Jamie Laing for Welldoing

Jamie Laing

I went to a guy called Mark. I sat down in his office, and he asked what was going on. It was like word vomit came out of me. I got very emotional and very upset. I told him everything – from the very first panic attack, to how I had been feeling, to the extent of my 

 to try to suppress how I was feeling, to the dream state I now found myself in, to being up and down and never telling anyone, to feeling judged by people, to being worried about coming to therapy sessions because I was worried about what I would talk about and that I was such a people pleaser that I would have to make him like me.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said at the end of the session. ‘This is going to be super easy.’

‘What do you mean, super easy?’ I replied. I mean, this felt nothing like a super-easy task.

‘Jamie, you are not complicated, and this is not a complicated problem,’ he explained calmly. ‘You think it’s complicated. You’re just having a really tough time. If you come back next week and the week after and the week after, we can get through this together.’

It was a real lightbulb moment, one which made me change my attitude. I did go back the week after, and the week after that: in the end I saw him for about six or seven months in total. Mark was the one who explained what anxiety is and what I was going through. We talked about how it could be linked back to my childhood and to the concept of rejection, rooted in the way I was sent off to boarding school when I was so young, with my parents divorcing and us moving away from the home I knew and loved in the very same year. He taught me to understand myself and to be more self-aware. He encouraged me to reconnect with my family. I started to be much kinder, both to myself and the people around me.

He was the person who told me if I took care of the little things, the bigger things would fall into place. When I first started seeing him, my life was in utter chaos. Bills went unpaid, my flat was a disaster; clothes lay everywhere except in my wardrobe, and I never knew where anything was. In my mind, all these tasks were incredibly dull. If something didn’t excite me, I simply wouldn’t do it. I was constantly chasing a dopamine hit, always looking for excitement.

His advice was simple. He told me to make my bed in the morning, put my toothbrush back in the same place, put my post in the right place, hang my jacket up when I come through the door, pay that bill that I never pay, turn the TV off ... if I did those small things, then some of the larger issues in my life would resolve themselves, and it’s so true. It’s one of the most valuable pieces of advice anyone has ever given me. I had to retrain myself and understand that it is precisely those mundane things that are most important. It means that you don’t live with the constant worry about procrastination, and it made a huge difference. 

But now I suddenly had another issue: now that I felt much better and things were back on track a bit more, I thought I was cured. My 

 had lifted, I thought I understood myself better, and I felt good. ‘I’m cured of this thing called anxiety,’ I told myself. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

One week, I just didn’t rebook to go back. A bit like a break-up, we just stopped seeing each other. He couldn’t force me to return, and for me, it felt like the time had come to move on and that this chapter of my life was firmly closed. 

Things started to slide further. Old feelings and habits began to creep back in even more than before. I started to feel confused and unwell again. One day I found myself listening to a podcast where the person being interviewed said that they had been doing therapy for eight years, and it had changed their life. I then Googled famous people who had done therapy, and there were hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. This was almost the norm.

What I soon realised was that therapy and working on yourself is a constant thing. It’s like going to the 

. When I stopped talking and working on myself, and doing all the right things, old ways crept back. I realised it’s not something that you can pick up and drop at will. It was like learning a new language. The moment you say you don’t have time for something like therapy is exactly the time that you should make the time.

I decided to find a new therapist. With Mark, helpful as he had been, our exchanges had been more clinical – he was the therapist, and I was the client, and sometimes it felt a bit like a job, almost transactional. And for someone like me, who is so driven by their emotions, I wanted more of a connection. I now wanted something deeper, which showed how much I was now ready to do the work I needed to do.

I was recommended Mal, and from our very first meeting, it was clear it would be different. It was the beginning of weekly therapy sessions for four years. We continued through lockdown, and it was the best investment that I have ever made. 

I never cancelled a session with Mal. This time, I treated my weekly therapy like a job. It took a lot of effort – there were countless times when I didn’t want to go, especially at the beginning. My sessions were on a Monday at 8am, and I spent many Sundays brainstorming excuses to skip the next day’s appointment. I felt totally drained after each conversation, even though I hadn’t started my day, so there was that too. Yet I knew that I had to keep going with it. I had tried to solve things myself, and it hadn’t worked. I made a deal with myself that I would see it through.

