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The word “love” can feel risky in child protection, but we keep coming back to it because the best care is never just a checklist. I'm joined by Kate Brown, an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor, former therapeutic community practitioner, and editor-in-chief of the Attachment journal. Kate also completed a PhD on the Cotswold Community, asking a deceptively hard question: what was the “unspoken but unmistakable” presence of love that people wrote about, and how did it actually show up day to day?
We unpack “therapeutic love” as something you do, not something you declare. Kate draws on a grounded definition: care, respect, responsibility and knowledge. From the temperature of a cup of hot chocolate to taking responsibility for mistakes, we talk about how trauma-informed residential therapeutic childcare is built from hundreds of small, thoughtful acts that create containment, safety and the possibility of secure attachment. We also explore the intergenerational lens: what children receive now can shape the adults and parents they become later, even if the benefits are hard to measure in short-term outcomes and tidy KPIs.
Then we go to the hard edges of the work: violence, restraint, staff defensiveness, and the question of whether staff themselves feel held by management and systems. Kate shares why reflective practice, supervision, external consultancy and genuine care for staff are not “nice to have” extras, but protections against burnout and harmful cultures. We finish by challenging the idea that residential care should always be a last resort, and what it takes to do it well: the right staff, clear routines, strong assessment and real transparency.
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About Kate:
Kate Brown, PhD, is a Bowlby Centre-trained UKCP-registered attachment-basedpsychoanalytic psychotherapist who started her career in therapeutic communities working with adults and adolescents individually and in groups.
Kate has worked with young mothers and in community psychiatric services with patients’ families. She has also worked with former servicemen who had experienced complex trauma.
Kate is a course tutor at The Bowlby Centre, and has delivered freelance training. Kate completed an MSc in psychotherapeutic approaches in mental health in 2012, and completed her PhD at Middlesex University entitled “Where is the love? A psychoanalytic history of the Cotswold Community”.
Email: kb@talktherapy.net
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Disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. Finally, all references to case examples are anonymised to the extent that the actual case could not be identified, or are fictional but based on real-life examples for illustrative purposes, or have client consent to talk about in an educative context.
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