If our parents were mentally ill we might not have felt safe enough, or been allowed, to develop and flourish. Instead we perhaps focused on supporting, managing or trying to avoid the ill parent, and maybe feeling guilty for our mixed feelings about them. A narcissistically disordered parent would have struggled with allowing us to become fully our separate selves. Explicitly or unconsciously we might have been given the message: be only what I want you to be, make me feel g

In recent years I’ve seen more clients coming for therapy who had previously navigated the world effectively by relying on their advanced cognitive skills. They include academics, scientists, people working in technology, researchers. Others who might rely on the same cognitive methods could include lawyers or really anyone who concluded early on, understandably, that emotions were potentially risky, unwelcome or unreliable territory and cognition was a more dependable way to

I’ve been working with new parents - men and women - for enough years to know that it isn’t getting any easier. From pregnancy onwards there can be worries about the birth, the baby’s development, our ability to cope with the new responsibility, changes in how we feel about ourselves, the effect on our relationships, and the uncertain world into which the baby will be born. From a different perspective, pregnancy and the first year or so after the birth are not just crucial f