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?

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

Dr Thomas Doherty

Louise Chunn is a prize-winning journalist and former editor of a number of magazines, including Psychologies, Good Housekeeping and InStyle. She is the founder of Welldoing Ltd.

Louise Chunn

There is no doubt that we are living in difficult times, and climate change is one of the greatest fears that people all over the world are experiencing. But what to do? You, on your own, may feel hopeless when you think about the planet’s struggles, but there are options other than putting your head in the sand.

Dr Thomas Doherty is an American clinical and environmental psychologist whose book 

 has just been published. After he had lead an engaging CPD session for Welldoing therapists earlier this month, I interviewed him about his book:

As Doherty writes in his book, “We’re experiencing twin emergencies of a magnitude we have never seen. The first are physical harms to life caused by fire, heat, storm, and flooding. The other is a mental health crisis directly resulting from disasters, their indirect ripple effects, and the emotional toll of anxiety, loss, and depression.”

The subhead of Doherty’s book is 'Coping, healing and thriving on a changing planet' and he offers a wide range of activities, thoughts, and stories to help the reader with this existential threat.For example:

It is all too easy to feel that there is nothing we can do about climate disasters, but Doherty says no. As he writes in the book, “How you think about about climate change profoundly affects how you feel and act about climate change. A growth mindset assumes that your skills and abilities are not fixed, and there is always more you can learn with time and practice.”

image of the world from space

Climate change and Eco-Anxiety: How this Book Can Help You Cope with a Changing Planet

Gavin Oattes

“This too shall pass (but holy f**k).”

 And if I could sum up my mental health journey in a sentence, that would be it.

Not long ago, I found myself paused mid-panic, frozen in a moment of anxiety and 

 so overwhelming it felt like someone had hit the emergency stop button on my life. Four months of what I can only describe as being stuck in the “nearly fell off my chair” feeling. You know the one, school days, 10 years old, swinging back on your chair just a wee bit too far, that split second where your whole life flashes before your eyes? Yeah. That. But on repeat. With no pause. For months.

This wasn’t a little wobble. This was a full-body, soul-shaking, mind-spiralling lifequake.

One moment I was fit, focused, flourishing, telling my wife I’d never felt happier. The next, I was broken, bewildered, and bricking it. Something from my past came barrelling into my present like a bull in a mindfulness shop, and just like that, I was robbed. Robbed of joy, peace, sleep, creativity… all of it.

I ended up in therapy for a year. Shout out to therapy, by the way, an unsung superhero in the mental health universe. It didn’t fix me overnight (spoiler: that’s not how this works), but it did give me space to breathe, to cry, to unravel, talk and stitch myself back together, one emotional session at a time.

 broken, I was just lost. And sometimes, getting lost is exactly what we need to find something new.

, those small moments of safety, calm or joy that remind you you're not completely falling apart. The smell of freshly baked bread. A ridiculously large crisp. A Taylor Swift lyric.

These glimmers became my lifeline. And over time, they turned into something bigger, what I call 

. That surge of warmth, joy, or sheer relief that sneaks up on you like a hug from behind. Glimmers are the spark. Sunkicks are the fire.

So I went glimmer hunting. Not in the grand, Instagram-worthy sense. I’m talking about listening to my kids laugh. Rewatching 

Turns out, life isn’t about avoiding darkness, it’s about learning to find the light, even if it’s just a flicker.

I threw the whole wellness kitchen sink at it, meditating, journaling, yoga, turmeric, goat-scented candles (okay, maybe not goats). But what helped most wasn’t trying to be well. It was allowing myself to be unwell. To sit in it. To not fake a smile.

Because pretending isn’t healing. It’s hiding. And trust me, I’ve done my share of both.

What changed? I stopped “trying” to be happy and instead 

 to let joy in. I gave up chasing happiness like it was a runaway bus and started noticing it walking beside me all along.

“It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.”

 slapped me in the face with its brutal truth. I realised that despite my kindness, humour and glittery heart, sometimes the person hurting me most… was me.

It was a humbling realisation: I’m not always good for me.

And so I went to work. Not in a hustle way. In a healing way. I went to my own inner Dead Letter Office, digging up the forgotten parts of myself, the thoughts I hadn’t addressed, the feelings I’d buried deep under “I’m fine.”

I let them out. I wrote them down. I let therapy work its slow, steady magic. And I made peace with being confidently lost.

