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I recently attended a conference in Finland. A small group of clinicians travelled from across the world to meet in person and think together about psychotherapy practices when working with people who are questioning their gender. Given the powerful political context, the polarised opinions on the nature of the experience of being gender questioning and the insight that significant harm has been enacted by our professions, meant the valuable diversity of both thought and life

A while ago I moved to live on a smallholding where we have, at different stages, kept chickens, turkeys and guinea fowl. Whilst we had chickens when I was younger, it was in an urban setting and I spent very little time with them and so, this way of life has felt very new to me. If I am honest I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with chickens - I can get fascinated by their behaviour but I also reach a state of panic if I get too physically close. I know how irratio

I have just finished reading the book 'Time to Think' by Hannah Barnes. It is about the activity of the Gender Identity Development Service for children (GIDS), a nationally commissioned unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London. This detailed analysis of the failed NHS service is painful to read. However, it feels much needed. The more of the book I read, the more I connected to the story of Hansel and Gretel and their encounter with the wicked

Geppetto washing Pinocchio (1996) Paula Rego. ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive’. Marmion, Sir Walter Scott 1808. Growing up I struggled with truth telling. I preferred fantasy and the stories I could create about how I wished my life was. I wanted to give people an image of my life as I imagined they preferred to hear and it didn't occur to me that my own experience would be enough. It took time for me to develop a more confident relationshi

I have been training to become a group analyst for what feels like forever, and I still have a way to go. I am someone who likes everything done last week and so this slowed pace of learning has felt a little alien and at times tortuous. It would seem whenever I think I am getting ahead, I hit a stop sign. My first response is always to take on more and go faster, get even busier. Yet again and again - I find out I can’t win or live happily that way, and the answer has be

A longstanding favourite story in our house is ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ by Judith Kerr. For many people this is a wonderful story with no hidden meaning. Certainly the author maintained it was written only as entertainment for her children. However as poet Michael Rosen noted, whether created consciously or unconsciously the story carries powerful metaphors. He noted that despite the tiger being depicted as ‘jolly’ within the images ‘it still is a tiger’. As such I thou

"When, lo! as they reached the mountain-side, A wondrous portal opened wide, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast." Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child’s Story Pied Piper of Hamelin by Aldin, Cecil Charles Windsor (1870-1935) One of the stories from my childhood that used to both fascinate and frighten me was "The Pied Piper of Ha

Once upon a time a little girl wanted to become a clinical psychologist. She had some great ideas about what was wrong with the world and thought she knew what was necessary to change it so that people would not suffer so much. Eventually she got on to her chosen course and thanks to this training gained some social power - enough to put into action her ambition. The more she studied the more she could see clearly where the blame for all this suffering lay, she just had to

By Dr Libby Nugent, First Published Feb 5 2021 07:45AM "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." Alice Roosevelt Longworth This quote always makes me both laugh and feel alarmed. I am the fourth of seven siblings and as such envy and Schadenfreude are inescapably deeply familiar territory: the inward groan when a sibling triumphs, the relief or smirk when a sibling fails and the delight mixed with fear of sharing my own glory. In childho