Personal

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The Person-Centred Approach: Process- and Outcome-Oriented Perspectives

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It’s felt a pretty bruising time in the UK person-centred community of late. Recent articles in the journal Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies have critiqued our pluralistic work for being ‘erroneous and logically fallacious’ (Murphy et al., 2025); for attempting to ‘control the narrative’ (Moore, 2025); and the pluralistic framework for person-centred therapy as ‘reductionist’, ‘unnecessary and incompatible’ with the person-centred approach (Ong et al., 2019). Meanwhile, the relational depth-informed approach to therapy that we’ve tried to articulate has been described as ‘authoritarian, inconsiderate, and inconsistent’ (Sommerbeck et al., 2025); and ‘repetitive and incompatible’ with the person-centred approach (Jain & Joseph, 2024).

It hasn’t felt good, and the temptation to hit back with carefully curated academic argument has felt intense. What I keep coming back to, however, is a yearning to find a different way of responding, one which doesn’t feel like a toxically male locking of antlers: ego, ‘winning’, and the avoidance of shame. I know, for myself, how compelling that is, and how ultimately destructive it ends up being (even if it feels relieving at the time). So how do we, I, find genuinely constructive ways forward, ones that acknowledge and prize both sides? After all, if we can’t do that, if we can’t—within a person-centred, empathic, relationally-oriented community—find ways of talking to others and respecting differences across positions and perspectives, what does that say about the potential for peace, and our potential to contribute towards it in a conflict-riven world?

Is there a way, then, that we can all be right: where we’re all intelligent individuals doing our best, where all our perspectives can be of value? For me, one way into that is to try and understand more deeply the differences between the perspectives: to dig into the nuances, complexities, and actualities of what others—and, indeed, ourselves—are trying to say. It’s so easy to mischaracterise the other, oversimplify, and to project. I’m sure that’s something that I’ve done at times and I can see how unhelpful it’s been.

So I want to suggest that, perhaps, one way of understanding some differences between pluralistic and more classical takes on the person-centred approach is by contrasting, respectively, a process-oriented understanding of what it means to be person-centred with an outcome-oriented one. Of course, these distinctions aren’t either/or, and people’s understandings can have elements of both. But I think they represent two somewhat different readings of Rogers and the meaning of his work for therapy.

An outcome-oriented understanding says, ‘This is what a person-centred approach to therapy is…’ It’s Rogers’s work as product, as a formal theory of how to do therapy. For instance, it’s therapy as based on the six conditions that Rogers hypothesised as necessary and sufficient for therapeutic personality change—the most popular definition that emerged in a recent online poll of the PCA community—or a therapy in which ‘The therapist doesn't give their opinion, advice, diagnosis, or analysis’ (Andy Hibberd, Counselling Directory). So, here, being person-centred is about engaging with the client in an empathic, accepting, and genuine way: it’s about listening, receiving, engaging—relating at depth with the client in a nuanced and reflective manner; it’s about going up to particular levels of ‘interventiveness’, but not beyond. This outcome-based understanding doesn’t mean that the therapist, themselves, is fixed or rigid or not adapting to the client, or not growing and evolving as a human being, but it’s about person-centred therapy being a particular thing. There’s an emphasis here on boundaries and their policing: on ensuring a non-dilution or non-contamination of the approach. And it’s a way of thinking about the PCA which can be really important to ensure the coherence of PCA as a practice—particularly, for instance, when trainees are developing as practitioners. There has to be some boundaries to the approach, some clarity about the thing itself: what PCA actually is.

Note, although an outcome-oriented approach strive to define and police the boundaries of person-centred practice, there is not one unified definition of what PCA is. In fact, there are probably numerous—and, at times, conflicting—definition of what PCA practice means. As with Wittgenstein’s ‘language games’, PCA, as outcome, is probably best considered a ‘family’ of related and overlapping understandings, with homogeneity more assumed than actually achieved.

A process-oriented understanding takes something different from Rogers. Here, the emphasis in on the PCA and the PCA community as something that is growing, evolving, and developing—in line with Rogers’s view of what it means to be fully functioning. Rogers writes, for instance, that in the fully-functioning person:

defensiveness or rigidity, tends to be replaced by an increasing openness to experience. The individual becomes more openly aware of his own feelings and attitudes as they exist in him at an organic level…. He is able to take in the evidence in a new situation, as it is, rather than distorting it to fit a pattern which he already holds…. It means that his beliefs are not rigid, that he can tolerate ambiguity. He can receive much conflicting evidence without forcing closure upon the situation. (Rogers, 1961, pp.115-6)

So, from a process-based standpoint, this is an openness to the PCA as something that is learning, changing, and evolving; that it is always striving to develop its edges and go beyond black-and-white thinking; that is ultimately unknown, plural, and heterogenous. And, from this standpoint, there’s also an emphasis on members of the PCA community relating to each other with care, valuing, and respect—to not demonise either those inside of, or out of, the person-centred field. There’s also a drawing on Rogers’s emphasis on evidence—along with experience and self-reflection. A process-oriented understanding strives to draw on research findings even if that’s emotionally hard to do and challenging our own beliefs and wants. Rogers talks about this in his own research journey: ‘in our early investigations I can well remember the anxiety of waiting to see how the findings came out. Suppose our hypotheses were dis-proved! Suppose we were mistaken in our views! Suppose our opinions were not justified!’ However, he goes on to write:

At such times, as I look back, it seems to me that I disregarded the facts as potential enemies, as possible bearers of disaster. I have perhaps been slow in coming to realize that the facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true. And being closer to the truth can never be a harmful or dangerous or unsatisfying thing. So while I still hate to readjust my thinking, still hate to give up old ways of perceiving and conceptualizing, yet at some deeper level I have, to a considerable degree, come to realize that these painful reorganizations are what is known as learning, and that though painful they always lead to a more satisfying because somewhat more accurate way of seeing life. (1961, p. 24)

Graphics by https://xabierlopez.co.uk

Great. But what happens when those adjustments and reconceptualizations mean moving beyond the original stipulation of PCA practice? What happens when, for instance, the evidence no longer supports the theory that six core conditions are necessary and sufficient for therapeutic personality change (see blog here). From an outcome-oriented standpoint, the emphasis needs to be on the coherence of the PCA, so if the research says there’s a problem, it’s the research that must be wrong. Evidence can be discounted, minimised, ignored: there’s a multitude of ways in which any research finding can be explained away so that coherence of the approach can be maintained. From a process-oriented standpoint, on the other hand, the evidence comes first, even if it means updating and revising one’s approach. But the question is, what then remains, and is it still ‘person-centred’? From an outcome-oriented perspective, there has to be clear boundaries, and if you’re starting to reject the central tenets, then it’s time to call what you do something else.

