Divorcing Your Parents to Find Real Connection

In brief

“Divorcing” your parents doesn’t have to mean cutting contact. It means stepping out of the childhood dynamic—so you can meet them (and yourself) more as an adult.

The currency of love

From the moment we are born, we have a profound need to be loved and cared for. Our survival as infants depends entirely on a caregiver’s willingness to care for us. That dependency creates one of the most powerful bonds in human experience—and one that can become a source of confusion and suffering later on.

As we grow up, many of us find ourselves still chasing that feeling of being cared for—sometimes to the point that we abandon our own needs in order to secure it. We go to great lengths for approval. We crave external signifiers of success—promotions, financial wins, awards—when what we really long for is something simpler: for the parent to notice us and say, “I see you. You’re doing really well.”

The other day I watched children playing on a playground slide. One child climbed to the top, paused, and looked around for his mother.

“Mum, look at me! Look at me!”

It crystallised something for me. Perhaps we’re all, to some extent, that child: wanting to be seen doing something hard, and wanting to be told we’re doing it well.

Meanwhile, parents often sense this need—sometimes acutely—and may (often unconsciously) use it to meet their own need for love and validation. Love can become a kind of currency: dispensed in return for devotion, withdrawn when we’re not “good enough,” “grateful enough,” or sufficiently attached.

This creates a dependency that’s extraordinarily difficult to break. Even as adults with our own lives, careers, and families, we may find ourselves still craving approval, still making decisions based on anticipated parental reactions rather than our own values.

What does “divorcing your parents” mean?

The term is intentionally provocative, but let me be clear: divorcing your parents doesn’t necessarily mean ending the relationship. It means divorcing the dynamic—the unhealthy patterns established in childhood—and creating the possibility of a new kind of relationship.

It’s psychological emancipation: finding the strength to make your own choices, validate yourself, and stop trading your needs for approval.

Paradoxically, this separation often creates the conditions for healthier connection. Many people find that only after this “divorce” can they meet their parents not as a frightened four-year-old or a rebellious fourteen-year-old, but as an adult.

“Help — I’m becoming a child again”

Clients often tell me that the most difficult part of visiting their parents is the sense of regression—of suddenly becoming a child again, unable to escape the old role. You walk through the door and all your adult competence seems to evaporate. The TV series Friday Night Dinner explored the comic potential of that dynamic. The patterns established decades ago reassert themselves: the peacekeeper, the scapegoat, the good child, the disappointment—whatever script was written for you.

This regression isn’t weakness or failure. It’s what happens when deeply embedded relational patterns get activated again. Recognising it is often the first step towards change.

Recognising unhealthy dynamics

One of the clearest signs of an unhealthy parent–child dynamic is an unspoken hierarchy:

My needs are more important than yours—automatically and without question.

Consider these common scenarios:

Your parent expects you to pick them up from the airport because “a taxi would cost a fortune,” without considering that you’ll lose a day’s wages to do it. Your time is treated as free; theirs is valuable.
Your parent calls in a panic about a billing issue or a customer service problem, expecting you to drop everything immediately—regardless of what you’re in the middle of. Your plans (and even your rest) are interruptible; their crisis takes precedence.

These might look minor on the surface, but they reveal a bigger assumption: your time, needs, and life are less important than theirs—almost as if you exist in service of them.

Often, the hurt comes less from the inconvenience than from what it communicates: “I don’t see you as a person with a life of equal importance to mine.”

Ask, request, or command?

One useful tool is to evaluate the implicit power relationship in a parent’s communication. Consider the difference between these three approaches:

An ask respects your autonomy:

“I’m wondering if you might be able to pick me up from the airport on Thursday? I know it’s a busy time, so no worries if it doesn’t work.”
There is genuine space for you to say no.

A request narrows that space:

“I need you to pick me up on Thursday. A taxi would be so expensive.”
Saying no becomes harder because you’d be forcing them to spend money or refusing a stated need. But technically you could still decline.

