time when we get together with family members we would only ever see on other festive days or, as the saying goes, weddings and funerals. Often, we have little close relationship with these family members. Yet somehow we expect to feel a close bond with them on this day in particular.

Many families are now what is referred to as blended families.  Nowadays, it is normal to grow up with step-parents, step-siblings and half-brothers and sisters. While this does not necessarily lead to conflict, it can make the delicate balance of Christmas Day complicated and fractious. Compromise is often the order of the day.

Christmas is often a difficult time thanks to the ghost of Christmas past. Many relationships break down over Christmas and can leave us with tainted childhood memories of parental feuds and the accompanying grief.  This then plays out in the present, potentially contributing to conflict with family members – the trauma repeats.

And then there is the one extra ingredient that can make things seem so much worse than they are; the explosive charge in many Christmases – alcohol. Consuming alcohol in and around Christmas is normalised and we can often feel under pressure to ‘join in’. Many of us also use alcohol as a way of coping with the day, the family members who descend upon us, the expectations, unhealed rifts and so on. However, when it comes to managing emotions and conflict, alcohol has never been a solution.

Five top tips to surviving Christmas Day

  • Support through relationship

If you are in a relationship, talk to your partner.  Explain to them that you may find the day hard and agree how you will ask for support when needed, or how you will support each other. Examples may be anything from starting the day together and connecting through to holding each other in mind. You can demonstrate this through small reassuring gestures such as visually checking in with one another.

  • Reality Testing

Christmas is only a day. The expectations we feel in relation to it are largely in our own head.  By pausing and accepting that there is no such thing as a ‘fairy-tale Christmas’ (except perhaps for some fortunate children) we can gain a little space to see it for what it is.

  • The past is not the present

Memories of past Christmases, while present, need not dominate our experience in the here and now. Accept that it is a difficult time for you, know that it is for many others, be compassionate with the feelings that the season evokes and remember it is only a day.  Sometimes we feel strong emotions on particular days that are simply reminders of the past – echoes – and we have the power to create something different.

  • Alcohol makes things worse

Nobody is telling you not to drink on Christmas Day. However, if it is a day that evokes sadness or anxiety, alcohol will not improve these feelings for long. Once it wears off, they will be back with a vengeance and accompanied by a hangover. The opposite of using alcohol to self-soothe is to soothe through relationship. Even if you are not in a relationship with another, you are in a relationship with yourself and can hold yourself in mind.

  • Hold Yourself in Mind

One of the traps people often fall into is that they imagine that they have no choices on the day; they simply have to do what is expected. Doing what is expected is a choice in itself!  Even if you do feel that there is little on offer for you during the day, a change of perspective and holding in mind why you are choosing to make these choices can be helpful. For example, rather than framing it as “I have to go see X person, or Y will be disappointed”, you can rethink it as “I choose to see X person as I want to give that as a gift to Y’.

Even if the day feels full and focused on others, it is always possible to take a few minutes out to calm yourself. You can breathe, come back to the here and now and remind yourself –  Christmas is only a day. See my blog on avoiding panic attacks for a simple but effective practice to calm yourself and return to the here and now.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex. He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

Further reading

Holiday blues

After the break: Christmas after separation or divorce

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Grief – how to grieve?

Grief is often referred to in the context of intense feelings experienced with the loss of a loved one. The loss we experience is often caused through death. Grief is, therefore, synonymous with bereavement.

This, however, is nowhere near the whole story. In order to know how to grieve, we need to understand grief.

When we are told that someone is grieving, we may assume they are feeling intensely sad. Although this is often true, grief is comprised of a multitude of emotions, and sadness is only one. One of the early pioneers of grief work (yes, there is such a thing), was Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. She suggested grieving was an active process that required a “working through of emotions” broken down into five core groups: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Sadness would fall into the ‘depression’ group in this model.

Since Kübler-Ross, plenty of other models have been proposed. All of these have added something to the field. I will not directly elaborate on these in this blog, but further information can be found on the Internet.

Grief is, therefore, an umbrella term for a whole host of emotions, and it is a verb.  It is something that we must allow ourselves to experience and actively engage with.

 Why should I grieve?

Emotions exist within us, whether we consciously acknowledge them or not.  Where we are unable to feel them (through repression, which is always unconscious) these emotions will often express themselves as a conversion reaction. They will be expressed through the body such as in aches and pains. They may be expressed through even more obscure symptoms, such as a loss of physical movement.