Therapy isn’t just for crisis mode. It’s for clarity. It’s a mirror you didn’t know you needed. My therapist didn’t hand me solutions, she helped me see what was already inside. The little kid version of me who just wanted to feel safe. The grown-up me who forgot he was allowed to ask for help.

Therapy helped me stop being at war with my own brain. It gave me permission to feel the hard stuff without judgement. And eventually, it led me back to glimmers.

Now, I live differently. I keep a Glimmer Tracker. I say no to things that deplete me. I let go of people who aren’t good for me. I cry when I need to. I laugh, loudly and often. And I remind myself, daily, that being lost isn’t the opposite of being found, it’s how we get there.

If you’re in it right now, if life feels dark, messy, or totally upside down, I see you. You’re not broken. You’re just mid-chapter. And maybe, just maybe, your own glimmer is about to show up.

Keep your eyes open. When you catch them, they catch you.

Not the book I planned, but the one I needed

I was writing a completely different book before. One with diagrams and structure. Then 

 Anxiety crash-landed like an unexpected guest who empties your cupboards and makes you question your existence.

. Not because I had answers, but because I needed to feel less alone. It’s a book about teetering on the edge, surviving the chaos, and eventually - slowly - finding my way back to joy. Not the big, flashy kind. The tiny, glimmery kind.

Therapy Helped Me Stop Being at War with My Own Brain

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

Emma Kilburn

I've been in therapy for over 25 years, seeing two therapists – the first for 17 years, and the second for just over seven. Alexis, my first therapist, retired at unexpectedly short notice in November 2017 due to a family illness, though she had already told me that she was planning to retire the following year.   

Alexis was (is) what I would describe as a very traditional psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapist. We had no contact outside of sessions, our appointment days and times were rigidly adhered to, and she did not actively disclose any personal information about herself. Despite my lack of knowledge about her life outside of her consulting room, I was very clear on one thing about Alexis: she saved my life. I am as sure of that now as I was all those years ago. 

In a way, a relationship with a therapist can be seen as a model of how any relationship develops, though almost in a vacuum – away from shared experiences and friends, contextual information, home environment and personal history (at least on one side). Alexis and I never went to the cinema together, or to an exhibition; she never met any of my friends or family – although I imagine that by the end of our time together she felt that she had; she never came to my house, nor spent a day in my company. Despite all of that, we built a meaningful and profound relationship and knew a great deal about each other. I loved her, and in some ways still do. 

In 1906, Freud wrote a letter to Jung in which he asserted that “

Psychoanalysis is, in essence, a cure through love

”. When I came across this letter, it struck a chord since it chimed with my feelings towards Alexis, albeit I was aware that Freud’s sense of the therapeutic relationship was very different to my own, and to my own experience.  

I wanted to explore Freud’s views on the nature and role of love in therapy, and also to consider how the sense of the relationship, or love, between the therapist and client has evolved over time, not least in light of our broader understanding of the different shapes that relationship may take. 

Freud reiterated his view on love’s role in therapy in a 1909 letter to fellow analyst Max Eitingon, stating that ‘the secret of therapy is to cure through love’. He explored this idea in greater detail in his 1915 paper, 

For Freud, as the paper's title suggests, this love primarily referred to the patient’s love for the analyst, which is aroused in transference. 

In psychotherapy, transference is when the patient redirects unconscious feelings – often from childhood – onto the analyst. Freud saw it as the main way in which unconscious conflicts and repressed feelings could be accessed in therapy, which was necessary to achieve a cure. The paper focuses on the love of a female patient for a male therapist and thus primarily on love that is predicated on sexual desire – though it is worth noting that Freud believed that the principles of transference-love and its sexual basis were broadly applicable to all patients, regardless of their or the analyst's gender. Freud offers articulate and persuasive guidance to the analyst, whom he urges neither to gratify nor to suppress the patient’s wishes. Instead, the analyst should pursue a middle course, enabling him to use the patient’s love as a tool to inform the therapy. 

Freud saw the transference-love the patient might experience for their analyst as a repetition of earlier, often infantile patterns of loving and relating. Freud’s approach to a ‘cure’ for neuroses through psychoanalysis was aimed at bringing the repressed into consciousness. As such, an exploration of the patient’s expression of love in therapy might cast a valuable light on some of the origins of her psychological challenges. Freud also observed that a declaration of love was largely the work of resistance, i.e. the patient’s reluctance to engage with psychological material. He believed that love limited the patient’s insight and diminished the analyst’s authority in that he was ‘demoted’ to the role of lover. He suggested that the patient’s psyche might emphasise feelings of love and desire for the 

analyst to illustrate the dangers of such feelings, which again would serve the patient’s resistance to the analysis and her repression, which was precisely what the analyst was trying to overcome and explore. 