A command removes the possibility altogether:

“I land at 3pm Thursday. I’ll text you when I get my luggage.”
Or the guilt-laden version:
“I suppose I’ll just take a taxi—never mind that I’m on a fixed income and you know how hard things have been…”

Commands treat your consent as irrelevant. The implicit message is: “I don’t need your permission because you don’t have the right to say no.”
Or, even more starkly: “You belong to me.”

Many people have been trained in this dynamic so thoroughly that they don’t even notice commands. It simply feels like “how it is”—for example when a parent announces they’re coming to stay for a week, as if it’s already agreed and you will obviously accommodate them.

A useful question is: When was the last time your parent asked you for something in a way that made “no” feel like a genuine option? And when did they last acknowledge you were doing them a favour, rather than treating your help as automatic?

The complexity of different situations

The path to healthy separation looks different for everyone. Someone who is financially independent will have a different experience from someone with strong financial ties to their family.

It’s crucial not to confuse practical dependence with emotional dependence. You might rely on your parents financially while still working toward psychological independence. Or you might be entirely self-sufficient financially but still emotionally enmeshed.

Sometimes people say, “I can’t set boundaries because I need them,” when what they really mean is, “I need their financial support,” or “I feel I need their approval.” Those are different problems, requiring different responses.

Whatever your situation, the first step is seeing clearly what you’re actually dealing with.

Concrete steps toward freedom

1) Recognition

Begin by noticing when you make decisions based on anticipated parental reaction rather than your own values. Identify the “hooks” your parents use—guilt, obligation, the threat of withdrawn affection—and notice your own pattern of placing their needs ahead of yours.

2) Small experiments

You don’t have to make dramatic gestures. Start small:

don’t immediately return every call
make a minor decision without consulting them
notice what feelings arise (guilt, fear, relief, anger)

These experiments help you practise inhabiting your adult self.

3) Boundary setting

This might mean small boundaries (limiting calls to certain times) or larger ones (making major life decisions without seeking approval). Expect pushback: boundaries often trigger increased pressure from parents accustomed to unlimited access.

A note on boundaries: it’s not always enough to state a boundary and hope it will be respected. Often, the work is in how you protect it. A boundary isn’t about controlling their behaviour; it’s about defining what you will and won’t accept—and what you will do if the limit is crossed.

4) Disentangling practical and emotional ties

Make a realistic assessment of actual dependencies. If you rely on your parents financially, what would it take to change that over time? Create a plan, even if it’s long-term. It can be liberating to recognise that accepting help doesn’t have to mean accepting control.

5) Internal work

Develop an internal validation system—often the hardest part:

learning to approve of yourself
trusting your own judgement
feeling worthy without external affirmation

This may also involve grief: grieving the parent you needed but didn’t have, or the love that came with conditions.

It can help to build “chosen family”—relationships that model adult-to-adult connection. And to find ways of caring for yourself that don’t depend on earning care from someone else. Sometimes simple embodied experiences can matter here: sauna, massage, warm water, dance, singing.

6) Permission to feel ambivalent

Many people feel ungrateful when they step back from unhealthy family dynamics. You might love your parents deeply and still need distance. You might want a relationship and still need protection from certain patterns.

This ambivalence is normal. You can hold both truths at once.

And the guilt that often accompanies boundary-setting can be a sign you’re doing something new and necessary—not that you’re doing something wrong.

The goal: adult-to-adult relationship

Sometimes physical separation—or even no contact—is the healthiest option. But the goal of “divorcing your parents” is often not permanent estrangement. It’s creating the possibility of meeting them as an adult: as a whole person with your own life, needs, and boundaries.

On psychotherapy in the age of AI

What is psychotherapy in the age of AI

A colleague recently told me about a client who apologised for “taking up time with feelings” when ChatGPT or Claude could probably solve their problems faster. It reminded me of the story of the French painter Paul Delaroche, who upon seeing the first photograph in 1839 proclaimed “from today painting is dead!”. Yet here we are today, almost two hundred years later, and painting is thriving in ways that no one in the 19^th century could have imagined. Photography did not kill painting, rather photography freed painters from making accurate replicas and faithful copies. Instead of being focused on portraits and still-life – the bread and butter of the painter’s trade – painters started to paint their feelings, fleeting impressions, and abstract forms. In that instant modernism was born. The rest is art history.