I imagine that where we stand on these dimensions has a lot to do with how we came into the PCA and Rogers’s work. For myself, for instance, it was through reading Rogers’s On Becoming a Person as a student, and I think I have always seen this description of the fluidity and openness of being as the essence of what it means to be person-centred. By contrast, I had just a one year certificate training in person-centred therapy before four years training as an existential psychotherapist, and only after that came back to the person-centred community. So, in contrast to many others, I had much less formal induction into person-centred therapy as trained and practiced in the UK.

So I have that alliance to a more process-oriented understanding of Rogers, as I’m calling it, but I really want to argue (and push myself to argue) that both perspectives are of value. An outcome-oriented understanding keeps a coherence at points in time. A process-oriented understanding evolves and moves through time. Both grow from Rogers’s own thinking, but they are not always aligned. Chris Molyneux, in his comments on this blog (see below), uses the metaphor of a Victorian house to describe the PCA. For me, that’s a perfect description of how the PCA is seen from an outcome-oriented standpoint: something solid, constant, relatively unchanging. And, as he puts it, if you renovate that into something different, then you can’t still claim that it’s the PCA. But from a process-oriented standpoint, a more appropriate metaphor for the PCA might be a tree, or some other kind of organism, that grows, develops, evolves. Here, multiple branches can evolve from the same roots, with none more determinedly the original tree than the others. Is the PCA more like a house or a tree? Again, at least from a process-oriented standpoint, there is no right or wrong here: both perspectives can be true; both have their strengths and their limitations.

From an outcome-oriented standpoint, there’s something that can be deeply undermining about a process-oriented approach. ‘I’m trying to do therapy here… and you’re questioning and challenging and undermining and constantly threatening to shake up the foundations on which our approach is based on. You’re confusing things in unhelpful ways.’ I think that’s how, from a more classical standpoint, a pluralistic PCA can be seen: that it’s moved beyond the fundamental principles of person-centredness and it’s now threatening to drag others with it. It needs to be expunged.

And from a process-oriented understanding, there’s something that can be seen as rigid and inflexible in a more outcome-oriented understanding of PCA. There’s a frustration, a fixidity… ‘Why aren’t you open to learning and developing and growing in an infinite, unpredictable variety of ways?’ And that calling can be very frustrating to those who are just trying to get on with their practice: who want something solid on which to define their work, and who don’t want to be redefining and reorganising their sense of therapist identity. Moreover, perhaps that urgency to grow and evolve can lead to a tendency to over-perceive, or over-emphasise, rigidity in those with a more settled PCA-ness. Settled doesn’t mean rigid—but from a labile, process-oriented standpoint, it can seem that way. Paradoxically, then, an approach which strives to overcome polarisation and over-characterisations can end up recreating it—something I know that I have been accused of. And, indeed, dichotomising, as here, between ‘process-’ and ‘outcome-oriented’ understandings of PCA can be seen as one further instance of that mischaracterisation. But then, without trying to articulate differences—even if they are only initial approximations—how does one grow and develop and reconceptualise new thinking? From a process-oriented standpoint, that’s the prime person-centred directive.

From a process-oriented standpoint—where how we relate and engage with each other is part of what it means to be person-centred—there’s a striving (albeit, inevitably, also a failing) to try and engage with difference in respectful and valuing ways: A starting point of seeing the other as an actualising, prosocial being, doing their best; and respecting that there may be multiple truths. I guess that is what I am trying to do here. As we move away from a process-oriented understanding, however, that emphasis becomes less important. So, for instance, at times when I’ve challenged by what’s felt like very critical, judgmental language on person-centred social media sites, the response has been that empathy and acceptance is what we do with clients—it’s not relevant outside of that context. Similarly, for me, referring to other members of the community as ‘illogical’ or ‘fallacious’ just doesn’t seem the spirit of PCA, but that’s because I’m reading PCA as a process and a way of relating, rather than as a territory that needs protection. From a process-oriented standpoint, then, dialogue within the person-centred community should, itself, be person-centred, meaning:

  • Self-reflexivity: Recognising that one speaks from a situated perspective rather than absolute truth, and taking ownership of that position.

  • Contextual awareness: Acknowledging the cultural, social, and political contexts shaping one’s views, including associated power, privilege, and disadvantage.

  • Openness to strengths and limits: Appreciating both the value and the limitations of one’s own standpoint.

  • Emotional and relational awareness: Being willing to explore the emotional, interpersonal, and group dynamics connected to one’s views, alongside logical and empirical considerations.

  • Empathic acceptance of others: Striving to understand and value the other’s perspective as a meaningful expression of their experience and actualising tendency, while remaining able to sensitively challenge limitations.

  • Respect for experiential authority: Recognising the other as the expert on their own experience and avoiding assumptions about their motives, especially negative ones.

  • Openness to revision: Willingness to reconsider and adapt one’s views when limitations or errors become apparent.

  • Client-centred: Oriented to what may be best for clients (drawing on, for instance, research evidence, personal experience, and a recognition of client diversity) rather than oriented to the needs and wants (conscious or unconscious) of therapists.

  • Authenticity and transparency: Seeking to communicate honestly and congruently while acknowledging the subjectivity of one’s perceptions.

  • Collaborative engagement: Seeking both common ground and respectful exploration of differences.

  • Valuing diversity and minority perspectives: Respecting difference and recognising that validity is not determined by majority agreement.

  • Plurality of ways of knowing: Remaining open to insight from personal experience, theory, logic, and empirical evidence.

  • Commitment to ongoing dialogue: Understanding dialogue as an open-ended, evolving process that embraces nuance, complexity, and growth.

Just to reiterate, I know, on the basis of such principles, I have frequently failed. These are also by no means definitive. From a process-oriented standpoint, though, it makes sense to sketch out some principles by which we can maintain person-centredness with each other in our intra-community dialogues.

From an outcome-oriented PCA, there’s a right and a wrong and, I’m sure, those from such a perspective will see the blog here as illogical, unnecessary, and counterproductive—just one more attempt to undermine the truth of PCA. From a process-oriented standpoint, however, there has to be an attempt to hold both sides of the argument: to strive to empathise with disagreement and difference and try to come to a place that synthesises knowledge and wisdom from across the person-centred field. I know, for myself, I often fail at that, but for a process-oriented understanding of PCA to have any meaning, it has to be open to something other than what it is.