Therapy demands a lot of self-discipline. It’s not just about showing up, because for it to work you have to actively put in the work once you’re there. I was in a position where I wanted to better myself, and that was my driving force, a North Star guiding me forward. A reason why I started doing my initial therapy with Mark was that I wanted to feel better, and I believed, once my anxiety had eased and when things were looking up, that I had reached my destination.

But then, my North Star shifted. It was not just about feeling better in the moment or for a period of time. I wanted to be a better person. Dealing with my anxiety was a big one, but I wanted to be more self-aware and understanding of myself, my family and friends. I’m still chasing that goal.

Therapy requires a long-term commitment, but it’s well worth the effort. It forces you to confront difficult truths and unpack old patterns. You commit to consistent 

 and hard work and you often see progress in small, incremental steps rather than dramatic leaps. This journey of self-understanding and personal growth requires time, patience, and unwavering dedication. I now understand you don’t ‘finish’ therapy; you integrate its lessons into your life. It’s a tool I plan to consistently engage with, a continuous investment in my mental wellbeing, and a commitment to personal growth. You build your best self over the years, not in a day.

Jamie Laing: "Therapy Demands a Lot of Self-Discipline"

Gilead Yeffett

Have we become obsessed with fixing our relationships? We consume advice columns, listen to podcasts about communication strategies, and read books promising to decode the mysteries of human connection. We treat relationships like problems waiting to be solved, as if the right technique or insight will finally make everything click into place.

But relationships aren't problems. They're experiences.

The compulsion to "solve" a relationship often stems from discomfort with its natural messiness. When conflict arises, when miscommunication happens, when someone we love disappoints us, our instinct is to reach for a solution. We want a framework, a strategy, a way to ensure it never happens again. We want control over something that is fundamentally uncontrollable: another person's inner world colliding with our own.

This solution-seeking mindset creates a strange paradox. The more we try to perfect our relationships, the less present we become in them. We're so focused on optimising, analysing, and strategising that we forget to simply 

 with the person in front of us. We miss the small moments—the ones that can't be engineered or replicated.

Living a relationship means accepting its fundamental uncertainty. It means showing up even when we don't have the right words. It means sitting with discomfort instead of immediately trying to eliminate it. It means recognising that some tensions won't ever fully resolve, and that's not a failure — it's just the reality of two separate people choosing to intertwine their lives.

This doesn't mean we should ignore genuine problems or accept toxic behaviour. There's a difference between living a relationship and merely enduring one. But many of the things we rush to "fix" aren't actually broken. They're just difficult. They require patience, presence, and the willingness to remain engaged even when things feel uncertain.

The most profound relationships aren't the ones where everything runs smoothly but the ones where two people commit to staying present through the awkwardness, the confusion, and the inevitable disappointments. They're the ones where both people understand that the relationship isn't a project to complete, but a continuous act of showing up.

So perhaps the question isn't "How do I solve this?" but rather "How do I stay present for this?" The answer won't come from a book or a framework. It comes from the daily, unglamourous practice of living alongside another person — imperfectly, honestly, and without the promise of a perfect ending.

What does "showing up" really mean? It's not grand gestures or perfectly timed interventions. It's answering the phone when we'd rather be alone. It's listening without preparing our rebuttal and needing to win the argument. It's choosing to stay curious about someone even after we think we know everything about them. It's the willingness to be changed by another person, to let them matter enough that their presence reshapes us.

Perhaps what we're really seeking beneath all those solutions isn't perfection at all — it's acceptance. What we want, and what our partners want, is to feel truly accepted: messy thoughts, inconvenient emotions, and all. 

We want to know that someone sees us clearly, with all our contradictions and flaws, and chooses us anyway. We want the freedom to be uncertain, to change our minds, to have a bad day without it becoming a referendum on the relationship's viability. And we want to offer that same gift to our partners: the permission to be human, imperfect, and still entirely worthy of love.

