Elizabeth Nugent

A piece about nourishment, possession, and the wish to matter — and how easily care can become hungry. With Sendak and the Grimm tales in the background, it traces the tension between supporting another’s growth and needing to live inside it.

It began, as these things often do, with a meeting that looked entirely ordinary: chairs pulled into a semi-circle, a lap-top propped up on a chair, a big screen flickering as people joined remotely, a list of cases to get through, someone apologising for being late, someone else needing to leave early. We were there, at least in name, to think about patients. At first it showed itself only lightly. A comment about a recent incident, a disagreement about how it had been handled, a question...

I’ve been developing an idea for a one‑day forum called Unsettled Minds. A space for reflective conversation rather than debate. Shaped around areas of psychological life that feel pressured, constrained, or prematurely settled. Before finalising the shape of the day, I’ve been interested in hearing where others feel thinking has become most difficult: the questions that feel risky to ask aloud, the conversations that close down too quickly, the places where curiosity seems to contract. I’m...