Freud’s paper raised a question that is still debated today: is transference love the same as love in ‘real life’? Freud’s position is unclear. On one hand he highlights three features of transference love that seem to differentiate it from other expressions of love: it is uniquely provoked by the analysis; it is intensified by the impact of resistance; it has less regard for reality. However, he then notes that ‘these departures from the norm constitute precisely what is essential about being in love’, and thus appears to undermine any clear distinction between love within and without the analytic setting. 

Modern interpretations: Healing through authentic relationship

While transference remains a core concept in many forms of therapy, a key, emerging focus of many modalities is the relationship between the therapist and their client. The psychotherapist Petrushka Clarkson developed a model in which she outlined five different kinds of relationships that can be constructively used in psychotherapy.  

While each of these modalities envisages the therapist – client relationship in a slightly different way, research has shown that the very fact of the relationship is far more important to the success of the therapy than the particular method the therapist employs. Freud recommended that the analyst’s personality should not intrude on the treatment, and positioned the analyst as a mirror for his patient. By contrast, most modern therapies see the relationship they create as essential, not least given that the reasons for choosing therapy are most commonly rooted in relational issues. Within the therapeutic setting, the therapist and client can co-create a safe and healing relationship, within which both parties need each other and are likely to be changed by the relationship.  

The therapist’s ‘love’ in relational therapy 

Whereas Freud was primarily focused on helping the therapist navigate the challenges posed by the patient’s expression of love, modern theory encompasses a broader consideration of the role that the therapist plays in the therapeutic relationship. This consideration includes an awareness of the deep care and positive regard that the therapist may have towards the client. This care is rooted in the therapist’s desire to help the client to develop a stronger sense of self. The American psychologist Carl Rogers, a pioneer of 

, emphasised the need for unconditional positive regard, and that the therapist should acknowledge and value the client's emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Within the safe, therapeutic relationship, the therapist can act as a "loving witness", allowing the client to explore their inner world and challenges without judgment.  

A safe, professional relationship between the client and therapist can lead to corrective emotional experiences that enable the client to develop their confidence in seeking to establish and develop positive relationships outside of therapy. While safe, the therapeutic relationship can nonetheless be challenging; the therapist may often question a client’s beliefs or emotions where they feel these are inhibiting the client’s potential for self-actualisation. In contrast to Freud’s sense of the analyst as a mirror, the modern therapist is an authentic and active participant in the therapeutic relationship. The therapist’s care for the client incorporates the need to take ownership of their own experience, and to acknowledge that the client may disagree with them not due to resistance, but simply because the therapist’s suggestions do not resonate with them. The therapist also needs to monitor their own emotional responses to the client - often referred to as countertransference. As was the case in Freud’s original understanding of transference, these responses are not obstacles to the therapy, but instead a valuable source of information that can be explored and understood in the context of the therapeutic relationship.

As I have said, I loved Alexis, and while I no longer see her, I still do. I loved her because of the sense of safety I felt within our relationship, which was reparative at a time when I needed help to trust in my relationships with others, to understand that I could build new relationships, and that not everyone’s view of me was the same as my own. I loved her because of the security of my routine of seeing her once or twice a week for most of a 17 year period. I also loved her personality, and the ways in which she challenged me. With hindsight and to a degree even at the time, I was aware that my feelings of affection towards Alexis were potentially problematic within our therapeutic relationship. I definitely put her on something of a psychotherapist pedestal. I found it hard to admit when I did not agree with her, although she would often push me to express that disagreement, or even my anger. Since working with a new therapist, I am also aware that I perhaps unconsciously modified the kind of language I used in therapy with Alexis in an attempt to accommodate her preferences, such as her dislike of generalised labels for emotional states. 

When Alexis told me that she was retiring, I was devastated, and didn’t know how I would cope without the one person in the world who knew more about me than anyone else. Each holiday break from then on became a distressing rehearsal for our impending, definitive ending. We discussed my sense of loss at having to accept that our relationship would be coming to an end. However, despite the level of emotional honesty I felt I had achieved in therapy with Alexis, I felt the need to couch my sadness in almost apologetic terms, I suppose for fear of exposing intense emotions that she might consider misplaced. I explained that I understood that a great deal of my sense of attachment to Alexis was due to the psychological processes of displacement and projection that had been present in the therapy room. I found it hard to own my feelings, which I told her were perhaps confused due to the psychological support with which she had provided me over the years, and my over dependence on it. 