Where we are aware that we are feeling grief, but actively suppress the feeling, emotions are likely to manifest as anxiety or depressive symptoms, which can persist for years.

Thus, there is no escaping it, grief must be felt and ridden out, like a storm. To complicate things further, it is not a linear process. We might have felt anger (perhaps with our loved one for leaving us) and moved onto bargaining (“If only I had done more for them…”) However, this does not mean that we will not return to anger again. And again…

We must grieve because we need to acknowledge what we feel.  If we do not (because we can’t or won’t) things get complicated.

How do I grieve?

Grieving (in the context of bereavement) used to be a socially prescribed activity which was both acknowledged by the wider community and defined as a process. Those who were bereaved would often wear symbols of their grief – black clothes or a black armband. Within their community, it was acknowledged that they would be grieving for a set period of time, often a year. This practice has largely been lost in northern Europe. However, in southern Europe, it remains common in more traditional communities to see widows wearing black for the remainder of their lives.

Religion

Love it or hate it, the one thing religion gave (or gives) us is a powerful story of what happens after we die.  From the Vikings with Valhalla to the Christians and Heaven, the concept of an afterlife can bring great solace to loved ones who are left behind.  The loss of socially prescribed ways of mourning, combined with a loss of religious beliefs, has made grieving more difficult.

Meaning making

A universal task in coming to terms with grief is to find some sense of meaning within it, and to weave this together into a narrative. We are no longer provided with cultural narratives in the way that we once were. This then becomes something that we need to do ourselves.

Why is grief hard for some people?

When I embarked on my own professional psychotherapy career, working directly with dying patients and their relatives, I imagined that the loss of the deceased would be felt most acutely where relationships had been close, connected and happy. However, the inverse was true. Where relationships had been difficult, strained, or even devoid of contact for long periods of time, the bereaved would often struggle to process the loss far more. This occurred particularly where the relationship was between a parent and their (adult) child.

The reason for this lies in attachment and in how we learn, through attachment, to feel.  For those of us lucky enough to grow up in homes where there is no abuse or neglect, and no unexpected losses, we find it relatively easy to move in and out of relationship – to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. With the security of the relationship comes an ability to feel emotions and make sense of what is being felt. Thus, the process of grieving, whilst hard, is something that can be actively undertaken.

In some parent/child relationships, the child has been significantly disappointed by the parent in the past. Parental neglect and/or abuse can lead to an accumulation of unacknowledged earlier losses in the relationship. In these cases, the final physical loss of the parent can make it very hard to come to terms with the enormity of all the losses that person represents. The loss is not only of the relationship and person, but also of hope. If the relationship between parent and child was strained or difficult, it is likely the bereaved will be poor at navigating his or her emotional states. This makes grieving terrifying, at best, or unthinkable, at worst.

Grieving is normal

As a clinician, I get a lot of fulfilment in helping clients to grieve. It is different from any other presenting issue they bring to me. Grief is the universal leveller. We will all experience it at some point in our lives. The way out and through grief is always the same – we have to feel the full range of emotions that our grief brings up.

Grief is not a mental health condition, and yet many people become stuck with their grief. When this happens, the secondary symptoms can mutate into more complex conditions such as anxiety, clinical depression and panic attacks.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex. He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

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Shame

What is shame?

Shame is hard to talk about, as we tend to manage it through secrecy. We hide what we are most ashamed of about ourselves. Unfortunately, shame is bound up with our bodies and so moments of feeling ashamed can often be accompanied by physiological responses which feel exposing and so exacerbate our shame further. Shame is a social experience as it seems to rely on the presence – in reality or in our minds – of an observing other or others.

Shame can also be linked to social differences, such as class, sexuality, ethnicity or disability. This is because at a social level, certain groups are made to feel shame for the rest of society. In this way, shame is also connected to power. Shame can be culturally specific – i.e. what might be regarded as shameful for one culture may be less or more so for another.

Potential origins of problematic shame

Shame is thought to be bound up with feelings about the ‘self’ and identity. It arises at an early stage in childhood when we realise there is a gap between our experience of ourselves from within and how we might be seen from outside. Shame is therefore linked to self-awareness and how we might appear to the ‘other’. Early in childhood this ‘other’ will be main caregivers and their responses provide a blueprint for later experiences of being ‘seen’. How early family relationships mirror back to the child approval or disapproval is likely to shape their relationship to shame.

Shame does have positive functions. It helps us know about appropriateness in our relationships with others. Shame is normal and a part of being human. In an ideal world, we would all be able to experience shame fleetingly.

