Sublime

place. In recent years, for example, there has been much interest in the idea that one of the most fundamental factors in explaining personality is birth order: older siblings are domineering and conservative, younger siblings more creative and rebellious.

the moment that catalysed the creation of the neurosis, and consequently the character’s façade.

‘the morals of the

diegetic

Winnicott’s crucial insight was that the parents’ agony was coming from a particular place: excessive hope. Their despair was a consequence of a cruel and counterproductive perfectionism. To help them reduce this, Winnicott developed a charming phrase: ‘the good enough parent’. No child, he insisted, needs an ideal parent. They just need an OK,

This is why I find it useful to ask my patients, “What was your ticket of admission in your family?” (In my childhood, Klara was the prodigy, Magda was the rebel, and I was the confidante. I was most valuable to my parents when I was a listener, a container for their feelings, when I was invisible.) Sure enough, at the table Gretchen was shy, Peter

The essence of psychotherapy lies in a willingness to get systematically interested in why we constantly respond in the bizarre and uncalled-for ways we exhibit. It asks by what sequence of formative experiences an otherwise perfectly decent and intelligent person could be led to sob on the floor or threaten to jump out of the window after an

each subpersonality is always trying to do something good for you,