Alexis’ response to my attempted rationalisation of my feelings was to tell me it was bulls**t (she occasionally used swearwords for emphasis in our sessions, which was a highly effective strategy and also often made me laugh, since she was very much not a ‘bulls**t’ kind of person). She told me that I was allowed to be sad, and should not be ashamed of what I ought to acknowledge as genuine feelings. Her response directly challenged the theoretical idea that such feelings are merely ‘unreal’ or ‘displaced’, instead affirming their validity within the therapeutic context. Of course, as it nearly always the case with therapists, she didn’t tell me how she was feeling, though she seemed genuinely touched by the gifts and letter I gave her in our final session. Instead she did that therapist thing of using the sense of our own feelings as a way of further interrogating my own: ‘Well, you 

have been seeing me for a long time now. You may think that I have my own feelings about our relationship coming to an end after such a long period of time.’ Frustrating in a way, but still kind of comforting in the sense that I had had seventeen years to get used to it! 

Prior to our last session,  Alexis also told me that the end of our twice-weekly appointments didn’t necessarily mean a definitive end to any contact between us, and said I could be in touch with her if I wanted to, or needed to. Were this any other kind of relationship, professional or personal, I would have assumed that this offer was just a way of softening the impending blow of its ending, but Alexis was always punctiliously honest and upfront in our relationship, as far as I knew. I found it really moving that she would make this offer; it gave me some sense that our professional relationship had seeped into the personal sphere – though as she frequently  told me, it 

a personal relationship, and it was both valuable and important to consider how it worked and how I operated within it, since in no sense did it exist in perfect isolation from the other relationships in my life.

While I no longer see Alexis and have been working with a new therapist for seven years now, the impact of my relationship with her lives on, both in therapy and in my day-to-day life. She has had a greater impact on me than anyone else in my life. My progress in and feelings about therapy have varied over time, and I have continued to struggle with anxiety and depression despite the self-awareness and sense of self-compassion (albeit periodic) that it has given me. Nonetheless, alongside giving me the space and the challenging questions to unravel some of my most significant challenges, therapy has also given me two really meaningful relationships, within which genuine emotional connection, care and mutual trust have been paramount. I believe that within the safe boundaries of the therapeutic relationship, ‘love’, or ‘kinship’ or  perhaps ‘mutual understanding’ can develop, a lived and vital force that has a significant impact on the process of healing. 

image of two hands cradling a white heart

What's Love Got to Do With it? The Role of Love in Therapy, From a Client's Perspective

The Role of Love in Therapy

Ana Mootoosamy

The treacherous Traitors and hapless Faithfuls are back for another season, this time with well-known names from the entertainment and sporting world, including Sir Stephen Fry, Charlotte Church and Tom Daley. 

, it’s a gameshow where a group of contestants (Faithfuls) must work together to identify who the Traitors are amongst them. The Traitors are actively working against the Faithfuls, meeting in secret to eliminate (murder) the Faithfuls from the game one by one; the Faithfuls get a chance to banish those who they think are Traitors. Before being banished, the player accused of being a Traitor has to reveal whether they are a Faithful or Traitor. (Spoiler alert, they’re usually a Faithful). 

This quote from the psychoanalyst, Adam Philips, sums up the state of mind of the Faithfuls rather well:

“Lovers, of course, are notoriously frantic epistemologists, second only to

― Adam Phillips [bold and italic emphasis is mine]

 is not a detective story – there are no bona fide clues, but there are millions of red herrings. As Stephen Fry said in very early on in this show, there are no data, which means that drawing definitive conclusions is incredibly difficult. 

What the Faithfuls are left with is an excess of paranoia. Although we all probably go through phases where we feel a little like people are “out to get” us, the Faithfuls are genuinely being persecuted as they are picked off one by one by the Traitors. Constant paranoia, however, can be destabilising and can lead to a distorted view of reality. The Faithfuls read into EVERYTHING, as though it is some sort of earth-shattering clue. For example, Tom Daley thought Kate Garraway was a Traitor based on how she said the word ‘flabbergasted’. The Faithfuls read into “signs and wonders”, making theories about how everyone is a Traitor. When you suspect everyone of being a Traitor, how do you narrow down your suspicions when it comes to deciding who to banish?

