Psychotherapist London
Thinking & Writing
On psychotherapy, the inner life, and the work of change.
After Detox: When the Real Treatment Begins
If you have just finished a detox, a medically supervised withdrawal, a stay in a clinic, you have done something difficult and you deserve to be proud of it. …
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Prayer, Anger and Forgiveness: What Changes When You Pray
I want to write about prayer, and I want to do it as a clinician, not a preacher. Because in twenty-five years of working with addiction, I have watched prayer …
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The Oedipus Complex Reconsidered: The First Rejection
When people hear “Oedipus complex” they think of the Freudian caricature: the little boy who wants to sleep with his mother. I do not work with that, and to be …
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Men's Mental Health Month: Beyond the Moustache
Every November, Men’s Mental Health Month arrives with its moustaches and its campaigns, and for one month the statistics get repeated. They deserve repeating. …
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The Father Wound: A Wound in Becoming
I have written elsewhere that the mother wound is a wound in being. The father wound is its counterpart: a wound in becoming. To see why, you need Jung’s three …
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The Karpman Drama Triangle: The Map of the Drama, and the Way Out
In 1968 the psychiatrist Stephen Karpman, a student of Eric Berne’s transactional analysis, drew a small triangle that became one of the most useful maps in all …
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The Mother Wound: A Wound in Being
The phrase “mother wound” is modern shorthand, not a term Jung used. But Jungian psychology gives it a depth the internet versions lack, because Jung saw …
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Emotional Eating: The Hunger of the Soul
Eating your feelings means turning to food not because the body is hungry, but because something else is. To understand that something, you can open a nutrition …
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Hyper-Empathy and the Mental Load: Carrying the World Like Atlas
The myth is Atlas. Condemned to hold the world on his shoulders. Now picture the mental load: the invisible, constant, cognitive and emotional burden of …
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