The irony is that our obsession with fixing creates the opposite effect. When we're constantly trying to improve or correct our partner, we send the message that who they are right now isn't quite enough. And when we're endlessly optimising ourselves to be the "perfect" partner, we deny them the opportunity to accept us as we actually are.

So how do we live a relationship rather than solve it? We can begin by noticing when we're reaching for control — when we're trying to engineer an outcome rather than experience a moment. We can ask fewer questions that begin with "How do I make them..." and more that begin with "How can I be present for..." We can let go of the fantasy that perfect communication will prevent all misunderstandings. 

Above all, living a relationship is a practice, not a destination — one that asks not for perfection, but for our honest, flawed, wholehearted presence, again and again.

couple at home in the kitchen

Have We Become Obsessed with Fixing Our Relationships?

Simina Simion

“If you truly want something with all your heart, you will find the energy and means to make it happen.” Those were my analyst’s words at a moment when I was close to giving up. I can still hear his calm, steady voice. I was lying on the same old couch, absent-mindedly tracing the embroidery on the throw with my fingers, staring at the ceiling. 

I had run out of patience. Powerlessness, fear, and frustration were rolling around inside me. My clinical training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy felt endless. After five years of seminars and assignments, years of intense analytic work with patients, almost two years spent in the corridors of a psychiatric hospital caring for those too unwell to be in the community, and hundreds of hours in personal analysis and supervision, I felt I’d reached the end of the tunnel – only there was no light. And the journey was not yet over. 

How was I going to see this through? How would I carry the cost, financially and emotionally, of such an arduous training? 

Part of me wanted to rage – at the universe, at my training organisation, at my analyst, and most of all at myself for choosing such a complex and lengthy path. And yet I knew I could not quit or turn back. 

I was especially cross with my analyst: how could “wanting it” possibly summon the energy and the means? If I didn’t want to complete it after all those years, who did? 

What I couldn’t see back then – despite already being five years into both my analysis and my training – was that no one else could carry this for me, and I was not yet ready to step out of the safety of being a trainee and take on the full responsibility of standing alone in the world as a psychotherapist. Becoming a therapist is not just an academic pursuit; it is about being prepared to hold the emotional and mental lives of others, which demands maturity, self-awareness, and inner readiness.

I already had a BSc in Forensic Psychology, and still so many questions felt unanswered. A fierce curiosity drove me: to inch closer to what felt true in me and to understand the human condition more deeply. That is why I committed to the long, demanding road of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

So, what does psychotherapy training actually involve in the UK? 

Although programmes vary by modality and institute, the training is rigorous and postgraduate in level, combining theory, supervised clinical practice, and one’s own personal therapy. I can speak most honestly about the path I took: psychoanalytic psychotherapy and analytical psychology with the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy (AGIP) in London.

My clinical training took nine years in total, including a foundation year. Throughout those years I was in my own analysis – most often three times a week, and for several years four times a week. I still see personal analysis as the master teacher in my profession. I do not believe we can become good, ethically responsible psychotherapists, entrusted with another person’s inner life, without undergoing our own sustained process of self-knowledge. Truly knowing oneself happens in relationship: sharing one’s thinking and inner world with another and allowing oneself to be vulnerable and seen.

Alongside personal analysis, the training combined several strands:

It is demanding – of time, of money, of one’s capacity to think when it would be easier to react. It asks you to tolerate uncertainty, to stay with not-knowing long enough for something true to emerge. It requires humility: you learn quickly that techniques are useful, but it is the quality of attention, the steadiness of the therapeutic frame, and the depth of your own self-knowledge that become decisive.

Why do it? Because when someone sits in front of you, you are asked to think with them when they cannot; to help them make sense of what feels unbearable; to hold hope when hope is temporarily out of their reach. And it demands that we, as therapists, keep doing our own work too.

So, if you are considering this path, know that the journey will test you and shape you. The light at the end does exist, but it is not a spotlight of triumph. It is quieter and more human: the moment a patient says something they have never been able to say before. In that moment, all the years of study, observation, placements, supervision, and analysis make a different kind of sense. The training does not end but it becomes part of how you live, and how you listen.

scrabble tiles spelling out the word therapy with a key in the foreground

What it Really Takes to Train as a Psychotherapist in the UK

Alice McGurran

“Gareth, you’re a lovely bloke, but if I were you, I’d think about becoming a travel agent.” So said teenage Gareth Southgate’s coach in response to his insistent habit of shaking the opposition’s hands, even when they had lost the game. Instead, as we know, Southgate quickly moved from his time as a player into managerial positions, eventually taking on arguably one of the most scrutinised leadership positions in the country – managing England.