In some ways, I guess one could say that a process-oriented understanding is about being person-centred as a person-centred therapist, it’s a meta- perspective, while an outcome-oriented understanding is about doing person-centred therapy as a specific form of practice. And both of these are necessary, just as there is an essential dialectic between Buber’s I-Thou and I-It stances, respectively.

Both process- and outcome-oriented perspectives strive to put the client at the heart of their approach, and both emphasise the importance of tailoring the therapy to the particular client. A process-oriented approach, however, probably allows for a broader possible range of methods and styles of therapy, emphasising flexibility and openness of what it means to be PCA. However, in-the-room, many of those who frame PCA in an outcome-oriented sense would also emphasise the pluralistic nature of the approach. Where PCA, however, is defined, outcome-wise, more in terms of an empathic unfolding response process, so the range of methods is likely to become narrower.

Is there the possibility, then, of finding some kind of meeting or synergy between these two positions? Can we develop a coherent approach that also has the potential to grow and embody its own principles of openness and respect to difference?

For me, personally, I think one big thing is letting go of Rogers’s six conditions are the core of PCA. These are a brilliant set of conjectures, and they give a compelling, often very accurate narrative of how change happens; but as a universal truism, they feel to me just so outdated, so far behind the latest therapy evidence: about relationship factors, therapist factors, technique factors, and personalisation. Yes, we can redefine the core conditions, to the point where empathy means bringing in to the therapeutic work any kind of intervention that we deem helpful at that time (in a non-authoritarian way), but then the principles of person-centred practice become so diffuse, so unspecified, that it is hard to tell any more what person-centred therapy is. For me, putting ‘nondirectivity’ at the heart of person-centred practice—defined, for instance, by Susan Stephen as, ‘an attitude held by the therapist from which they trust and relate to their client as a person with agency, autonomy and the capacity to grow in response to their own unique experience in the world’—would allow the person-centred approach so much more space to grow. Or, for instance, orienting it around Margaret Warner’s levels of interventiveness and the limits to that, as Murphy et al. (2025) suggest.

For me, emotion-focused therapy and motivational interviewing are also great examples of expressions of person-centred therapy which have both form and trajectory. Based on person-centred principles of empathy and prizing, they’ve grown in steady and measured ways through clinical experience, expertise, and robust research. They are, perhaps, two of the most clearly specified of person-centred practices, with clear guidelines on what is both prescribed and proscribed, but they are also constantly evolving organisms: learning, extending, striving to move steadily closer to what is of most help to clients.

Of course I’m going to say this, but I also think that a pluralistic approach to person-centred therapy is a good synergy. What does that actually mean? Nicola Blunden has described it very well in the latest Tribes book and, for me, it’s about basing a practice around the ‘core conditions’—with empathic reflections, prizing, and relational depth—but also being open to, and accommodative of, other skills and competences (that the therapist is qualified in), as identified and developed in collaboration with the client. Sometimes, then, that means the therapist leading, and bringing in new methods and techniques, with a real tailoring around the individual needs and wants of the particular client. It’s an open, adaptable, integrative practice of PCA: fluidly moving with the client in a collaborative and transparent way.

Here, one of the most common criticisms is, ‘Yes, exactly, but that’s what person-centred therapists already do’, and I am sure that is true to some extent. In that, then, we all seem to be on the same page, and whether you call it ‘pluralistic person-centred therapy’ or just ‘person-centred therapy’ it really doesn’t matter. But I also would challenge the assertion that such flexibility and personalisation is inherent to all person-centred practice. Empirically, for instance, we found that around one-third of young people wanted more input from person-centred therapy, with a similar proportion finding the silences awkward. Clearly here, it seems to me, some clients are experiencing person-centred therapy as inadequately active. Or take the finding that experienced supervisors, themselves, rated person-centred therapy as having lower levels of therapist directiveness than Gestalt, integrative, or transactional analysis approaches (see here). If the person-centred approach is, inherently, as active and as integrative as other orientations, this really needs some empirical demonstration.

Furthermore, if such integrative collaboration (in terms of being open to, and accommodative of, practices beyond classic person-centred skills) really is what the PCA is already about, then let’s explain it, and describe it, and elaborate on what we’re talking about. Let’s put it in our competences and adherence measures, where it’s yet to be a substantive part of our PCA definitions (see, for instance, here). And, research-wise, there are so many questions to answer. For instance, what is the place of psychoeducation in person-centred therapy, and what are the subtleties, the nuances, the border conditions where, perhaps, a certain introduction of psychoeducation isn’t person-centred but another way of introducing it is? If it’s person-centred, for instance, to ‘bring ideas, interpretations, suggestions or the like’ from the therapist’s frame of reference, ‘in a way that the client could easily use them in the therapy process or let them go,’ that sounds great, but how do we know that, do that, judge that? How can we develop those skills and practices, that ability to ensure clients really do feel able to let them go (bearing in mind, for instance, deference effects)? Is it mis-characterising the PCA to say that this isn’t all, already, sorted? From a process-oriented standpoint, there is always more to learn and improve on. Empirically, for instance, we found that around one-third of young people wanted more input from their person-centred practising school counsellor, with a similar proportion finding the silences awkward. And then there’s the findings of the PRaCTICED trial—that’s the kind of thing that keeps me up at night, feeling that we have to evolve. From an outcome-oriented perspective, citing such research is further attempts to undermine the coherence of the PCA. From a process-oriented perspective, they’re challenges that we need to open ourselves up to.

And also, what are then the boundaries between PCA and other approaches? For instance, if we take Susan Stephen’s definition of nondirectivity, then are we saying that other approaches don’t ‘trust and relate to their client as a person with agency, autonomy and the capacity to grow in response to their own unique experience in the world’? Is that where other approaches end and PCA begins? For me, while I like the potential in that definition, I think it needs much more nuancing, reflection, and research to really be able to bring out the unique potential of PCA. My suspicion is, with the emergence of the pluralistic approach as well as, I am sure, many other factors, the definition of PCA has been really thrown into flux in recent years. Those from an outcome-oriented standpoint defend its coherence, but what is it, specifically, they are defending (above and beyond their own, intuitive ‘knowing’ of what the PCA is)? With an outcome oriented approach there is a risk that a lot of the intrinsic process, the growth and flux and change, gets covered over.

