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The Post-Truth Era: sad, mad, or …hopeful?

For many weeks now I have been finding it hard to write on this blog. Mostly I just want to howl. It feels like the inmates have finally taken over the asylum. So now I’ll probably say too much. But its’ just words. Words like Syria, Turkey, Russia, Brexit, and, of course, American ‘electile dysfunction’…
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Unable to forget, Native Americans now use ‘boarding school survivor’ word

A 97 year-old Native Sioux with the Christianized name  Sid Byrd remebrs being sent away at six years old, to the Genoa Indian Industrial School in Nebraska where he was frequently punished for speaking his indigenous  language, Lakota. He was been beaten so badly he could hardly lie down. “I had to lie down on…
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Is there any good news after Brexit?

The only thing I can think of positive in the imbecilic post-Brexit gloom is that the need to move away from polarised party politics (and everything that arises from it, now that it is shown up to be totally bankrupt) has never been more evident. Nor has the normalised duplicity of British Wounded Leaders. But we…
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They came to bury us ….. and we let them.

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Am I making things up or have we heard this before? Oh, I’m sorry, it was Bloated Grandiose Wounded Leader just now, talking about Hollow Chameleon Wounded Leader and how “he had been one of the most extraordinary politicians of the age”, as the latter crashed…
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The Entitlement Illusion at the BBC? A guest blog.

This week we have a guest blog from therapist Gerald Payne, who did not board, but is honing his skills on our The Un-Making of Them training and alive to the inequalities in society promoted by this form of privileged abandonment. Gerald writes: On the 24th May 2016 Sarah O’Connell, an experienced reporter, had an…
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New book is out!

Out today: Trauma, Abandonment and Privilege: A guide to therapeutic work with boarding school survivors by Nick Duffell and Thurstine Basset, 2016. We are delighted to be Routledge’s Authors of the Month. You can’t really get what is so unique and regressive  about British society, which mitigates against our impressive civil liberties by keeping us…
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Mind the Words of President Fry

Now that the fuss has died down a bit, and Stephen Fry has made his extremely sincere and very genuinely unreserved apologies, it is time to think about what the actor, comedian and general knowledge buff, who  – extraordinary enough – is still in his post as president of Mind, actually said. First here’s what…
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Is anything in our wounded land getting any better?

This morning I received two letters that I want to share with you. Stroud-based Dr Richard House, who has been writing to national newspapers for several months pointing out the actions of our Wounded Leaders and often tracing them to the core issues, sent me his letter “Sorry seems to be the hardest word” just…
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The ‘quiet’ soldier, the Apparently Normal Personality’, and how we might save a bit more money

The not so quiet quitting – in fact the rather sudden and dramatic resignation – of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, apparently over a budget that gives tax breaks for the wealthy at the expenses of the disabled, has predictably thrown the Conservative Party  into further disarray. Boris must…
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A Fallen Star: hands off our heroes, Establishment!

I spent yesterday driving from southern to northern France on my way to Germany, flitting between the radio stations of the two countries, listening to all that was said about that newly fallen star, David Bowie. Behind all his creative antics that thrilled us so much, pushing the boundaries of art and rock and roll,…
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