I can’t claim to be writing this review as a football fan (although, like many non-fans, I get unexpectedly swept up in the emotion and drama of major tournaments), but despite this I found much to be thought-provoking in Southgate’s new book 

, our Welldoing Book of the Month for November 2025. 

The book charts Southgate’s career and alongside it the ups and downs of the English team’s journey during his eight years as manager. Southgate generally seems to get a fairly bad rep from his time as manager, despite taking the team from outside the top 10 in Fifa man’s world ranking to the top five, and reaching the semi-finals and a final of two major international tournaments for the first time in decades. The divisiveness he felt within the fan base – at times actively aggressive – was eventually what prompted him to withdraw from extending his contract; he felt without the fans’ support, his presence would unduly affect the players. This highlights the sad harshness with which we measure success (in essence, no trophy, no success) but also Southgate’s seemingly unwavering commitment to leading by example, with humility, empathy and a protectiveness over the team members.

 as our Book of the Month for that reason – Southgate’s efforts to lead in a way that fostered psychological safety, a sense of friendship and belonging, and of healthy pride in representing something bigger than yourself: “My years with England taught me many lessons, but perhaps prime among them was this: that there is a fine balance between doing everything you can to win and ‘winning at all costs’. The first is about excellence. The second risks sacrificing integrity. That distinction matter now more than ever.”

Southgate is keen to emphasise that leadership roles aren’t always loud and obviously spotlighted. I got to thinking about my own role as a therapist and the leadership involved there, despite the largely client-led nature of the therapy space. I take a sense of quiet leadership in my room seriously, through being congruent, having integrity, being of service, committed to see another person in all their humanness, building a safe and non-defensive relationship. That’s the lasting impression for me – that regardless of the size of the stage, there are ways in which all of us can seek to be powerful, compassionate and human leaders. “We need a wider collective drive. We need a mentorship movement; government, charities, communities and individuals all working together to connect mentors with young people and to make giving back an instinctive part of who we are as a society. Let’s ensure that the future is shaped not by those who seek power for themselves, but by those who give of themselves to empower others.”

Welldoing Book of the Month: Dear England: Lessons in Leadership by Gareth Southgate

Book of the Month: Dear England: Lessons in Leadership by Gareth Southgate

Gershon Portnoi

 on one of your screens recently. Frankly, it’s been hard to avoid it, but that’s not a bad thing as it’s rather touching especially if, like me, you’re a father to a son.

In the ad, we see dad opening up a Christmas present from his teenage son, a vinyl copy of Where Love Lives, the 90s dance hit by Alison Limerick. As the stylus hits the record, our ears are treated to that nostalgic crackle followed by the distinctive opening piano riff. 

Through dad’s eyes, we’re transported to a 90s club dancefloor where he does some embarrassing dad dancing, only to see his son watching him from across the room. And then we’re back in the living room where his son has joined him, and dad has a flashback to holding this big hunk of a teen when he was a baby, having fun with him as a toddler, bonding with him, most likely in a way he hasn’t been able to for a while. Until now. 

Suddenly, he pulls his son towards him for an embrace, as if to thank him for this genuinely thoughtful gift that transported him back to a different time of his life.

“If you can’t find the words, find the gift,” we’re then told as those clever ad folk go in for the kill, right when we’re feeling at our most vulnerable.

Personally, I can’t watch the end of the ad without getting a bit teary, possibly because I’m a bit soppy, but also because it bears an uncanny resemblance to something that happened just a few months ago – not in a John Lewis ad, but in my actual life.

On Father’s Day, my son bought me a vinyl copy of The Joshua Tree by U2, one of my favourite albums. He knew I’d love it, and (I think) he wanted to express his love for me with this thoughtful gift. He was way ahead of the John Lewis Christmas ad, and I’ve got half a mind to sue on his behalf.

