Online Psychotherapeutic Therapy based on the Fylde Coast
Bluebeard: What the Fairy Tale Teaches Us About Secrets, Lies and Liberation
Bluebeard isn’t just a Gothic fairy tale about a forbidden room.
It’s a blueprint for how secrecy, control, and coercion work in real relationships—and how the process of waking up begins the second you look at the thing you’re not supposed to look at. This story is for everyone who has ever felt the pull between intuition and obedience, between the truth your body is screaming and the lies you’ve been told to swallow. In this article, we’ll dive into the underlying teachings in Bluebeard, why certain people require your silence, what the bleeding key symbolises, and how opening the door is the first step home to yourself. If you’ve ever carried the burden of someone else’s secrets, this story will provide you not with fear, but freedom.
Rumpelstiltskin: The Price of Sacrifice & Relationship Identity
Fairy tales are therapeutic containers because they reflect our own relational dynamics.
Rumpelstiltskin is one of the most psychologically loaded for understanding sacrifice, loss of identity, trauma responses, and maladaptive relational patterns.
Beneath the magic and mystery is a question many of us carry in our shadows:
What parts of yourself have you sacrificed to maintain the peace, to stay loved, or to feel safe?
This is why Rumpelstiltskin is one of the most used stories in psychotherapy and shadow work; it shows the unconscious bargains we make in relationships, families, and survival systems.
What if the story of The Three Little Pigs is really a story about attachment styles?
When we look through a relational lens at the classic fairy tale of the three little pigs, each pig becomes a symbol for how we build emotional "homes", some fragile, some rigid, some steady. The Big Bad Wolf represents the pressures, fears, and old wounds that test those structures. Anxious attachment builds quickly and seeks safety; avoidant attachment builds alone and avoids vulnerability; secure attachment builds slowly with trust. This familiar tale shows how our early experiences shape how we seek protection, respond to threats, and lean on others. Most importantly, it reminds us that we can always rebuild stronger relationships—brick by brick—when we have support.
The Robber Bridegroom: Guilt and Shame in Relationships
Fairy tales speak in symbols, but The Robber Bridegroom speaks a truth many trauma survivors know in their bones. It’s a story about the quiet ways guilt and shame pull us down paths we already know are dangerous. About how we override our instincts to be “good,” even when the forest is dark. And about what happens when someone’s shadow finally shows itself—and we realise our body knew the truth long before our mind allowed it.
Snow White and Grief: the Slow Return to Life
Grief doesn’t move through us alone, it moves between us. It alters how we reach out to others, how we allow ourselves to be held, how we speak, withdraw, cling, or soften.
When someone we love dies (or when we lose a relationship, a dream, a version of ourselves), we don’t just lose the person. We lose a dynamic. A rhythm. A way of belonging.
And so grief becomes not only an emotional experience, but a relational one.
Hansel and Gretel: A Fairy Tale to Explore the Inner Child
Like many fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel tap into the psyche, illuminating our fears, desires, and interpersonal dynamics. In this tale of abandonment, fear, and redemption, there are deep therapeutic insights to be gleaned. It’s about early fears, neglect, and ultimately overcoming obstacles.
Cinderella and the Drama Triangle: Fairy Tales Teach Us Relationship Patterns
Fairy tales are more than bedtime stories; they are mirrors of the human psyche, reflecting patterns that we play out over and over in life and in relationships. One of the most iconic fairy tales, Cinderella, provides a rich lens for understanding the cyclical roles we enact with others through the powerful model of the Drama Triangle. By exploring Cinderella through the Drama Triangle, we can gain a deeper understanding of the roles we unconsciously play, break unhealthy cycles, and reclaim agency over our own lives and relationships.
Why Men’s Mental Health Needs a Relational Revolution
In my therapy practice, I’ve rarely met a mental health struggle that isn’t quietly relational. Hidden in the recesses of our minds, in the interaction between people, in the family myths we grew up with. The battle for men’s mental health needs a revolution and relational dynamic therapy might be just the start.
Archetypes of Trauma: The Inner Characters That Hold Our Wounds
We all carry hidden characters within us: inner archetypes born from the ways we learned to survive love, loss, and disconnection. Trauma doesn’t just leave scars; it shapes stories, teaching us who we must become to stay safe. In this piece, we meet the archetypes of trauma — the Caretaker, the Invisible One, the Controller, and more — not as flaws to fix, but as parts longing to return home. When we listen to them with compassion, protection transforms into power, and pain into wisdom.
Understanding Attachment Styles in Relationships
Why do some people cling tightly in love while others pull away the moment things get close? Our early experiences of safety, comfort, and care shape how we connect as adults forming what is known as attachment styles. In this post, we’ll explore the four main attachment styles, how they show up in relationships, and how understanding yours can help you build healthier, more secure connections.
The Drama Triangle
Many relationship conflicts repeat the same exhausting pattern — one person feels victimised, another over-functions, and someone ends up blamed. This is the Drama Triangle in action. In this blog, we explore how these roles of Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor quietly shape our connections — and how to step out of the cycle into healthier, more conscious relating.
What Is Relational Trauma and How It Repeats in Patterns
Relational trauma is one of the most common yet misunderstood forms of emotional pain. Unlike a single overwhelming event, relational trauma develops through repeated experiences within important relationships—often in childhood, but it can also occur in adulthood. These are the relationships that are supposed to feel safe: with parents, caregivers, partners, or close family members. When safety, trust, or love is consistently disrupted, the nervous system learns to adapt in ways that may help us survive at the time but later become painful patterns in adulthood.
In this blog, we’ll explore what relational trauma is, how it shows up in everyday life, and why it often repeats itself in cycles until we begin the process of healing.