Just as photography freed painting from mere representation to explore emotion and creativity, AI’s therapeutic capabilities might liberate psychotherapy from its more mechanical functions. As anyone who tried to self-therapize with AI could attest, the AI therapist excels in unconditional positive regard, compassionate understanding, and empathy all available on tap 24/7. But that creates an interesting paradox; the very consistency that makes AI therapeutically valuable might also highlight what is irreplaceably human in a therapeutic encounter.

RD Laing said, “the really decisive moments in psychotherapy, as every patient or therapist who has ever experienced them knows, are unpredictable, unique, unforgettable, always unrepeatable, and often indescribable.” Does it mean that AI has no place in therapy? No. AI might excel in consistent support, psychoeducation and structured interventions. After all, AI digested all the available literature on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; it read and memorised all those academic articles that we have only archived to be read at a later date. Describe your symptoms to your friendly AI chatbot, and it will provide a diagnosis and several coping strategies. Placebo it might be, but it is a known fact that pink placebo pills are more effective than blue ones.

But perhaps anti-depressants are an earlier iteration of an attempt to replace human to human therapy with something more mechanical, more evidence based. For Wilfred Bion such approaches miss something essential about the healing process. Bion spoke about the concept of “reverie”, a receptive and dreamlike state in which a therapist allows themselves to be affected by the client’s unconscious. This mental state can be compared to that of a painter who is approaching the canvas, brush in hand, with determination and curiosity, or to a mother instinctively knowing what the baby needs. Against the all-knowing AI, the human, all too human therapist must arm themselves not with technique or even empathy but with something like “reverie”: creative unknowing, a space of vulnerability and uncertainty in which the therapist might notice their own unconscious responses to the client’s material.

Christopher Bollas speaks of “unthought known” those aspects of experience that exist before language. These preverbal acts of care, Bollas argues, underpin our responses to experiences throughout our lives. The therapeutic relationship becomes a space where these preconscious experiences can emerge and be transformed through human encounter. This is not about applying techniques or even offering interpretations, but about creating conditions where something new can emerge between two people.

Perhaps psychotherapy is currently at a crossroads that might parallel how painting moved from portraiture and still-life to exploring light, emotion and perception. Psychotherapy might shift from providing support towards exploring the more creative, intuitive and relational aspects of psychological healing.

TL/DR The question is not whether AI will replace therapists, but whether this moment will help therapy discover what it always aspires to be: a space for the full complexity of human experience to be uncovered through a genuine encounter.

Care, Body, Dying: Rethinking Existential Psychotherapy

Care, Body, Dying: A Fresh Approach to Existential Psychotherapy

We often think of existential therapy as primarily concerned with death and mortality. Irvin Yalom’s classic book “Staring at the Sun” come to mind as a prime example of this approach. While death and mortality are certainly important themes, my experience as both a psychotherapist and a philosopher has led me to see human existence as shaped by three fundamental, interconnected dimensions that go beyond just confronting death.

Care

The first dimension is care. Unlike other mammals that quickly become independent, human infants spend months completely dependent on others for survival. The term for the first 3 months of baby’s life is ‘the fourth trimester’ – underscoring that at this stage the baby is still en embrio that exists outside of the womb. This early experience of requiring care shapes our psychological development in profound ways. Our need for care doesn’t vanish as we grow older – it transforms and manifests itself in various ways throughout our lives, sometimes in patterns we don’t even recognize.

Body

The second dimension is our embodied nature. We exist through our bodies, which both enable and constrain our experiences. Our bodies make demands, offer pleasures, and provide the raw sensations that eventually become thoughts and feelings. By learning about the care that the body needs we gain access to sensations of pleasure and develop strategies for avoiding pain. This embodied existence is not just a philosophical concept – it’s a lived reality that shapes every aspect of our experience.

Dying

The third dimension is what I call “dying” (distinct from death). This isn’t about the moment of death, but rather the awareness of our finite nature that colors our everyday experience. It’s present not just when we face serious illness or loss, but in small moments throughout our lives – watching children grow, noticing the first gray hair, seeing seasons change.