One of the comments I’ve had from colleagues in the person-centred community, like Chris Molyneux, is, ‘I don’t have a problem with pluralism, just don’t try and pass it off as person-centred—go do your own thing.’ On the one hand, I can see what Chris is trying to say: from a classical, UK outcome-oriented PCA, the prospect of pluralism can seem very alien (although, as above, there is also the somewhat contradictory critique that pluralism is unnecessary as it’s what PCA therapists do already). But I guess, in my heart, I fear that an exclusively outcome-oriented reading of Rogers, without any of the process-oriented understanding, loses so much of what Rogers was saying (as I understand it). And I really worry for the future of the PCA if it doesn’t engage with the critiques or the research and evolving in a process-oriented way. Yes, Victorian houses are beautiful, but they can also have leaky plumbing, creaking walls, and terrible insulation: some renovation and updating isn’t the end of the world. And, perhaps to stretch the metaphor further, not everyone can afford a Victorian house: if we want PCA to be available to all, we maybe need to think about how it might be tailored, adapted, and promoted to optimise accessibility. Again, I guess my concern is that colleagues like Chris, with the best of intentions, will take the PCA into a cul-de-sac from which it will never re-emerge.

Many of us love the person-centred approach, we love Rogers’s work, and we love it and identify with it in different ways. Of course, from a process-oriented person-centred standpoint I am going to say, ‘let’s embrace that difference’, but I also want to fight (with myself) to recognise that clearly circumscribed, well-boundaried practices are important too. Stability and change, definition and porousness, openness and firmness, doing and being, ‘it’ and ‘Thou’, all have their place. The challenge is finding a way of bringing them together, and bringing them together when that very act, itself, reflects only one half of the dialectic. It’s a conundrum, but one I hope we can find ways forward on over the coming years.

Acknowledgement

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash. Thanks to Xabi at https://xabierlopez.co.uk/about-me/ for the graphic image.

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Hungry Like the Wolf for Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Duran Duran and Me

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Back in May 2024, Clare Symons, BACP’s Head of Research, told me that she was giving a talk at the BACP’s Research Conference posters and awards ceremony about how I’d plagiarised my research findings book from Duran Duran song lyrics—brilliant! Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the conference but I heard it had the audience in stitches and, to be honest, I was incredibly touched and honoured that Clare had spent the time on my research book and me. Clare very kindly agreed to let me reprint her talk, and slides, below.

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Birmingham is the home of many rock legends such as Ozzy Osborne, Led Zepellin, Judas Priest, ELO, etc.

This got me thinking, who would we consider to be the rockstars of counselling and psychotherapy research?

John McLeod, certainly. I have seen him in a mosh pit and he’s pretty hard core.

What about Mick Cooper? Maybe. But I’ve always seen him as more New Romantic than rock – which got me wondering so I did a bit of searching and, funnily enough, this is what I turned up:

As you can see, a very fetching photo there on the left of Simon le Bon from Duran Duran – another Birmingham band - and on the right our very own Mick Cooper. I think you’ll agree that the resemblance is uncanny.

But we’re researchers, we don’t draw conclusions based on coincidence, we look at evidence. So I wondered, what evidence there might be for a connection between Mick and Duran Duran. Let me tell you, I was amazed at what I discovered.

A source at Sage very kindly shared this with me:

This is what the cover of Mick’s important book, The Facts are Friendly looked like with its original title which, as you can say, includes a blatant Duran Duran quote.

Unfortunately, the entire print run of the book had to be pulped when royalties costs were found to be too costly to include that in the title. A terrible loss, I am sure you’ll agree.

Let’s revisit where we got to with this Mick Cooper – New romantic – Duran Duran connection. As I said, I wanted to see what evidence there was for this apparent link between Mick le Bon and Simon Cooper. I decided to have a really good look through the Facts are Friendly and… you won’t believe what I found. Let me read you an extract from the book:

This comes from the conclusion where Mick is arguing strongly that students of counselling and psychotherapy should look to the evidence base for inspiration of what to research rather than simply to follow their own idiosyncratic ideas.

Now I don’t know whether any of that sounds in any way familiar to any of you who were around in the 80s but after conducting a systematic and rigorous analysis of the text (using a highlighter), here’s what I found:

These highlighted sections here show something surprising. Mick Cooper, esteemed professor of counselling psychology has been blatantly sneaking Duran Duran lyrics into one of his most widely-read works.

What else might we find if we dig a little deeper?

Here’s something interesting from chapter 2 which is about outcomes research:

Look closely. As you can probably see, there are no Duran Duran lyrics there so perhaps this is a dead end.

However, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with rickrolling – it’s the unexpected appearance of a video of a song by Rick Astley when you click on a link. But it’s actually become so much more than that. There are now very many examples of serious academics finding ways of rickrolling in their research papers. There’s even a published paper looking at how many instances there are in the academic literature.

Now, if we look closely at the section I just read to you…

We can see that we have been well and truly rickolled by Mick Cooper.

Mickrolled, if you will!!

Kitty Cooper: Celebrating A Life

My mum was born on the 17th December 1932 in east Berlin as ‘Kitty Furstenberg’. She was the first child of poor Jewish parents: their unhappiness compounded by constant quarrelling. Walter, her father, had come out of the French foreign legion, and was struggling as a door-to-door salesman—Jews were barred from most occupations. Her mother, Betty, met her father in a Jewish youth organisation—Betty like all the girls, had been in love with the leader of the youth group: Walter’s handsome older brother, Solly.

Kitty was named after her paternal grandmother, Kreindla (or Katie) Wixon. However, there were so many ‘Katies’ already in the family—including my mother’s favourite cousin ‘Little Katie’, and ‘Big Katie’—that they chose the name ‘Kitty’ instead. Apparently, Kitty’s mother took the name from a Tolstoy novel she had been reading.

Kitty described her childhood in Berlin as a time of terror, abandonment, and isolation. One of her most frightening experiences—that she told me several times as a child and again when Ruby and Maya (my eldest daughters) and I interviewed her in 2010—was of a day when she and her mother had gone to the Gestapo offices. This was something that Jews were forced to do: to show that they were still living in Berlin, and that they were making every attempt—as all my mum’s family were—to leave. One visit, in early 1939, my mother overheard an elderly Jewish woman being told by the Gestapo officer that she had to leave Germany in two or three weeks. The elderly woman said that she had nowhere to go—she couldn’t get out. The officer replied that that wasn’t his problem, and that if she didn’t leave, she would be taken away. I think that was the point that my mother, just a young child, realised that her and her family’s life was in mortal danger.

My mother lived through Kristallnacht, the 9th November 1938, when so many Jewish properties were destroyed and Jews were taken away. She remembered that her father hid in a cousin’s flat: the cousin had already been taken, so my mother’s parents thought that the Nazis would not search there. My mother remembers being told that, if the Nazis did come and asked where her father is, she should say that she didn’t know.

