I’ve been thinking lately about how strange adult friendship can be. You can have people you really like, people you would describe as close friends, and still only manage to see them every month or two. When you do catch up, it’s great. You talk easily, fill each other in on what has been happening and probably say at some point that you really need to do this more often. Then you get the calendars out and realise that between work, children, family commitments, weekends awa

Sometimes parenting isn't hard because we don't know what to do. It's hard because we're trying to respond to our child's needs while carrying our own stress, history, expectations and emotions too. There’s a hidden taboo in parenting: that sometimes it feels really hard. It can feel too shameful to think, let alone say out loud. But two things can be true at the same time. You can love your child deeply, want to parent well, and put enormous effort into understanding childre

Many of the adults I work with don't arrive describing themselves as someone with childhood trauma. They arrive saying something more like: "I don't know why I keep pulling away from people I love." "I lose it with my kids over small things and then feel terrible." "I promised myself I'd be different from my parents - but I can hear myself saying the exact same things." "My partner says I'm emotionally unavailable. I don't know how to change that." These aren't character flaw