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Becoming Ethical:
This is a blog sharing some of my thoughts and reflections on my life as a clinical psychologist in the UK. I explore the dynamics of group psychology through use stories and myths.
Some of this may well also resonate with people beyond my professional group.
Thoughts, associations and reflections are always welcome, so please do leave comments.
If you are interested in joining one of the reflective spaces I offer you can find out more at www.libbynugent.co.uk
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Leadership as a Riddle of Relationship:
In Indian folklore, vetalas are spirits that dwell in cremation grounds and are said to animate the dead. Although unsettling, they...
Elizabeth Nugent
Sep 26, 20255 min read
The Goldilocks Impulse: Navigating Online Professional Spaces
Over the past eight years, I have increasingly relied on online spaces for community, communication, and care in my professional world....
Elizabeth Nugent
Sep 19, 20257 min read
Sewing the Group Back Together: Swans, Silence, and Symbolic Labour in the NHS
I am on the ferry to the Isles of Scilly again, heading for the annual family camping trip. The crossing, the salt wind, and the gradual...
Elizabeth Nugent
Sep 10, 20253 min read
Donkeyskin and the BPS: Symbolic Veils Over Professional Ruptures.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I imagined I could shape the birth I would have and the mother I would become. Like many choices...
Elizabeth Nugent
Aug 27, 20256 min read
True Names, False Nourishment: Lessons from Earthsea for Clinicians
“Freedom… is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of...
Elizabeth Nugent
Aug 15, 20259 min read
From Virtue to Voice: Reflections on Ideological Capture, Guilt, and Group Conformity in Clinical Psychology
Everything Can Be a Defence One thing you learn quickly in analytic work is that anything and everything can be a defence. The healthy...
Elizabeth Nugent
Aug 4, 20257 min read
Letting Down Our Hair: Rapunzel, Care, and the Tangled Contract with the NHS
The story of Rapunzel has been passed down for centuries. From Persian epics to Italian folktales to the Grimm Brothers’ more familiar...
Elizabeth Nugent
Jul 21, 20256 min read
Let the Bone Sing: Group Analytic Reflections on the Depressive Position, Bodily Truth, and the Stories We Tell
When the Body Won’t Stay Quiet Fairy tales say things our theories often cannot. They bypass the defended mind and speak in symbols,...
Elizabeth Nugent
Jul 13, 20258 min read
The Sister and the System: A Fairy Tale of Relational Change
“The dwarf carried in the ravens’ dinner on seven little plates, and in seven little cups.” Illustration by Albert Weisgerber, published...
Elizabeth Nugent
Jun 19, 20256 min read
When the Hands Are Cut: Enduring, Leading, and Beginning Again
"Without the hands—without the ability to act, work, create, and touch—we are not whole. Yet in the ordeal of their loss, a woman comes...
Elizabeth Nugent
Jun 11, 20254 min read
Ten Reflections on Group Facilitation: A Musical Perspective
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with AI to explore new metaphors for group dynamics. Unsurprisingly, there are many, but one of my...
Elizabeth Nugent
Jun 4, 20253 min read
The Innocent Wanderer: Naming the Wolves on the Path of Needles
Little Red Riding Hood is a tale of innocence betrayed, its roots tangled in centuries-old folklore. A young girl, basket full of gifts,...
Elizabeth Nugent
May 18, 20256 min read
To the Clinicians Who Missed Supervision (again).
The Overlooked Child’s Burden “It happened again,” you wrote. Another crisis—urgent, unavoidable. “There was no one else. I’m sorry for...
Elizabeth Nugent
May 1, 20256 min read
Awakening the NHS: A Mythic and Group Analytic Reflection of Briar Rose
The Vow and the Cradle: A Nation That Made a Promise In the Brothers Grimm's tale of Little Briar Rose , a long-awaited child is born to...
Elizabeth Nugent
Apr 23, 20256 min read
The Necessary Task: Death Mother, Sibling Society, and the Crisis of Care in the NHS
“The wish to be endlessly needed is one of the most exhausting forms of love.”—James Hillman We inhabit a care system that is...
Elizabeth Nugent
Apr 7, 20256 min read
Hansel and Gretel: A Reflection on Burnout, Willpower, and Life’s Terms
These reflections on Hansel and Gretel arise from workshops exploring the tale’s resonance in our lives. The story serves as a mirror,...
Elizabeth Nugent
Mar 28, 20254 min read
Jack and the Beanstalk: An Exploration of Group Dynamics and the Anti-Group
Jack running from the giant in the Red Fairy Book (1890) by Andrew Lang Jack and the Beanstalk to many in the UK is a familiar...
Elizabeth Nugent
Mar 21, 20254 min read
The Golden Cage of the NHS: Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay.
I’ve recently been reflecting on The Golden Bird , a Brothers Grimm fairy tale first published in 1812 as part of their collection...
Elizabeth Nugent
Mar 14, 20254 min read
Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale of Trauma, Otherness, and the Collective Mirror
Hans My Hedgehog, a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm in 1815’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales),...
Elizabeth Nugent
Mar 7, 20255 min read
The Crane Wife: Burnout as a Cry from the Soul and the System
Odlot żurawi" ("Departure of Cranes") by Józef Chełmoński , 1870 . In the Japanese folktale ‘The Crane Wife’, a poor man rescues an...
Elizabeth Nugent
Mar 1, 20254 min read
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