However, chronic shame is highly problematic for many people. As shame is very inhibiting, it can prevent healthy openness and authenticity. Whatever is felt to be shameful in the person must be covered up.  This protective mechanism further complicates the damage shame can do to healthy development and the quality of relationships. Examples of this might include; vulnerability hidden away behind a veneer of toughness or aggression, angry feelings that are disguised and managed by over-compliance, sexual desires that need to be suppressed and protected by prudishness or disgust. This list could go on.

How psychotherapy and counselling can help break the cycle of shame

Individual psychotherapy can often be the starting point for the individual to test out and expose their hidden shame. Sometimes, people are very aware of what shames them. However, this is not always the case and not all areas of shame are fully known about. It can be a surprise, during psychotherapy or counselling, to realise certain memories, experiences, thoughts, or feelings produce intense shame. The therapist helps investigate and tackle shame through their specific type of therapy. In this process, it is also their non-judgmental and accepting attitude that helps to undo earlier experiences of disapproval and criticism.

While the idea of a psychotherapy group can feel intimidating for people struggling with experiences of chronic shame, the non-judgemental atmosphere of the group can dissolve shameful feelings powerfully. Because shame is based in the experiences or fantasies of disapproving other/s, stepping into a social domain such as a group can help engage with and counter these feelings in a very direct and immediate way.

Secrecy fuels and exacerbates shame, however, it can also feel that it is the only way to protect the self from the experience of being seen in a shaming way. The safe and non-judgemental relationships offered in individual psychotherapy or group psychotherapy can provide the opportunity to take tentative first steps towards breaking out of the destructive cycles of secrecy and shame.

Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.

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Learning to be dependent in the pursuit of independence

When learning to be dependent is necessary

‘Dependence’ is a term that can carry negative connotations. To be ‘dependent’ might imply that we are unable to function alone and that we are unable to be the agent of our own life. It can also be interpreted as subscribing to outdated ideologies of male/female gender roles – the belief that women should be dependent, and men independent.

However, as is often the case in psychotherapy, learning to be dependent can be exactly what a person needs to do. As is always the case in psychotherapy, this dependence is with a view to enabling the client to become genuinely independent. In this sense, dependence is, therefore, a paradox.

Pseudo-independence and emotional neglect

I have previously written about the false sense of independence that some people have, which is born out of emotional neglect – a type of pseudo-independence. In a former blog, I referred to Boarding School Syndrome, in which the illusion of privilege masks emotional neglect and serious attachment disruption.

Pseudo-independence is an extreme reaction against dependence rather than true independence. If, as children, clients have been let down emotionally, or worse, neglected, they learn that nobody can be relied upon. It doesn’t matter whether this neglect came from an upbringing in the social care system or from within the gilded prestige of a boarding school education. These individuals might seem very capable and strong. However, this apparent strength is a mask to protect them from connection, relationships and dependence in the ordinary sense of the word.

Beneath the highly developed outer mask (in the case of neglect couched as privilege) lies a fragile interior. These clients crave connection. They want to be seen and validated for who they are and how they feel. But they find this terrifying. So, instead, they will often throw themselves into high-powered jobs, extreme hobbies or anaesthetise their inner voice with fine wine or expensive drugs.

In the case of someone who has experienced a more outwardly evident neglectful childhood (such as being raised in the social care system) the exterior shell of pseudo-independence is generally less polished and socially acceptable. Instead, their pseudo-independence may be shown through a turning away from society in the form of criminality and a “don’t mess with me” exterior.

How does learning to be dependent lead to healthy independence?

Well, psychotherapy is about learning to have a relationship with both our therapist and with ourselves. It is a process of giving voice to parts of ourselves that we have had to repress, split off or even kill off to survive. It is a relationship in which, week after week, the client learns to be seen and heard, to be accepted and validated. Little by little, if the client allows themselves to really feel seen and heard, and believes it, then it must mean that the other person in the room matters to them. Thus, it is through the psychotherapist mattering to the client that they can finally learn to rely on another emotionally.  Then, a collaboration can begin, with the psychotherapist coming alongside the client to help them make sense of their world.

In every psychotherapeutic relationship, the end is always in sight. It may be a very distant sense of an ending on the horizon, which may be many years away. Nonetheless, it is there. Therefore, the willingness of the client to allow the psychotherapist to matter to them, though this relationship will, one day, come to an end, is courageous. The process of becoming dependent and then becoming independent marks a shift in the relational quality of the client. If they can do this with a psychotherapist, maybe they can allow someone else to matter to them in an ordinary way.

