Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / A Therapist’s Preface To Understanding Your Child

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A Therapist’s Preface To Understanding Your Child · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, this is Kim Lee, Charlton Adolescent Psychotherapist.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, I want to read you the preface to my forthcoming book entitled In Relationship: The Parent's Psychological Journey.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are moments in clinical work when the room goes very quiet.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not because there is nothing to say, but because something true and meaningful has just been recognized.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Could be a parent sees the child differently.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: A child feels understood for the first time.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: An adult recognizes that what they've been reacting to is not defiance, laziness, or ingratitude, but fear, shame, confusion, or unmet need.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: So this book was written in response to those moments.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: For many years I've worked at what I often refer to as the sharp end of child and adolescent mental health.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've sat with children who refuse school, adolescents who withdraw into silence or act out worryingly, parents who feel blamed, exhausted, frightened, or ashamed.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've written countless safeguarding reports, contributed to many court proceedings, attended more multi-agency meetings than I can remember, and supported families in crisis.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's through that that something very clear has emerged over all this time.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this most parents aren't failing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're simply navigating complexity without a map.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: They are raising children in a world that is faster, louder, and more psychologically demanding than at any other time in history.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the internal worlds of children have not changed.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Children still need emotional containment, they still need reflective adults, they still require relationships that make sense of feelings before behavior is corrected.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: This book does not offer quick fixes.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It does not offer techniques or strategies that are detached from understanding.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, it offers a psychological framework, a way of thinking about your child that moves beneath behavior and into meaning.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So throughout these pages, I will draw upon decades of developmental theory, attachment research, psychoanalytic thought, and contemporary neuroscience.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But this is not an academic text.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is written and spoken for parents who want to understand rather than control, who want to respond rather than react, who suspect that beneath conflict there may be communication.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: You won't be blamed here, but you will be invited to think parenting is not simply a practical task, it is a psychological journey.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like all journeys inward, it requires some courage.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are listening to this, you've already begun.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Next, I will offer you in a separate podcast the introduction to the parent psychological journey.