These three dimensions – care, body, and dying – are not separate issues to be “solved” but fundamental aspects of human existence. Often, our psychological struggles stem from attempting to deny or escape these basic conditions of life. Consider how modern consumerism often functions as an elaborate system of distraction: we buy products promising to fill emotional voids (care), transcend bodily limitations (body), or ward off signs of aging (dying).

In therapy, I’ve observed how these dimensions manifest in countless ways. Someone might seek care through a pattern of unfulfilling sexual relationships, or confront their mortality through high risk sports. Another person might struggle with accepting bodily limitations, or chase success as a way to prove they don’t need care from others.

The path to psychological wellbeing often involves not transcending these conditions but accepting them as fundamental to human existence. There’s a peculiar freedom in acknowledging these limitations. When we stop exhausting ourselves fighting against these basic facts of existence, we can direct our energy toward living more authentically within them.

This doesn’t mean resignation or defeat. Rather, it means engaging with life from a place of greater honesty and self awareness. We can recognize our need for care without being consumed by it, acknowledge our bodily nature without being limited by it, and face our mortality without being paralyzed by it.

In our culture, which often promises escape from all limitations through technology, consumption, or various forms of self improvement, this message might seem counterintuitive. But perhaps true psychological freedom comes not from transcending these fundamental aspects of existence, but from embracing them as the very ground of our humanity.

So You Want to Train to Become a Counsellor or Psychotherapist?

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. – Carl Rogers

The path to becoming a therapist is both rewarding and complex. If you’re considering counselling training in the UK, you’ve likely encountered a maze of information, that can put you off even trying to get into the counselling profession. This guide aims to clarify the journey and provide you with a clear starting point.

Understanding Therapeutic Approaches

Therapy isn’t a one-size-fits-all profession. There are various approaches, each with its own theoretical background and methods:

Existential therapy
Psychodynamic therapy
Humanistic approaches
CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy)
Integrative therapy

As you progress in your training, you’ll explore these different modalities and likely find yourself drawn to one or a combination of approaches. While the sheer number of approaches to psychotherapy can seem confusing, don’t let that put you off. All these approaches have a lot in common in terms of the goals of therapy and the understanding of the role of the therapist. The differences between them often come down to emphasis of one aspect over another.

Counsellor Training UK

Becoming a therapist in the UK involves several stages of education and training:

Counselling skills courses: These provide a foundation and help you decide if this career is right for you. These courses take place one evening a week, and can be between 10 and 30 weeks. They include lessons on the fundamentals of counselling, and practice of therapy skills (role playing).
Diploma in Counselling: A more in-depth study of theories and practical skills. While studying for a diploma you will start seeing clients as a trainee counsellor. The training will be split between the study of theories and practical work in groups.
Undergraduate degree: Some choose to pursue a psychology or counselling degree at this stage.
Postgraduate training: Many therapists complete a Master’s or Doctorate for advanced specialization.

Accreditation and Professional Bodies

In the UK, several organizations oversee the standards for counselling and psychotherapy:

BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
UKCP (UK Council for Psychotherapy)
BPS (British Psychological Society) for those pursuing psychology

Aligning your training with the requirements of these bodies is crucial for professional recognition.

Time and Financial Commitments

It’s important to be realistic about the investment required:

Time: Training typically takes several years, depending on your chosen path.
Money: Costs include tuition, supervision, and personal therapy (a requirement for most training programs).

The Personal Development Journey

Becoming a therapist involves more than academic learning. It requires deep self-reflection and personal growth. Most training programs require trainees to undergo their own therapy, which can be a transformative experience.

Being a therapist is as much about knowing yourself as it is about getting to know another person. For that reason students of therapy are usually required to demonstrate their ability for self reflection, either through journaling or through writing self-reflective essays.

Gaining Practical Experience

Theory and personal development are essential, but practical experience is equally important. You’ll need to complete a certain number of supervised practice hours, usually through placements or internships.