Unlike the commercial, I didn’t need to play the record to feel the powerful communication behind the gift. I was blown away by the idea and the way he’d connected with me, before it got anywhere near my record player.

And unlike the ad, in which after the embrace between father and son there’s an awkward moment during which the father does some more dad dancing and turns the whole thing into a bit of a joke, I was able to articulate to him what the gift meant to me. And hug my son as well, of course.

One night, admittedly quite a while after Father’s Day, I found the time to sit down with my son and listen to the record together. I talked to him about how much I loved this album, what I was doing when I first heard it, my experiences of seeing it performed live since then. It didn't really matter what I said, but what mattered more was that we (hopefully) shared something beyond just a hug to say thanks for the gift.

I shared some experiences and maybe, in the process, managed to put another building block in place so that we’re able to continue talking to each other openly like that, even if there is a huge generational gap between us.

So when I saw the John Lewis ad, my question to them, and to all of us fathers and sons is: why can't we find the words 

 the gift? It doesn’t have to just be the gift!

I think it’s particularly important right now for us all to try to find the words. Earlier this year, the entire world (well, 

 entire world) seemed to be talking about the Netflix global smash hit 

, a drama about the extreme dangers of toxic masculinity and the manosphere.

One of the many agreed-upon learnings from this very tough watch was the importance of dialogue between adolescent boys and their parents, particularly with their fathers. Male role models have seemingly never been more important.

At an age where teens typically avoid spending time or talking with mum and dad, it's very hard to establish this kind of communication, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Psychotherapy is so often about mums. Freud was absolutely obsessed with them. But times have changed, and dads have changed. We need to step up to the plate because, most worryingly, sons have also changed.

If the answer to losing our sons to the dangers of the manosphere and goodness knows what else, is for fathers to connect with them and show them an alternative role model, then let's not just have a heartwarming hug, let's also engage. 

What a Psychotherapist Thinks of the John Lewis Christmas Ad: Fathers, Sons, and Finding the Words

Camilla Nicholls

Establishing and maintaining boundaries has to be one of therapy’s key tenets. In Lily Allen’s recently released album, West End Girl, she gives a superior masterclass in what can happen if agreed boundaries in a relationship, specifically a marriage, are transgressed.

West End Girl is an autobiographical album though, she says, ‘not gospel’. It details the break up of the singer’s marriage to the actor David Harbour. Who is, coincidentally, on a promotional tour for the final series of Stranger Things in which he stars. But West End Girl with its wonderfully catchy, sing-a-long tunes is not just a revenge album with which we are all familiar it is also a heart breaking appeal to her ex to have been more careful with her, more respectful and to prioritise the marriage and not just his own desires.

It is released just as the new order of sexual freedom is meeting its first real challenges. Young people have spearheaded this new revolution. Not wishing to be confined by gender and sexual conformity the revolution has embraced polyamory, kink, trans and non-hetero normative couplings and thruplings. If asked to define the revolution it would probably be to call it ‘open’.

I have witnessed in the consulting room and the world beyond how openness has given some people a sense of inhabiting their true selves. Like all revolutions it is partly a revolt against what went before and a desire to be different and ‘right’ even. However, the same thing that has given some people a sense of legitimacy, belonging, a feeling of relief that what seemed to work for others and has never worked for them, has also led others to feel under pressure to turn away from the contract they felt all parties had made and which might well have suited them just fine.

Lily Allen tells us the openness in her marriage was imposed upon her in a unilateral way by her husband. This is not uncommon. It’s not just those who feel less sexually inhibited who can rather steamroller over their ‘uncool’ partner’s feelings, but also those who would rather act out their fantasies with others rather than have, often difficult, conversations with their partners (single or plural) about what might turn them on and enter into consensual agreements about sexual adventure.

What West End Girl’s narrative tells us in a raw, angry and poetic way is that it is so easy in an open relationship to lose sense of boundaries even when ones have been agreed. Allen sings, “We had an arrangement/Be discreet and don’t be blatant/There had to be payment/It had to be with strangers.” Not unreasonable I imagine the large majority of listeners are thinking, or shouting at their speakers. 