Unlike many of my mother’s extended family who died in the holocaust—including ‘Little Katie’—Kitty and her mother were able to leave Berlin and travel to England to join her father. This was in August 1939, just three weeks before the war broke out. Kitty and her parents were guaranteed to come to England by an uncle, Bernard, who was already living here. There is a haunting photo of my mum’s extended family—all dressed in their finest clothes—saying ‘goodbye’ to Kitty and her mother on the platform in Berlin, my mum sitting on her suitcase. Kitty would never see these family members again. My mum also told the story of how, when she and her mother got to immigration at Dover, it was realised that my mum had not been put on the visa. She should have been refused entry and sent back to Germany. But the immigration officer took pity on her and waived them through. My mum always said that, if it hadn’t been for that kindly English officer, ‘it would have been the end’. She was right.

Kitty and Family at the station platform, Berlin 1939

More abandonment was to come. Three weeks after Kitty arrived in England, she and her classmates were evacuated to Norfolk. Kitty’s mum—who was afraid to tell her that she was going away for some time—had told Kitty that she was just going on a day trip. ‘It was a terrible, terrible shock to me,’ said my mum, ‘I was there for 18 months and cried every day.’ The family she went to were stern, though kindly, and to make matters worse my mother hardly spoke English. In fact, she said, she initially refused to learn English—she told others that they should learn German instead!

Eventually Kitty returned to live with her mother, moving across different rental apartments and primary schools in London. Kitty’s father, who had worked as a welder on the undersea pipeline that supplied the Normandy landings with oil, came home after the war. But that was not easy for Kitty, who was by now 12 years old. She had had relative freedom with her mother, who she described as ‘easy going’, and when her father returned to ‘lay down the law’—bringing home all of his military discipline—Kitty, as well as her mother, were not happy. ‘I was quite a rebellious teenager,’ said my mum, ‘I didn’t want to do anything my parents wanted me to do, I had my own mind of what I wanted to do.’ As a consequence, homelife was often fraught with tension and argument.

Kitty, centre, with friends

Kitty was delighted, however, when her younger sister, Sandra (who Kitty had named ‘Alexsandra’) was born in March 1945. Kitty adored her sister: a close friend, confidant, and companion throughout her life.

The two girls lived with their parents in a prefab on Gayhurst Road, Hackney. Around 1956, they moved to a house in Wood Green. Kitty’s mother worked as a seamstress, and her father set up a small metal welding business.

Kitty went to John Howard Secondary School in Hackney, leaving at the age of 15. She then attended commercial college to learn shorthand typing, which she described as ‘absolutely hating’, and subsequently took up secretarial work. When I was a child, she would tell us about some of the jobs she had, like working for Psychic News. She also worked in the El Al offices, and was there at the time of Eichman’s capture and transportation to Israel.

I didn’t know this, but when we interviewed my mum in 2010 she said that her favourite hobby as a girl had been stamp collecting—like Davina. And she ‘just loved reading books’—as anyone who spent time with her would know. Mum described going to the Hackney Library as a child and finding books that looked interesting: she loved novels, and authors such as Aldous Huxley and John Steinbeck. When my young kids looked at her bewildered, she explained, ‘because there was no television’. Kitty, throughout her life, was a woman of culture: not just literature but also art, photography, and theatre. As a young woman she also loved dancing and would go, either with friends or on her own, to ballroom dancing in Knightsbridge.

When my mum said to Maya and Ruby, in our 2010 interview, ‘What would you like to ask me?’ the first thing my girls said was, ‘Can you tell us about your past boyfriends?’ My mum said that her first great love was an Ethiopian man, then her boyfriend Silvio. Then she met Charles when she was 25 and Charles was 47. ‘Once I met Charles and once I fell in love with him, that was it,’ Kitty said.

Charles and Kitty had met at philosophy evening classes in the late 1950s. After classes, they would go for coffees with friends, and my dad—who was establishing himself as a leading UK film distributor—would tell everyone the latest news from the film industry.

Tragically, as my mum was to find out, Charles’s first wife, Cecilia, had recently died. She was just 44 years old, and together Charles and Cecilia had had two young twins—Adi and Sue—and an elder daughter, Florence.

My mum said that her first date with Charles was at the Curzon Cinema, seeing a Brigitte Bardot film. Kitty was quite shocked that my dad had taken her to something so ‘low brow’, but she discovered later that Charles had had complimentary tickets to the showing.

Kitty and Charles in later life

Kitty and Charles dated for several years. ‘He was very handsome, very presentable, and had all these women who wanted to marry him,’ said my mum. A few times, reported Kitty, she was so upset with Charles for not making things more permanent that she would ‘pack him in’—even moving up to Edinburgh to study at the University—but then they would always get back together because they both loved each other so much.

In 1964, my parents married. Davina was born in January 1965. Sadly, at the same time as Kitty was pregnant, her father Walter had died.

I was born in April 1966. As a young child, I remember my mother as a warm, loving, youthful presence. I always wanted to spend time with her: she was fun. We would play chess together, cards, watch TV. I remember sitting on the top of the bus with my mum as she took me to my speech therapy appointments. My happiest times—my ‘safe space’—was lying between my mum and dad in their bed in the mornings, cuddling them; jumping up and down, then cuddling more. Charles, as well as Kitty, had come from a family background with lots of highly expressed emotions, and so they both wanted to forge a family life that was calm and conflict-free. I never saw them argue. Kitty described her time with Charles as the happiest in her life. The home that they created together in Highgate from 1973—and which my mother stayed in until the end of her life—was a happy and welcoming environment for us and for so many children, grandchildren, family, and friends: a place of stability, vitality, and love.

My mum was a fiercely intelligent woman: she was a demon at Scrabble into her 80s, and she often told us how her name was on a plaque at the University of Edinburgh for getting the highest economics mark for her first year of study. After marrying my father, she went on to work at their company, Contemporary Films, running the International Department. She was a successful businesswoman in her own right, dealing with many of the leading figures in the cinema world, including Agnes Varda, Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Jean Renoir.

Kitty was deeply political: committed to making the world a fairer and more compassionate place. She joined the Communist Party, alongside Charles, and actively engaged in party meetings and demonstrations.

Friendships, too, were an essential part of her life. She loved, and was loved by, many. Her oldest friend was Ruth Gilbert, who sadly died several years ago; and there was Anita, Pam, Kate, Lilian, Dorothy, Maggie Bowden, Michael Israel, and many, many others. My mum was a wonderful listener and always interested in others—she never put her ego first. She always had time and space for others: a calm, compassionate presence.