Career Paths

Once qualified, various career options are available:

Private practice
NHS services
Charitable organizations
Educational institutions
Corporate settings

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Learning doesn’t stop with qualification. Ongoing professional development is a key part of a therapist’s career, keeping your skills sharp and your knowledge current.

Taking the First Steps in counsellor training UK

If you’re interested in pursuing this path:

Research different therapeutic approaches to see what resonates with you.
Consider having some therapy for yourself.
Look into introductory counselling skills courses in your area.
Reach out to practicing therapists to learn about their experiences.
Reflect on your motivations for entering this field.
Seek out online forums for students and practitioners, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Conclusion

Becoming a therapist is a journey of professional and personal growth. It requires dedication, self-reflection, and a genuine desire to help others. While the path may seem daunting, remember that every experienced therapist once stood where you are now.

If you’re passionate about supporting others in their mental health journey, this could be an incredibly rewarding career choice. Take your time, do your research, and don’t hesitate to reach out to professionals in the field for guidance.

Breaking the Money Taboo in Therapy: Wealth, Worth, and Wellbeing

What is the most difficult topic to bring up in a therapy session? Is it childhood trauma, relationship crisis, or sexuality? None of the above. The real taboo, the elephant in the room that very rarely gets a mention is money. Often, the only time when money is spoken about in therapy is at the first session, when the therapist and the client agree on the fee and on the way it will be paid. After that, usually there is complete silence.

This is a shame (pun intended), as money – like sex, mortality, pleasure, and pain – affect us all. Whether you are just scrapping by or rolling in it, you are affected by money, and money will be showing up in therapy sessions whether you like it or not, whether you are the therapist or the client. Irvin Yalom tells a story of speaking with a new client and giving them directions to his office. “pass the jewellery shop and the delicatessen, then turn right at the opera house”. When the client arrived, they complained “your directions were all wrong, I passed a job centre and a homeless shelter, and turned at the pawnbroker”. The moral of this story is that while Yalom and his client took the same route they saw completely different landmarks, which also suggests that their experience of this particular journey was coloured by their respective wealth.

Money Scripts

Remember that time your dad said that money does not grow on trees? Or when your mom praised you on saving your pocket money? These moments shape our “money scripts” – the unconscious beliefs we hold about finances.

These scripts play on repeat in our minds, influencing everything from our spending habits to our choice of partner. In therapy uncovering these scripts can be a game changer.

Action step: reflect on your earliest money memories. What did they teach you about wealth and worth?

As therapists we need to be attuned to these dynamics. How does financial inequality affect the balance of power in a relationship? How might it impact a client’s snese of autonomy or self-worth?

The Debt Trap: System Failure not Personal Failure

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Charles Dickens wrote these words over 150 years ago in David Copperfield, yet they ring truer than ever.

Many clients view their debts as a personal failing, a mark of shame. They don’t realize they’re caught in a system designed to normalize debt. Credit cards make it all too easy to spend more than we earn. Student loans burden young professionals before they even start their careers. The housing market pushes many into mortgages that stretch their finances to the breaking point. Some people are working and still cannot make ends meet not because they are ‘bad with money’ but because they are not paid a honest wage by the employer. Profits are stolen wages, Karl Marx said.

As therapists, we need to help clients see the bigger picture. Their debt isn’t necessarily a reflection of poor choices or lack of willpower. Often, it’s the result of a system that makes debt almost unavoidable for many. By shifting this perspective, we can help alleviate the shame and self-blame that often accompany financial struggles.

Breaking the Silence: Talking Money in Therapy

So, how do we tackle this taboo topic? Here are some strategies for addressing money in therapy:

Normalize the conversation: Make it clear that money is a valid and important topic in therapy.
Explore money scripts: bring to therapy your unconscious beliefs about money.
Address financial trauma: Recognize that money issues can be a source of deep-seated trauma.
Examine power dynamics: In couples therapy, openly discuss how financial imbalances affect the relationship.
Challenge societal narratives: In therapy, question harmful beliefs about wealth, worth, and debt.