Allen’s whole album is a juxtaposition of ugly emotions and beautiful tunes. She has us singing along with her experiences of broken trust, self-abasement in order to try to make her marriage work, the pain of what to tell the children, the feeling of being a fool, and very publicly shamed. Hers is a particular experience had by someone who is wealthy and famous, but somehow she makes the entire album completely relatable.

Whilst a lot of media attention has been given to who is the real ‘Madeline’ – the significant other woman of Allen’s anguished lyrics – I believe the psychological importance of this remarkable album is to give voice to the feelings of women in marriages, or any other relationship contract, that have been abused. To allow those women to stop feeling embarrassed and invisible. It’s also a wake up call for couple therapists and other counsellors to be mindful that even the most open of relationships in front of them might be prone to the most ancient and painful of transgressions. 

What a Psychotherapist Thinks of Lily Allen's West End Girl

Hannah Richardson

The family Christmas, with its intense build-up and pressure to 'have a good time', can feel a bit like a World Cup penalty shoot-out. Old rivalries between siblings and newer dynamics between spouses or in-laws can be stirred and magnified by the intensity of the occasion.

The cracker-pull with the brother that you feel has always had the upper hand can be loaded with resentment of the past. Especially if you end up with the short end.

The first issue is probably who gets to play the match at home - i.e who's turf is the big day on. Whether this gives the host a 'home advantage' is probably questionable. For whoever is hosting and providing the big feast has way more to deliver.

Not only do they need the arms of an octopus to prepare that high-stakes meal, they have to buzz around making sure everyone is OK and has their glasses topped up - or their partner does, and maybe they're not pulling their weight.

The host may be co-dependently thinking: "Why do I always have to do everything?"

And if that is your thought this year - there's news for you - you don't. You can ask for help or do something different.

Some family members may resent having to travel a long way, and may be saying to each other: "Why do we always have to go to them?"

"It's not fair! It's only because they have the biggest house - and that's not fair!" or "They're nearest to dad," for example.

And it may mean they arrive, shrouded in a familiar sense of feeling 'less than' - less successful, less important, less assertive, just less all around, and they go into the event a little insecure or defensive perhaps. Awareness and sensitivity to this can help.

If you find yourself, as you arrive for the ninth year in a row after five hellish hours on the motorway, muttering under your breaths: "Next year we will definitely stay at home."

Then you know what - do it differently next year, stay at home.

A key thing to remember is everyone has a different reality - we all see things in different ways. One person's little joke, can be another's huge insult. It can be a minefield. So why does all this old stuff come rushing head-long into our hearts and minds?

The way our brains work is to look for patterns, and to see those patterns confirmed. It helps us navigate the world - but it can be really black and white and inaccurate.

If one of your core beliefs is that sister X has always been mum's favourite, then you will more than likely see evidence of that when the great present unwrapping takes place.

Then again perhaps sister X is mum's favourite. If that's the case there's not that much you can do about that right now, but playing the wounded one, isn't going to make you feel better about it on Christmas Day.

 to help us stay in the present and not get caught up with all this out-of-date stuff.

In TA, there are three main ego states - adult, parent and child. And the theory says we shift in and out of these ego states from moment to moment, depending on how we feel and how others are around us.

Adult is the one we want to be in most of the time. It is associated with square and steady body language, and thoughts and feelings from the present.

It is a kind of neutral, open-hearted, but boundaried, way of being that prevents us being pulled out of shape by someone else's actions or intentions.

Divided into Critical Parent - associated with pointy fingers, telling people what to do and a sense of superiority - and Nurturing Parent - which is more caring and all about putting arms around someone - sometimes so tightly they feel smothered.

People have internalised the way their parents and other figures have treated them, and then demonstrate it to others when they are in this ego state.

Ever had the thought, "I sound like my mum?" Well there you go.

Adapted Child is probably the key one to look out for at Christmas time.

If you have received a message that you are bad in some way, and unconsciously feel the need to be pleasing or perfect, for example, in order to be accepted - then more than likely you're cooking the Christmas dinner or shuffling around the washing up bowl with a damp tea towel.

