#151 Every Family Has a Story with Julia Samuel, MBE
24th May 2022
Some key takeaways from my chat with psychotherapist Julia Samuel about family triggers, how to open up, the power of food for memory and much more.
*Explicit Language warning*
Why do families drive us mad? And can we ever aspire to create a family environment that is functional or ‘ideal’?
To help explore these questions I have Julia Samuel MBE on the podcast today to help explain why there is no such thing as ‘the perfect’ family. And actually it’s through pain and even productive fighting that we can have rich, joyful and fulfilling family experiences that emotionally develop us.
Julia Samuel, MBE, is a leading British psychotherapist and the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers ‘This Too Shall Pass’ and ‘Grief Works’. During the last thirty years, she has worked first for the NHS and then in private practice, and she is Founder Patron of Child Bereavement UK and a Vice President of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She features regularly in the national media and has presented the podcasts A Living Loss and Grief Works.
Today we discuss:
- The concepts of love as medicine
- Why our food is particularly hardwired in our memories
- The universality of our experiences show that we are not alone.
- How we can examine “Inherited family patterns” and prevent trauma
- Why “Emotional connection is a basic human need”
- The importance of self compassion
- How family is the single most important influence on a child’s life and outcomes
Episode guests
Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist specialising in grief, who has spent the last twenty-nine years working with bereaved families. She has worked both in private practice and in the NHS at St Mary’s Hospital Paddington where she pioneered the role of maternity and paediatric psychotherapist. In 1994 she helped launch and establish the charity Child Bereavement UK, and continues her role as Founder Patron.
Julia was awarded an MBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list for services to bereaved children. Julia is the author of the best-selling book: Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving. She is a Vice President of British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and is an Honorary Doctor of Middlesex University.
