This page links to my articles, essays, interviews, presentations, and podcasts.
This reflects over 25 years of academic and personal exploration into emotional trauma, shame, healing, and wellbeing.
Work is organised by subject (1) Emotional trauma, its healing & wellbeing, (2) The Death Parent, (3) Reflections, essays & practices. Some pieces span several subjects and appear on more than one sub-page.
The content will evolve and change as I evolve and change.
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Here, you will find essays, book extracts, and videos exploring chronic shame – the enduring conviction that we are fundamentally inadequate and inherently unworthy of respect, kindness, or love.
Specific topics include (1) why shame evolved and how this protective emotion can become distorted into a damaging chronic state; (2) the fears and defences chronic shame generates, the Guarded Self that develops as a result, and how these distort our inner world, behaviour, and relationships; and (3) how we can loosen chronic shame’s grip and nurture the Valued Self.
Much of this work grows out of my forthcoming book, Chronic Shame in the Spotlight.
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Here, you’ll find videos, articles, interviews, and personal essays that explore the origins and nature of emotional trauma, its impact, paths to healing, and the meaning of wellbeing.
Specific topics include the concept of ‘trauma-worlds’, the self-fulfilling prophecies triggered by trauma, the importance of fostering life after trauma, and the challenges of building self-trust. You’ll also find a model for revising the damaging inner stories created by trauma, and some more personal essays about aspects of my own experience.
Additionally, there is an essay about the late Marion Woodman and an interview with Donald Kalsched, both renowned Jungians with profound insights into trauma.
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Here, you’ll find videos, articles, and interviews that explore two forms of the Death Parent.
First, the literal Death Parent, seen in maternal ambivalence, hostility and even infanticide. Inspired by evolutionary and anthropological research, this work aims to foster a more compassionate understanding of both struggling mothers and those raised in their shadows.
Second, the metaphorical Death Parent, seen in the hostile, damaging, and archetypal energy directed at us by those we expect to nurture us. This work includes an interview with the late Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman, about ‘The Death Mother’, as well as an exploration of the suffering caused by the Archetypal Death Parent manifesting as toxic shame.
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This page brings together occasional pieces that sit outside my main collections on chronic shame, trauma, and the Death Mother.
It currently includes a reflective practice for New Year’s Eve and an essay about my experiences as an anthropologist living in Tanzania.