Understanding the differences between counselling and psychotherapy

One of the questions therapists are being asked regularly, is about the differences between counselling and psychotherapy. It can be confusing to know which of the two is right for you. In this post I will try to explian the difference and hopefully help you make an informed choice.

Let’s talk aobut the simmilarities first.

Both counselling and psychotherapy:

Provide a safe, confidential space for exploring thoughts and feelings
Involve building a trusting relationship with a trained professional
Aim to improve mental health and well-being
Can be short-term or long-term, depending on individual needs

The differences between counselling and psychotherapy are:

Focus and Depth

Counselling often focuses on specific issues or life events, such as relationship problems, work stress, or bereavement. It tends to be more solution-focused and present-oriented.
Psychotherapy typically delves deeper into long-standing patterns of behaviour or recurring issues. It may explore childhood experiences and unconscious processes that influence current behaviours and relationships.

Duration

Counselling is often shorter-term, ranging from a few sessions to several months.
Psychotherapy can be longer-term, sometimes lasting for years, allowing for more profound personal exploration and change.

Approach

Counselling frequently employs practical problem-solving techniques and coping strategies for immediate issues.
Psychotherapy may use a variety of theoretical approaches to understand and address underlying causes of emotional difficulties or recurring patterns.

Training and Qualifications

Counsellors The minimal requirement for counsellors in the UK is to complete 2 year part time training course that includes 100 hours of supervised practice. In the UK, many counsellors are registred with BACP.
Psychotherapists often have more extensive training over 4-5 years or longer, which may include a background in psychoanalytic theory, along with specialized psychotherapy training. Psychotherapists are usually required to complete 450 hours of supervised practice. In the UK psychotherapists are often registered with UKCP.

Which One Is Right for You?

The choice between counselling and psychotherapy depends on your individual needs, the nature of your concerns, and your goals for therapy. Here are some considerations:

If you’re dealing with a specific, current life challenge or seeking short-term support, counselling might be an excellent starting point.
If you’re interested in exploring deep-seated issues, understanding recurring patterns in your life, or seeking long-term personal growth, psychotherapy could be more suitable.

Remember, these the difference Between Counselling and Psychotherapy are not always clear-cut, and many practitioners, including myself, are trained in both counselling and psychotherapy techniques. The most important factor is finding a therapist with whom you feel comfortable and understood.

I hope that this brief explanation of the differences between counselling and psychotherapy is helpful in enabling you to make an informed choice about the approach that is most suited for you. If you’re still unsure which approach would be best for you, I’m happy to discuss your specific needs and help you determine the most appropriate path forward.

From Survival to Self-Discovery: Navigating the Aftermath of Narcissistic Parenting

I will probably date myself if I say that Alice Miller’s book “The Drama of the Gifted Child,” was one of the first books that led me to a lifelong fascination with psychotherapy. Originally published in German in 1979, Miller’s book explored what is happening to children who are brought up by narcissistic parents. The child might grow up to become highly successful in environments that value meeting other people’s needs, such as leadership in politics, business, or the arts, but this success comes at a cost: the child has developed a ‘false self’ to meet others needs at the expense of their ‘true self’.

Picture a child who, from an early age, learns to be hyper-aware of their parent’s needs. This child becomes an expert at reading the room, anticipating mood shifts, and providing emotional support – essentially becoming their parent’s parent. To the outside world, this child appears remarkably mature and bright for their age. What the outside world fails to notice is that this is a survival strategy of someone whose childhood was taken away from them.

As this child grows up, the skills honed in childhood often become the foundation of their adult identity and professional life. Their ability to anticipate and influence others’ emotions can lead to impressive careers in fields like media, theatre, politics, or even psychotherapy.

But there’s a hidden cost to this emotional attunement that Miller brings to light: the development of a “false self.” This is the part of the person that’s developed in order to meet others’ needs, often at the expense of their own emotional well-being.

Meanwhile, the “true self” – the authentic core of the person’s identity – gets pushed aside. By focusing so intently on others’ emotional needs (and becoming very good at it), these individuals often neglect their own, leading to a deep-seated feeling of emptiness or neglect that can manifest as depression in adulthood.

