This section of the newsletter has changed name from Psychologists’ Corner as a result of us having acquired amazing clinical leads, who, together with the mental health coordinators, will continue to contribute to your thinking around all things caring, playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy.
Love Matters
When writing about something it seems best to start with a definition, but defining love feels like an impossible task. Words will no doubt fail me, dissolving into formlessness in my endeavour to be precise. Perhaps words are the problem and love cannot be wholly captured by any collection of them. Indeed, different expressions of love hold meaning for each of us: a song, a poem, a painting, a gesture, a gift.
Most of us might agree that the nature of love is unconditional. The author and diarist Anais Nin wrote “What is love but the acceptance of the other, whatever he is”. Carl Rogers, the father of person-centred therapy, gave us the concept of “unconditional positive regard”. Perhaps he, too, was talking of love. Whatever you name it, when you open your homes to children, you also open your hearts.
With Valentine’s Day this month the retailers are vying for our business with the Christmas sale shelves replaced with flowers, love heart embellished chocolates, teddy bears and cards. Romantic love is on the agenda, but our first love is with our parents or care givers, no matter how flawed. Many of our children in care have had a complex experience of love with parents not able to give what they themselves have not received. Open hearts and minds may be met with rejection, confusion or demand. The task of mature love is to survive these communications and to be curious, consistent and patient.
Valentine’s Day invites us to make grandiose expressions of love (for us Brits anyway) but if we pay attention, we find love in the day to day. Among the challenges of parenting, the pushed boundaries, the chaos, the mundane, there are those moments of joy. The times when eyes meet in mutual delight, that is love. Those moments that are felt by you and your child or foster child, those moments that transcend words and say so much more. Caring for a child is more than the provision of food, clothing and shelter: it is an interpersonal experience of being seen, heard and valued. It is through others that we become ourselves. While they are unlikely to be able to articulate it, children know when you are lost to them, and they know when you are present.
The good news is we do not need to be present all the time: we just need to be present enough of the time. Love is still there when we get it wrong; it is there when we repair and reconnect; and it is there when we need some time alone. Self-love matters, too: if we can bring compassionate curiosity to our own experience and daily challenges, we can continue to do this for those in our care with integrity and authenticity.
Hold on to those moments when love glimmers, however brief. They are little reminders of why you do what you do.
We thank you and we hold you in mind.
Ruth McGugan, Clinical Lead for North Quadrant