Articles At The School of Life

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Self-Knowledge

What Should My Life Have Been Like?

To reflect on what our lives should have been like is no meaningless escape from a horrid reality. It constitutes a bid to repair some of our damage through a process of positive contrast.

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Self-Knowledge

Why Adults Often Behave Like Children

We’re so afraid of patronising ourselves, we can find it hard to accept the bewildering way in which, in certain areas, we truly can be slammed back into being a frightened, panicky, perspective-less young version of ourselves.

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Relationships

Three Steps to Resolving Conflicts in Relationships

If couples follow this simple three stage rule, there will still be arguments at points — but love will survive and, as each person understand the other’s vulnerabilities ever better, deepen and grow.

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Self-Knowledge

Why We Need to Go Back to Emotional School

We are not unwell as a result of some obscure biological quirk. We’re ailing because we didn’t learn certain things when we might have done.

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Self-Knowledge

How to Live Long-Term With Trauma

It is in the nature of most traumas that we will never — sadly — entirely get over them. But we can learn to sidestep their worst effects — and aim to infuse our remaining years with creativity and freedom.

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Self-Knowledge

Should We Forgive Our Parents or Not?

For many of us with troubled childhoods marked by trauma and distress, one of the major theoretical problems of adult life is: should we forgive our parents for the past — or not?

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Relationships

Why We Love People Who Don’t Love Us Back

We are sometimes puzzled by how frequently we find ourselves in love with people we know are not going to be good for us, but who mirror the disturbing patterns of our attachments from early childhood.

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