Charles died in 2001, after being cared for by Kitty for several years. It was a terrible loss for my mum, and she never really recovered. She missed him enormously and would sometimes see him walking around their Highgate home. Yet, as well as her children and friends, she had a growing brood of grandchildren that she spent time with and loved: Daniel, Jesse, Hannah, Emma, Frania, Rivka, Shane, Maya, Ruby, Shula, and Zac—and then nine great-grandchildren. It was amazing to see, in the hospital before she died, how many people had come to say their goodbyes: from her two-year old great-grandson Ollie to decade-long friends like Lilian.

Shula, Kitty, Zac, and Maya

The last thing my mum said to me, about a week before she died, was that she loved me. And I really felt that from my mum. We had our moments, but I always felt a deep, enduring, and unshakeable love from her. And I know that she felt that towards so many others: her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; her sister and wider family; and all her friends—so many of whom are here today. Trauma, as we know, can do terrible damage to a person’s capacity to attach and relate. Yet my mum, despite all the terror, isolation, and abandonment that she experienced as a child, had a tremendous ability to love and be loved. She connected, cared, drew others in and held them with so much warmth and affection. That capacity to love so deeply and so consistently—despite what she had endured—can only be testament to her remarkable resilience, intelligence, and strength of character. That is truly something, and someone, to celebrate.

Links

Cinema Paradise, Soho: Growing up with Contemporary Films

There was always a whir of excitement, whoever was ringing. First you pulled out the red jack from its socket—its windy, stripy cord attached—and plugged it into the socket for that extension. ‘Hello, Contemporary Films, Can I help you?’ Sometimes it was easy: ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Hedges,’ or, ‘Can I talk to Kitty Cooper in International.’ Then you pulled out the black jack and put it in to that person’s extension. There was a switch that you toggled to call that person—trying, as best you could, to emulate the ‘ring, ring’ of a phone—and then, when the person picked up, you’d let them know who was calling and leave them to it. Sometimes it was trickier: ‘How much is it to rent Battleship Potemkin?’ or, ‘We’re from the Kent University Film Club and we want to know when our films will arrive?’ Then we’d have to get Auntie Rose to rescue us. ‘Um…’ we’d mumble to the caller. ‘We’ll just put you on to someone.’ Then we’d pull the jack out, put them on hold, and sheepishly slide the phone over to Auntie Rose: she always knew what to do. There were small rotating tickers on the switchboard exchange that indicated how much the outgoing calls were costing: the faster they went, the more the units of charge. We used to ask Uncle Harry about the most expensive call ever. Apparently, my dad had once called America… for almost an hour. Uncle Harry told us that the ticker was going round like crazy and he was running up and down the stairs trying to get my dad off the phone.

We started ‘helping out’ on the switchboard of our parent’s film distribution company when I was about five years old and Davina, my older sister, was about six, in the early 1970s. The reception was on the ground floor of a tall, narrow building in Soho. At the back of the reception was Uncle Harry’s shop, with his desk and cash register, and walls covered with film projectors, projector lamps, and film cans. My parents used to say that most of the people who came to buy things were from the local Soho sex shops. Uncle Harry never seemed happier than when he sold a projector. That was rare though. Mostly he sold just a few projector lamps or fuses each day, sitting at the back of the shop and looking out onto Greek Street through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Me, 1972, about six years old

Auntie Rose was warm, loving, cuddly: some of my happiest memories were sitting on her lap on the switchboard. She would often have the latest copy of The Puzzler in her handbag: a magazine full of crosswords, logic puzzles, and other games. Davina and I would do them with her: I liked the join-the-dots and wordsearches best. When we had finished one magazine she would give us 50 pence to go the local newsagents to buy another, and an ice lolly.

‘Auntie Rose’ and ‘Uncle Harry’ weren’t quite my uncle and aunt. Uncle Harry was the older brother of my dad’s first wife, who had died tragically in her 40s. They had three children together: my oldest sister Flo, and then ‘the twins’, Sue and Adi. A few years after his first wife’s death, my dad got re-married to my mother who was over 20 years his junior. When my dad set up his film distribution company in the 1950s, he had asked Uncle Harry to join him, and Uncle Harry ran the shop while my dad ran the rest of the company.  

I loved Uncle Harry but he could be quite stern. When I was about eight years old, I started going to the Soho amusement arcades, spending one or two pence on the penny falls or the ‘one-armed bandits’. One morning I lost about ten pence. I felt so bad about it, and so determined to win it back, that I did a terrible thing: I went back to the Office and stole a 50 pence piece from Uncle Harry’s cash register. I rushed back to the arcade and, within 20 minutes or so had managed to lose most of that 50 pence as well. Just as I was desperately shoving the last few coins into the penny falls, Uncle Harry appeared in the arcade and took me back to the Office. I guess my parents worked out I must have been there: I never quite knew how. They were particularly worried because, at least according to them, there had been a shooting at the arcade a few weeks before and they were ‘all run by gangsters’. I’m not sure Uncle Harry ever knew I’d stolen his fifty pence and, in fact, he was really kind when he walked me back.

***

My dad’s office was on the second floor. You got to it through his secretary’s office, with Charles Hedges, their publicity person, opposite. My dad had a black leather swivel chair that was brilliant to sit and spin in; a window with iron frames to look down onto bustling Greek Street; and a long black leather sofa—perfect for jumping on or napping. If we went to my dad’s office he’d offer us coffee then ask his secretary to make it. We’d have coffee and biscuits sat facing him in a low leather chair, peering out over his large, laminated desk.

My parents, 1973

Once, in my twenties, I did a psychodrama exercise where we had to imagine our parents as animals. I imagined my dad as a big friendly bear. He was warm, affectionate, social—already in his late 50s by the time I was born (about the age I am as I write this). He was a schmoozer—not much of a listener. He was also, as my girlfriends have endlessly remarked, very handsome: broad-shouldered with a wide, welcoming face and strong jaw. When I went back to Ukraine, where his parents had escaped the pogroms from in the 1890s, I could see where he got his looks: all the men there, I was amazed to see, seemed to have the same square-shaped frame as my dad… and me.

My mum’s office seemed more a place where work actually happened. It was down on the first floor, with most of the other employees. She was in charge of ‘International’. My mum typed at lightning speed and had one of the first Telex machines, which I loved feeding the strips of tape in to. Like my dad, my mum was very intelligent, but less confident. I always assumed she’d been put in charge of International because of her German roots. It was not something that she would easily talk about. She refused to watch films about the holocaust. I always thought it was because of how upset it would make her—she lost several close relatives in the holocaust, including her favourite cousin, ‘Little Katie’. At one film festival, though, she inadvertently saw a film with scenes about the Shoah and, on exiting, starting screaming at two German associates outside the screening room: ‘You see what you lot have done…’. It was rage, not sadness, that she seemed most afraid of unleashing.

