alex renton

Mervin Canham is an addictions specialist and co-leader at The Mankind Project (MKP). The MKP is an organisation aimed at changing the world one man at a time, allowing men to touch a piece of their shadow by being vulnerable with other men. 

Questions he answers:

1. I would love for you to share how you got into the work that you now do?
2. Could you please talk about addictions and addiction recovery. What was your recovery journey like and how did you get clean?
3. What was it like as a boy growing up in South Africa? What were you taught? You mentioned in another podcast that you lost your brother to suicide? How was that?
4. Could you talk about men's work and the Mankind Project? What have you learned from your years in the MKP?
5. Other areas to talk about:
   1. Vulnerability
   2. Crying
   3. Mission and purpose
   4. Confidentiality
   5. I Statements
   6. 10 Day Silent Retreat
   7. Men's circles and sitting in circles
   8. Trauma and addictions
6. How do people find out more about your work?

#addictionrecovery #mankindproject #mensmentalhealth #tears

Connect with Mervin Canham:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brothershabazz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mervin.canham
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mervin-canham-16237722b/

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

This episode hears from one of the US's leading paediatrician's Dr Claudia M Gold. Here she speaks about attachment theory, the power of discord – the importance of having ups and downs in relationships and how that links in to childhood trauma and especially boarding school syndrome.

Some of the areas we talk about are containment, the power of being heard, rupture and mismatch and uncertainty as they relate to relationships. We also talk about Prince Harry and how his experiences of boarding school and the death of his mother Princess Diana. 

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Claudia M. Gold, MD is a pediatrician and writer who practiced general and behavioral pediatrics for over 20 years and now specializes in early childhood mental health. 

She is on the faculty of the U-Mass Chan Medical School Early Relational Fellowship, the Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute. 

She is a clinician with Volunteers in Medicine, Berkshires and director of the Hello It’s Me Project, a community-based program supporting parent-infant relationships in high-need low resourced communities. 

Dr. Gold speaks frequently to a variety of audiences including parents and professionals. 

Some of the questions/ areas for conversation:

1. I would love you to share some of your journey. How did you arrive at where you are now?
2. I would love to hear you speak about the power of being heard & feeling heard.
3. Could you explain what containment is – Winnicott, etc?
4. I would be really interested in hearing you speak about the power of very early interactions.  One of the discussions going on in the boarding school literature over here is whether the ‘attachment break’ that has been seen as occurring at the point at which a child is ‘sent away’ to boarding school (at 6 or 7 or 8 or 11 years old) is the key ‘break’ – or whether we should be looking earlier.  If you are a child born into a family that ‘belongs’ to a culture/class that EXPECTS to send you away (and which may well hire a nanny for your early care), what are the impacts of being born into such a parenting culture/class?  How does this change the way they expect (and do) interact with you?  What happens when you layer a schooling ‘attachment break’ on top of that, as opposed to the ‘break’ coming as a scholarship or other unexpected ‘opportunity’?  
5. Boarding School experiences are full of unrepaired ruptures.  I would love to hear you speak about the impact of those.
6. Leading on from question 4, I would love you to speak to what age it is appropriate for a child to be separated from their parents. And is there a healthy way of doing this? What are the impacts on an adult who has been through this rupture? Are there certain symptoms?
7. Discord P.31 – What happens if there is discord in a relationship but it is never healed? E.g. a child is sent away to board and never has a chance to speak up or heal the rupture?
8. Certainty P.226 – I love what you say about certainty and how it “leads us away

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

In today's podcast I am interviewing Alex Renton who is the author of the book Stiff Upper Lip and producer of the ITV documentary Secret Shame about child abuse at boarding school.

Alex is a writer and journalist whose career has ranged from arts and food writing to politics and the investigation of child abuse. His career as a war reporter and development worker took him to the Middle East, Africa, East Asia and the Balkans. He has worked for The Independent, The Times, Newsweek, and the London Evening Standard and contributed to a host of other newspapers and magazines. He is also the author of the e-book Planet Carnivore: how cheap meat costs the earth (Guardian Shorts, 2015).

Alex has won many awards for his work in investigative journalism, conflict and development reporting and for food writing, including the One World Award and the Glenfiddich Trophy.

Born in Canada, educated in English boarding schools and at Exeter University, Alex now lives in Edinburgh with his wife, son and daughter.

Here are some of the questions that I asked him:

1. I would love for you to share your own boarding school journey and how things changed for you in 2013 with the article you read about child abuse at the boarding school you attended?
   
   
   
2. What are some of the insights that you have had from publicly sharing your journey? Have people in the main been critical or supportive of you?
   
   
   
3. I would love to hear what you have found out re boarding school and complex trauma. I am hearing people talk about PTSD and boarding school syndrome. What is your sense of this analysis?
   
   
   
4. What do you see are some of the main issues that we as ex-boarders present? e.g. relationship problems, emotionally shut down etc. 
   
   
5. My work is in helping people to heal from boarding school wounds. I would love to hear what you have found has helped others in the stories that you have heard? What has worked for you?
   
   
   
6. I love in your book how you talk about initiation (P.41). I would love to speak a little about how boarding school could be seen as an initiation – although not a healthy one. What could we do instead to help initiate boys and girls?
   
   
   
7. What is your vision for the future re boarding schools. Can we change the system? If so how do you feel we can change the system? Can we stop early boarding? What is the future of BS?
   
   
   
8. What are you doing next? How do people get in touch with you or get your book?

Alex also shared about the IICSA and said the following: “I think if we are going to get results out of it for children in residential care, in terms of solid safeguarding protocols and hard law to protect them and the whistleblowers, it will be largely because of Tom Perry's tireless work with mandatenow.org.uk

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/