It’s a paradox: the very skills that make these individuals successful and admired can also be the source of their deepest feelings of sadness and shame. They are masters at navigating others’ emotional landscapes while feeling lost and abandoned in their own.

The journey towards healing, Miller suggests, involves recognizing this dynamic and starting to uncover and nurture the true self. It’s about learning to turn that finely-tuned emotional awareness inward and giving oneself the attention and care that was so freely given to others.

The image is of a paperback book cover. The inscription reads: Alice Miller The Drama of Being a Child.

The mind-body connection according to Spinoza and its implications for therapy

One of the central topics in psychology and philosophy is the intriguing relationship between the mind and the body. The 17th Century philosopher Benedict Spinoza offers a prespective that challenges our conentional understanding of this connection. Spinoza’s opening gamibt is a surprising claim that we don’t trully know what our own bodies are capable of.

According to Spinoza, our bodies remain unknown to us because we habitually place the mind between ourselves and our physical being. This raises an interesting question: What might happen if we found a way to liberate the body from the domination and control of the mind? How might we walk, talk, and love as bodies first?

Spinoza’s view stands in stark contrast to the Cartesian perspective, which sees the mind as separate from and in control of the body. Instead, Spinoza proposes a different model. He suggests that the body and the mind are like the two parallel rails of a train track; they don’t have a hierarchical relationship but always operate together, in parallel. This concept, known as mind-body parallelism, has profound implications for how we understand ourselves and our experiences.

One curious consequence of this view is that the mind and body are connected in ways we might not expect. Because the mind is not ‘on top’ of the body but parallel to it, anything that affects the mind necessarily affects the body, and vice versa. This interplay between mental and physical states opens up new possibilities for understanding health, well-being, and therapeutic practice.

So, what significance does this have for therapy? First and foremost, it serves as a reminder that the mental and the physical are not two separate realms, but intimately interconnected aspects of our being. Changes in one inevitably cause changes in the other. To live a good life, then, one must take care of both mind and body as a unified whole.

Consider, for instance, how sadness often manifests physically: in sagging shoulders, a bent back, and a lowered gaze. If Spinoza is right about the parallel operation of mind and body, it might be possible to alleviate feelings of sadness by consciously changing one’s posture. This idea aligns with modern somatic therapies and embodied cognition theories, which emphasize the role of the body in shaping our mental states.

Spinoza’s philosophy also resonates with contemporary therapeutic approaches that integrate physical and mental health. Mindfulness practices, for example, often involve paying close attention to bodily sensations as a way of influencing mental states. Similarly, exercise is increasingly recognized not just for its physical benefits, but for its positive impact on mental health. Spinoza is challenging us to move beyond the notion of the mind controling the body and instead explore the dynamic interplay between the mental and the physical selves.

Guilt and the suppressed anger within

Have you ever struggled with overwhelming feelings of guilt? There may be more to this emotion than meets the eye.

Sometimes, guilt is actually a manifestation of repressed anger – anger that we couldn’t afford to express, especially in our formative years.

Think back to your childhood. If you experienced mistreatment or abuse from a primary caregiver, your natural response may have been to feel angry at that person. But as a child, you were utterly dependent on that caregiver for your survival and wellbeing. Expressing that anger directly was simply not an option.

So instead, the anger got pushed down, shoved aside. But it didn’t disappear. Instead, it got redirected inwards. Rather than thinking “you hurt me,” the child learns to think “it’s my fault, I deserve this.”

The caregiver’s status as good and benevolent is protected, and the child can restore a sense of safety. But the cost is significant – the child also learns to habitually turn their anger inwards, and guilt becomes the default emotional response.

This dynamic can become deeply ingrained, carried forward into adulthood. The guilt persists, but its origins in repressed childhood anger often remain unexamined.

Becoming aware of this pattern is the first step. With self-compassion and the help of a therapist, the suppressed anger can be gradually brought to the surface and released. This allows the guilt to dissipate, replaced by a truer, more empowered sense of self.

If you struggle with guilt, know that there may be more to the story. Exploring the roots of this emotion could be a profoundly healing journey.