To banish a Traitor, the Faithfuls in other series have had to build alliances and take collective decisions to banish someone they suspect to be a Traitor. However, in the celebrity version of 

, there does not appear to be a coherent Faithful group that can vote as a collective. Is it possible that this has occurred because many of these celebrities may be more used to working as individuals, rather than as teams? Out of all the celebrities, Joe Marler (former England rugby player) stands out as someone who works in a team at a professional level, and interestingly, he has built the strongest alliances, firstly with Joe Wilkinson, and then with Nick Mohammed. Between Joe M and Nick, they have correctly identified 

 – at the time of writing, we don’t know yet whether they will be able to create a working group of Faithfuls that can function as a team to catch a Traitor. A group of Faithfuls that works together is essential to counter the extremely strong and powerful working group of the Traitors. 

At every roundtable, instead of identifying a Traitor, what the Faithfuls have ended up doing is chasing their archetype of what they believe a Traitor 

 be like. This is why Niko Omilana, best known for posting prank videos on YouTube, was the first banishment from the show despite his completely normal behaviour during the game. To the group, he has the archetype of a trickster, and so became the first banishment. 

Instead of following actual clues and facts, such as the murder of Paloma Faith in plain sight (surely you can only get away with murdering in plain sight 

 if you know the victim well), and the murder of Ruth Codd after she outright accused Jonathan Ross of being a liar and Traitor, the Faithfuls have continued to search for the archetypes of what they think a Traitor would be like, and it has not worked. 

Tameka Empson didn’t have the “right” reaction to Paloma Faith’s murder, so she must be a Traitor? Mark Bonner has “over the top” reactions when Faithfuls are banished, so he must be a Traitor? David Olusoga is quiet and clever and now suddenly he is being more vocal, so he must be manipulative like a Traitor? Stephen Fry is eloquent and leadership qualities, and to the Faithful this meant he must be able to manipulate them like a master puppeteer, so he must be a Traitor?  

Do you see how this is based on personality traits that fit the 

 rather than deductive reasoning, on the facts they have at their disposal?

When the Faithfuls have followed the facts, they have come to the right conclusion (but not yet as a collective). 

Stephen Fry noticed that Cat Burns is more tired than the others, maybe because she gets less sleep because she has to go to the Traitors turret because she is a Traitor. Correct! 

Lucy Beaumont thinks they are over-thinking double and triple bluffs and that they should go for the simplest answer, which is that Jonathan Ross is a Traitor. Correct! 

Joe Marler finds it astonishing that Alan Carr would forget that he has a shield and is safe from being murdered if he is a Faithful, so he must be a Traitor. Correct! 

These are all based on slip ups the Traitors have made rather than preconceptions on the archetype of a Traitor, and therefore they are correct. 

The seductive appeal of being a Traitor 

With their god-like powers (think gods of mischief, like Loki or Hermes), Traitors are able to eliminate players they don’t like or are causing too much trouble, are able to create scapegoats and watch the group as it bends to their will (see how Jonathan Ross manipulated the group against Clare Balding when she was onto him for being a Traitor). 

When Claudia asks the players whether they want to be a Faithful or Traitor before she assigns them their role, most players reply that they want to be Traitors. But why? Isn’t being a Traitor a bit mean?

Well, it’s only a game – no one is really getting banished or murdered. 

In this make-believe world of playing, it’s possible to access aspects of our personalities that we normally keep hidden from others. Our sadism and hostility, our desire for the impossible, our naughtiness, a feeling of omnipotent power over others. 

The Traitors spend an awful lot of time giggling like children when they first start playing the game, but as time goes on, they have to come face-to-face with the consequences of their actions, and have to confront the side of themselves that the game is unleashing. 

A side that they have worked since infancy to keep hidden, because we are socialised as infants and children to “be good”, and subdue our innate aggression towards others. We are socialised to share, and to care about other people’s feelings. If you don’t believe how much children need to be told to be “nice”, then take a trip to a nursery or playground. As the saying goes, you’ll understand how wars start.

One of the greatest psychoanalysts of all time, Donald Winnicott said:

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”

Cat Burns, Alan Carr and Jonathan Ross are certainly learning a lot about themselves as they continue to play their treacherous game. 

Trending