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The Dynamics of Power and Vulnerability – a conversation with Nick Duffell, psychotherapist, trainer, author and campaigner who has pioneered therapeutic work with ex-boarders, and specialist training for psychotherapists
Manage episode 482643317 series 2896143
Leaders in Conversation is the podcast in which leaders share their life and leadership stories; weaving together the people, places and experiences that have shaped their values, beliefs, passion and purpose to encourage and inspire you to be even more confident and courageous in your leadership.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
I had the pleasure of meeting Nick through a mutual colleague, Thurstine Basset. Together they were writing a book entitled ‘Trauma, Abandonment and Privilege’ and invited me to contribute something of my own experience. I was delighted to be asked by Nick to review his most recent book, edited by him, and released in April 2025, The Un-Making Of Them - Clinical Reflections on the Boarding School Syndrome.
In our conversation Nick offers valuable insights into:
- Why understanding our emotions is so important in our lives and leadership;
- The existential dynamics of power and vulnerability, and their relevance and importance to leadership;
- How dissociation disconnecting from ourselves and our environment - has become the engine of the modern world;
- The importance of learning about what transference is and group dynamics in leading, coaching, mentoring and facilitation.
Nick’s Three Key Encouragements to Leaders - taken from three principles given to Nick by the NHS to help with managing osteoarthritis:
- Understand your feelings: who you are, so your emotions can guide you rather than your feelings govern you;
- Exercise: practise new ways of being and behaviour;
- ‘Lose weight’: notice and let go of those things that are no longer serving you in order to be lighter, and to lighten what you are carrying.
To Contact Nick:
About Nick
Nick Duffell has a degree in Sanskrit from Oxford and is a psychotherapist, psychohistorian and author. His first book, 'The Making of Them: the British Attitude to Children and the Boarding School System' received wide critical acclaim, including endorsements by the British Medical Journal and John Le Carré. Here he set out his pioneering research in group therapy with ‘boarding school survivors,' as he provocatively named adult ex-boarders. Nick co-founded the Centre for Gender Psychology and co-authored 'Sex, Love and the Danger of Intimacy.'
A contributor to the University of Surrey Human Potential Group's 'Dictionary of Personal Development' and to many psychological journals, Nick is committed to the development of psychohistory as a tool for understanding current world problems. He is particularly interested in promoting a Depth-Psychology perspective of issues which affect our public life very deeply, such as identity and emotions, fear and vulnerability, but about which political commentators currently lack the means to properly address.
His books include ‘Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion - a Psychohistory,’ 2014, and ‘The SIMPOL Solution: solving global problems could be easier than we think’ with John Bunzl.
He contributed chapters to ‘The Political Self,’ (Karnac 2016) and to ‘Humanistic Psychology: Current Trends, Future Prospects’, (Routledge 2017). He has recently worked on an experimental project at UCL to use VR technology in the treatment of developmental trauma, and his latest book 'The Un-Making of Them: Clinical Reflections on Boarding School Syndrome' is published by Routledge in April 2025.
To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com
To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.
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