Overcompensating describes the way in which we find ourselves needing to work to conceal or neutralise the impact of another person’s personality or decisions on us. Instead of our processes being simple they become complicated. One complication is that we … Read More
We develop our emotional and psychological selves through our early family relationships and attachments. If these things go badly they can leave a lasting sense of unhappiness and personal resentment. From The Iliad to Hamlet to The Count of Monte … Read More
The idea of a complex rests on the refutation of monolithic ideas of personality. When we think about complexes we are acknowledging that we have many selves. In Carl Jung’s psychology, we all have complexes, autonomous entities within the psyche. … Read More
I thought Alastair Campbell’s contribution to the current films on mental health (BBC2 Alastair Campbell: Depression and Me) was rather interesting. The impression is of someone who has lived for most of his life battling with depression. Where did the … Read More
An emotionally immature parent may fail to recognise their child for who they are. So being with the parent always involves a sense of disappointment, of not being seen, of not being enough. It can be draining to be with … Read More
We all have to find a way to grow up. People who have Peter Pan syndrome haven’t worked out how to. Something in the process of the development of their personality and psychology has stalled or hasn’t been triggered, and … Read More
Pornography use can have a corrosive effect on both the user and on other people in the user’s life. Pornography like any addiction, isolates users. It is the isolation that can be very destructive. When I was younger a friend … Read More
Near the end of Cormac McCarthy’s devastating novel, The Road (2006), the father and son duo who have traveled the post-apocalyptic landscape together, have to say goodbye to one another. The father is dying. The father tells the son ‘you … Read More
You know sometimes I get these crazy ideas about things that may not really be there. Howard Hughes, The Aviator (2004) Do you suffer from unwelcome and intrusive thoughts? Do you feel guilty, or that you may have done things … Read More
Donald Winnicott’s concept of the emerging self is that it is develops within a maternal dyad. Winnicott describes the transition from absolute to relative dependence. This work builds on Freud’s map of the child’s journey from the pleasure principle to … Read More