My mother was a complex, wounded woman and when I lost her as a young boy the pain robbed me of a part of my internal ‘density’. No longer able to use her for dialysis, to make sense of the world for me, I began to grow apart, diffuse. My legs grew thin, my spine curled to protect my heart and I developed asthma as I literally struggled to catch my breath. The deeper wound was the sense of betrayal I felt in the natural order of the Universe. I swore and cast fury to the heavens and tried to crush faith beneath my heel. But in spite of myself, no matter how betrayed and abandoned I felt, I never lost my capacity to love.

Many of the psychologists I know have been deeply wounded by life. Perhaps that is what has brought us to this work. A pack of hungry, wounded healers. There is no doubt that the ability to relate intimately to the often eviscerating pain of the human condition has forged a deep empathic link within, but it also allows me to appreciate and seek out joy.

Sometimes as I write my ‘mourning’ pages, I reflect wryly on the powerful, hypnotic intensity of my underlying complexes. I have always been attracted to ‘complex’,wounded women (the link does not escape me). At the first hint of attraction, the young boy scout rescuer within perks up and gathers his first aid kit and sets off on yet another doomed escapade to rescue a fragment of his lost mother in another. How cliched, a therapist with mother issues…

As I move into mid-life, my repetitions have become painfully clear and even though the complex plays its flute, I am more able to move my limbs in the direction of healing. Its power is finally waning, now though, it’s a question of courage, for to discover ones truth is one thing but to have the balls to live in alignment with it is quite another.