If your parents were controlling, then you might find yourself resorting to the rebelliousness of the Free Child - the other part of the child ego state.

The key thing to remember is if someone speaks to you when they are in Parent or Child ego state, it invites you to respond from the opposite ego state.

So Critical Parent invites Adapted Child ego state and vice-versa.

This means you may find yourself responding like a stroppy teenager when you your mum says something like: "Do you really have to open the wine this early?"

Or maybe you feel controlled, put the wine down, and hang your head in the shame of being told off like you were as a child.

It can take a deliberate shift into your Adult ego state to prevent this invited transaction.

Adult ego state can be very useful in many situations beyond the family.

Notice your body language. Have you adopted the physical position of someone who has been told off? If so, adjust your body, straighten your back, lift your head and consciously respond from an adult state.

Is the person speaking to you looking like a wounded child? If so, you might have the urge to comfort them, but not really want to because you've been doing it for years, and you're fed up with it.

Now is the time to adjust your body - straighten your head, square those shoulders and shift into Adult - not Parent. You don't have to give the invited response if you aware of what's going on.

Reflecting about of how things were in the past and what is really going on in the present can help remove some of the trap doors to old miseries at one of the most pressurised times of year.

And if this doesn't work - reach out to a therapist!

Hannah Richardson is a verified Welldoing counsellor in Twickenham and online

Parent, Adult, Child: Harness the Power of Ego States this Family Christmas

Lyn Reed

In my practice, a common theme emerges. My clients often speak of 

. They are often tired of waiting for things to improve. They have lost patience and are desperate to be released from the emotional pain they are experiencing.  They have built a wall of loneliness. And this wall seems to have become a barrier.

When we become aware of our inner loneliness it can also reveal to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive. When we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, we often relate to others in ways which can be devastating.  We are in emotional pain, so we tend to ignore what we already know. No love, friendship, community, or other person will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition.

This is the truth. But it is so painful that we are more likely to go into a fantasy world than face the truth of our lonely existence. It is easier if we keep hoping we will find someone who really understands us, who will bring us peace, a job which provides everything, a book which will explain everything, a drug which will make our pain go away.

So often this is false hope. And a fruitless search. It leads us to make exhausting demands on ourselves and others; and risks us feeling bitterness and hostility when we start discovering that nobody and nothing can live up to our expectations.

It is only when we can make our own wounds a source of healing, a willingness emerges where we can see our own pain and suffering as an integral part of the human condition which we all share and experience. We can learn to feel at home within our own selves before we can let others in.

Letting others in can be very difficult when we are preoccupied with our own needs, worries and tensions. When we are driven by inner conflict and feel in turmoil and confusion it is impossible to create room and space where someone else can come in without feeling an intruder.

 we create the space for another to be themselves and to come to us on their own terms. It requires a lot of concentration. Human withdrawal is both a painful and lonely process because it forces us to face directly our own condition in all is glory.

If we can do this, we can feel free to let others enter in to the space we have created for them. They can be free to dance their own dance, sing their own song and speak their own language. Our presence is no longer threatening and demanding. It is inviting and liberating.

Focusing on someone else's pain of loneliness prevents us from burdening others with our pain and allows us to accept our wounds as helpful teachers of our own and others' condition. When two or more people meet, we form a community and this arises through the sharing of the pain of loneliness.

When we share we put our own personal search at the disposal of others.

Allowing others into our lives is a risky business - nobody can predict where this will lead us, because every time we allow ourselves to be influenced by someone we take a risk by not knowing how they will affect our lives. When we search and share risks new ideas are born, new visions reveal themselves and new roads become visible. When we are lonely we are suffering. That sharing of suffering can help us find our way.

When we feel lonely we often fear opening a door - or taking a risk - because of what might be on the other side. Sometimes there are lots of doors which remain closed. We may need to go through them before we can find our way again. When we speak of loneliness, it needs to come from the heart which has been wounded by the suffering we have experienced.

Each of us has our own personal view of loneliness. If it is shared it has the potential to connect to others who are currently experiencing personal loneliness; it can help them feel less isolated.

Trending