Analytical Counsellor and Psychotherapist in Wolverhampton
Many of us spend a fair amount of time in the car, whether commuting, travelling or heading out for the day. This got me thinking about how much we invest in our cars. We insure, service and occasionally upgrade them. Yet I wonder whether we invest the same energy in the vehicle we use to …
Whose hands are on the steering wheel? From fate to agencyRead More
What is the “coat of aggrievance”? The “coat of aggrievance” is my way of describing the emotional weight many of us carry without realising it. Some people meet unfairness and feel irritated for a moment. Others feel a sharp jolt, a sudden surge, as if something much bigger has been touched. Thecoat represents this layer …
This paper grew out of three things happening at once: teaching Bion, listening to a patient describe a moment outside Primark, and visiting the old blast furnace at Ironbridge. Somehow, all three began speaking to each other. Each one illuminated something about what containment actually does inside the mind, and together they helped crystallise a …
For years I kept buying lottery tickets, not always literal ones, but tickets to ideals: training, projects, goals. Each promised a version of adoration and recognition. Only recently, after a long analysis, have I realised that underneath these ideals was a defence against the most primitive of losses. By primitive loss, I mean the kind …
Beneath Striving and Suffering: Omnipotence and the Fear of Primitive LossRead More
There’s a lot of strong feelings at the moment in the UK about asylum seekers arriving by boat and flags being flown. But Ive been thinking: asylum isn’t only something that happens at our borders. It also happens inside us. Each of us carries our own strangers within; grief we’ve never mourned, anger and envy …