***

When Davina and I weren’t on the switchboard we would be in Despatch with ‘the boys’. These were the young men who would receive, check, and send out the film reels to the various cinemas or societies that would rent the company’s films. I loved ‘splicing’: checking over the films that came in to see if there was any damage and, if so, using a splicing machine to put the undamaged ends together again. Sometimes we would watch films on the large, reel-to-reel machines that they had there for checking; or we would watch them in the small preview cinema on the mezzanine between first and second floors, where one of the boys would set up a film for us. I loved that dark, cosy cinema: sinking in to the plush velvety seats. Even better, sometimes I would be allowed to thread the film through the projector and run it. So many cogs, switches, and loops… each had to be exactly right or the film would get twisted and mangled.

The problem, though, was that there was hardly ever any good films to watch. My dad, being a communist since his 20s, had set up a film company that was one of the leading distributors of progressive and foreign language films. Great if you are a member of the Young Communists, but not if you are a five-year-old wanting some entertainment during the school holidays. There were a few Eastern European short films. But, God, they could really be terrifying. One that my parents used to show me at home, where we also kept a projector, was called The naughty little goat: about this cute little baby goat that runs away from its parents’ into the woods… and is eaten by wolves. I would watch it compulsively, glued to the screen and the crescendo of screeching Slavic violin as the goat broke from its farm and rushed headlong into the woods, never to be seen again. I have no idea why my parents showed it to me. Perhaps they knew I was going to be a psychotherapist and were preparing me for dealing with trauma!

When we were really little, the film that Davina and I wanted to watch over and over again was a short about the dangers of cigarette smoking. My dad also had some Marx Brother’s film (unrelated, as I came to learn, to Karl Marx), and we particularly loved Horsefeathers. Another favourite was called The Little Island. This was a 1958 cartoon about three characters who each prize one value (‘good’, ‘truth’, or ‘beauty’) over all others, and eventually come to blows over it (in the form of a terrifying knife fight escalating to nuclear holocaust). Looking back, it’s striking to me that the message of this film—the dangers of privileging one, monolithic set of values—is exactly what we articulated decades later in our ‘pluralistic’ approach to therapy.

Thanks to Uncle Harry, my parents also had the rights to the English Coal Board’s film archives, so that was another option: long infomercials about the British coal industry. When I got into my teens, my best friend James and I would scour through the dusty film canisters that my parents kept in the basement of our house to see if we could find something with some nudity in it. It was an endless, and always disappointing, search. At one point, we were quite excited to find a film called ‘the body’, but when we threaded it onto the projector it turned out to be a medical documentary.

***

Sometimes, Davina and I would go and play in the dilapidated adventure playground off Wardour Street. My parents didn’t like that much more than the arcades because of all the rusting old iron lying about. One time, I got a nail in my foot. Foyles, just around the corner, was a preferred option for whiling away an afternoon. As the biggest bookshop in the world, it seemed an endless maze of dusty book-lined corridors. The system for buying books was particularly archaic. First you had to line up at a counter to get a ticket for the book you wanted to buy. Then you’d walk over to the cashier with the ticket and pay. Then you’d get another ticket to take back to the first counter where they’d finally give you the book in crisp, white paper wrapping. Davina liked novels, like Narnia. I liked Charlie Brown books. Sometimes, at Oma’s house on Sundays, before the lunch of chicken soup with matzo balls and boiled chicken, we’d act out scenes from Charlie Brown. Davina would be Lucy, and I’d be Snoopy, following around after her on all fours.

Oma, my grandmother, 1960s

Oma, as I discovered when I was about eight years old, wasn’t actually called ‘Oma’—she was ‘Betty’—‘Oma’ was German for ‘grandmother’. Oma and my 7-year-old mother had come over to London as Jewish refugees from Berlin in 1939. When I was very young, I sometimes mixed-up Oma with auntie Rose: both warm, loving, caring. Oma spoke with a thick German accent. But she could also be quite pushy: I remember her shoving commuters as we climbed aboard a London bus. Oma would stare intensely into your face when you ate which I always found disconcerting. When I was about 13, my best friend James and I borrowed £5 from her to go to the arcade. We said that we would mow the lawn at her house in Wood Green in return. She reminded me about that week after week but we never did it. I always felt guilty about that: right up until Oma died in the mid-1980s.

Another thing that still makes me shudder with shame. Mick Jagger came to visit the Office. He was considering a part in a film by the German director Werner Herzog and my parents had some of Herzog’s films, so they were going to show it to him at their mezzanine cinema. Davina, about 12-years-old at the time, said that she wanted to be in charge of showing him around. I was a bit nonplussed about it all until the day of the visit, when I decided that, in fact, I did really want to meet him. I rushed back to the cinema from the arcade and, as cool I could, pulled back the velvet curtain, walked into the cinema, and took a seat. I remember Jagger looking up at me as I entered, an expression of vague disinterest. The film was one of those excruciatingly dull foreign language films that my parents distributed. I remember something about a circus and a market. After what seemed an eternity the film ended, and Jagger stood up to go. My dad stood up and shook Jagger’s hand, then Davina did, then others, then I stood up with my hand outstretched. He walked straight past me and out of the cinema. I felt mortified and thought about chasing after him, down the street, so that he would give me a proper handshake. I still feel a pang of embarrassment every time I see pictures of Jagger or hear music from the Rolling Stones.

***

As a young boy, I was fairly oblivious to all the sex shops that were around Soho at that time. One of my dad’s favourite stories was how I was once so desperate for an ice cream that I insisted we go into the nearest shop, which he claimed afterwards was a sex shop, to try and buy one. I’m still not totally convinced it was a sex shop, or maybe it was a sex-shop-cum-newsagents, and my dad’s habit of telling that story over and over again felt both shaming and annoying. Even as a child, though, I did have a sense of Soho as a somewhat seedy place: grimy, mucky, with lots going on out of sight. Exciting and colourful too—with the bright lights of the arcades and the revue bars—but somewhere to always keep slightly on guard.

***

One of the amazing things about growing up in this world was getting to go to the film festivals. Cannes was an annual event in the Spring. For Davina and myself, that meant swimming, playing in the sand, and lounging beneath the umbrellas of the beach clubs: each club with its own adornment of different coloured stripes. We had ham and cheese toasted sandwiches for lunch. Dinner was in small local restaurants. A special treat was steak tartare: raw minced beef forked together with eggs, ketchup, and herbs, my mum looking nervously on. One year, Davina and I were asked to ‘host’ the stall for my parents’ independent film distributors association. We sat proudly behind a desk in the large festival arena, handing out leaflets. Sometimes we also got to go to the films: mostly of the long, boring subtitled types; but children’s films were also sometimes on the programme. One that Davina and I particularly liked was ‘Stubby’, about a young Swedish boy who is so good at football that he ends up playing for the national team. We loved the film so much—Stubby darting through the legs of the grown-up players—that we convinced our parents to buy its UK distribution rights. It bombed: my parents said that no children wanted to watch a film with subtitles.