Through learning ordinary dependence, which they never learned in the first place, clients can learn to navigate the ordinary ebb and flow of relationships. They will then discover that dependence on another is not terrifying, after all.  Even when we eventually have to say goodbye.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex.  He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

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Boarding School Syndrome

The term ‘Boarding School Syndrome’ was coined by Jungian analyst Professor Joy Schaverian around a decade ago. Since then, it has gained significant traction as a model for explaining the experiences and symptoms of adults who were sent away to boarding school as children.

Like all mental health conditions, with the exception of a tiny minority, such as schizophrenia, boarding school syndrome (BSS) refers to a cluster of symptoms. When enough people present with similar clusters of experiences, behaviours or traits, and there is a clear correlation in their experiences, then a diagnostic category can be born.  Officially, this is not yet the case with BSS, although more and more analysts and psychotherapists (as well as journalists) are using the term.

What is Boarding School Syndrome and why does it matter?

Psychotherapy is about helping people to grow a mind and better relate to themselves and those around them.  In order to do this, the clinician will often work with the client’s past experiences, either directly through dialogue, or in the relationship between the client and themselves.  The latter certainly constitutes the ‘relational approach’ which has been evidenced to be highly effective, and one that we apply at Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy.

Schaverian (and others) suggest that BSS can be identified through disrupted relationship patterns, often romantic. In BSS, what appears to be a strong sense of independence proves to be, in fact, a shell or mask covering emotional vulnerability, depression, anger management problems and substance misuse or abuse problems.

BSS affects both genders. However, as statistically, boys are sent away to boarding schools in higher numbers than girls, boys and thus men are disproportionately affected.  Add the social expectations on male middle-class and upper-middle class former boarders, and the problems they face can become further entrenched and emphasised.

In my experience, former boarders will only present for psychotherapy once they hit a wall. This generally happens when addictive behaviours get out of control or when relationships fail.  Once the veneer of privilege and entitlement has been stripped away, the presentation of symptoms is akin to children who have been taken into care and raised institutionally. This results in a catastrophic attachment trauma that makes any form of genuine, close, intimate relationship extremely difficult.

All this would matter little, at least from the perspective of the individual in question, if they grow up comfortably inhabiting their own skin and genuinely do not need a close relationship. Sadly, this is rarely, if ever, the outcome. These institutions espouse entitlement, independence and academic rigour. Once a child has been abandoned by his or her parents to this system, the best they can expect to develop is a more or less robust shell that reflects back to the world the message that they are perfectly fine.  Deep down, they simply are not.

Neglect breeds a false sense of independence. Whether a child is abandoned to the social care system as a result of an outwardly chaotic family life, or if the abandonment is couched in privilege, the attachment disruption remains the same. The result is a false self-reliance with a deep wariness of their own vulnerability and a fear of relationships.  At least children who survived social care have a place to locate their problems – the neglect and abandonment is clearly visible.

There is no doubt that emotional cruelty has the greatest impact on the developing mind.  And a mind is what we use to understand ourselves – our emotional world and our vulnerability. We also use it to understand the mind of others. Without a developed mind, we may be left adrift in a flood of emotion, which is more often seen with children who have come through the social care system. Alternatively, we become rigid and emotionally stunted, incapable of connection.

How to treat Boarding School Syndrome

As I have already suggested, the defence from emotional neglect is the development of a false and rigid sense of independence. This is established by having no attachment figure to soothe them and help them make sense of their inner and outer emotional world. The vulnerable child is still there, but many former boarders will deny its existence, mirroring the attitude of their caregivers. Alternatively, they may treat their vulnerability with disdain, saying things like, “I just need to pull myself together”, “All this wallowing is a waste of time”, and “I am sure you have more deserving patients to see, I really am fine.”

The work of the therapist, like any we do, is in establishing a close, supportive relationship with the client. This enables them to start to make some tentative contact with his or her vulnerability.

Helping these clients imagine that they experienced neglect (and at times, abuse) can be an enormous piece of the work. For the client, it is hard to do, as it relies on a complete dismantling of a belief system – in their parents, their privilege, the institution, and lastly, their false self.

Despite what former boarders have been taught, finding their way out of their suffering is not something they can do alone or with the help of a book. It relies on the very thing they find hardest; establishing a secure attachment with their psychotherapist.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP Registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex.  He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

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