Trying to Be Kinder to Ourselves
If there is one generalisation we can hazard of those who end up mentally unwell, we could say that they are masters at being very nasty to themselves without noticing they are even being so.
Self-Knowledge
How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
The Body Keeps the Score is the beautiful and suggestive title of a book published in 2014 by a Dutch professor of psychiatry at Boston University called Bessel van der Kolk.…
Two Reasons Why People End up Parenting Badly
Given how important it is to be properly loved by one’s parents in order to have an emotionally sane grown-up life, one may wonder with some urgency why – in cases…
What is Emotional Neglect?
When we imagine the difficulties involved in a so-called ‘bad childhood’, we most readily think in terms of children who are physically harmed – beaten, underfed, sexually abused – or else…
How Unloving Parents can Generate Self-Hating Children
A central fact about early childhood is that babies are born into the world entirely at the mercy of others. They have no native strength, intelligence or utility, they cannot fight…
On Falling Mentally Ill
For a long time, we may cope well enough. We make it to work every morning, we give pleasant summaries of our lives to friends, we smile over dinner. We aren’t…
Living Long-Term with Mental Illness
We would – of course – like any encounter with mental illness to be as brief as possible and, most importantly, to be isolated and singular. But the reality is that…