One night, when Oma came to Cannes with us, my parents stayed out really late. Davina and I were back at the apartment with Oma looking after us, and I remember growing more and more anxious. Where were they? Why weren’t they back yet? I was convinced something awful had happened to them. Panic: a gnawing emptiness in my stomach, something I couldn’t control. I felt like a hole had opened in the earth and I was falling through, nothing to grip on: accelerating, terrified, down and down. Oma seemed scared too. Eventually, maybe 2am or so, my parents returned. No big deal, just a late party. Silence.

And then there was ‘The Machines’ at Venice: the happy place I would go to many years later if asked to visualise a place of safety and joy. We didn’t go to Venice as often as Cannes, but it was the same time of beaches, swimming, and sun lounging for Davina and myself. And just on the main street of the Lido—the sliver of Venice on which the film festival was held—was an arcade that stretches back beyond my earliest memories. Walking past stalls of fresh coconut, their aroma filling the warm night air, was a utopia of mechanical games, lights, and excitement: table football, penny falls, a mini bowling alley.

Some years ago, I began to recognise a lot of parallels between my parents going to film festivals and my own going to academic conferences: the networking, the schmoozing, the being part of a big community. Bumping into old colleagues and talking about the latest research findings or measures—just like my parents talking about the latest films with fellow distributors, directors, and reviewers. It wasn’t a conscious choice for me to enter this world, but perhaps, at some level, it was a way of doing things that felt safe and familiar. Or perhaps I entered into academic life with a confidence borne of seeing my parents immersed and engaged in their own community.

***

One of the best things about a day at the Office was lunch. My parents’ work day seemed to start late, about 10 o’clock, and by noon or so (with a coffee break in between) we’d be talking about where to eat. Italian was the norm, and I’d gobble up my favourite: spaghetti Bolognese. Chinese was also very popular. Oma would take us some times. Davina and I had a reputation for being badly behaved, though I’m not sure we ever were. I do remember once, though, at the Dumpling Inn Chinese restaurant, breaking set after set of chopsticks as we used them for drumming. Oma said, many times after that, that we’d nearly got thrown out of the restaurant.

It wasn’t lost on me: the contradiction between the privilege that we had, and the communism that my parents—and I—espoused. Kids at school would sometimes tease me: if your parents are communists why do you live in a big house in Highgate (a posh London suburb)? One time, there was almost a revolution at my parents’ company. I found out because, driving to work one day, I could hear them talking about an employee—someone close to them—who was stirring up trouble. I was worried it was Auntie Rose and asked. They said ‘No’. It turned out it was the boyfriend of one of my older sisters, who had been working for my parents for about a year or so. He was a bright, ambitious young man, with a pointy beard that made him look like Guy Fawkes. My parents said he was an anarchist. This boyfriend had been steadily promoted, but was now asking that awkward question: if the company was advocating socialism, why was it owned by three bosses (my parents and Uncle Harry) and not a workers’ collective? Worse, he was actually trying to collectivise it. Around half or so of the employees rallied behind him, and for some time my parents were genuinely worried that they might lose control of the company, but eventually the boyfriend left and things returned to normal.

***

By the time I got to my mid-teens, going to the Office meant getting the tube in to Tottenham Court Road with James, badgering my dad for ‘Luncheon Vouchers’, then going off to McDonalds for Big Macs, fries, and milkshakes before spending the afternoon in the arcades. By that time, I was quite seriously addicted to fruit machines—something I only really kicked in my early 20s. Sometimes I took money from my parents. Worse was asking my parents for money to buy clothes, getting the cheapest possible, then spending the rest in the arcades. I think my own kids have been surprised that, when they’ve taken money from me without asking, I’ve never got that angry. But how could I when I did that even worse.

When I was around 18, my parents felt that they couldn’t afford the rents in Soho any more and moved their offices to our house in Highgate. My dad had his own office, my mum shared with a few other staff that moved with them (including, later, Eric Liknaitzky). But my dad was increasingly losing heart, and the realities of the film business at that time meant increasingly big financial risks, which my parents were never really willing to take. The fall of the Soviet empire—and the dissolution of the British Communist Party that followed—also really hit my dad: his life’s meaning had been fundamentally scythed and he never really recovered from that. Nevertheless, my dad continued to work well into his 80s, though by that time it was more sitting in his swivel chair, pushing around a few bits of paper, and speaking into his dictaphone. He talked of making a film about his grandfather Moishe who was kidnapped into the Czar’s army as a young Jewish boy, and actually wrote up a script. Almost 40 years later, my daughter, Maya, would turn that into a short film. 

***

Ironically, the films I adore now are exactly the sort that my parents’ distributed, and which I despised as a kid. Sometimes, I’ll see a really good film and, when I tell my mum about it, she’ll say, ‘Oh, that was one of ours’. I tease my kids—products of a TikTok era where nothing last longer than 10 seconds—that they should join me to watch seven hour epics about communal farms in Slovakia. ‘There’s a scene in it’, I tell them, ‘which goes on for an hour and consists of watching a doctor get drunk in real time.’

‘Daaaad….!’

‘And then there’s an opening shot of 20 minutes of cows walking across a field’. ‘Or we could watch the three hour one about the dad and his daughter in a hut eating potatoes’.

‘Daaad….!’

‘You know what happens?’

‘Whatttt?’

‘Their horse dies.’

***

As therapists, the focus of our work is often on how the past informs the present; and we know how complex this relationship is. Somehow, through these experiences of growing up around cinema—and through thousands of other experiences—I emerged: not created by these experiences; but touched and swayed and nudged. Something complex, rich, ethereal mingled with me, enticed me, helped me develop form. I shaped myself against this world: these people, this community, these machines. When I see myself as a whole, I am also the boy jumping on his dad’s sofa, and getting dragged out of the arcade, and answering the phone on his Auntie Rose’s lap; and all the traces of those experiences as they wove their way through my life. There’s no cause-and-effect here. No simple x made me y. But through that love, that culture, those experiences of joy and shame—through all that multifaceted, intermingled complexity—my own complex and multifaceted way of being and being-in-relation evolved.

Further information about my parents and Contemporary Films: