The Systemic Way
The Systemic Way Podcast is a therapy and mental health podcast featuring conversations with experts, practitioners, researchers, and people with lived experience from the worlds of systemic psychotherapy, family therapy, psychology, social work, and community practice. Hosted by Sezer and Julie, two systemic and family psychotherapists, the podcast explores mental health, relationships, trauma, resilience, social justice, culture, and change. Through engaging discussions on theory, practice, and real-world experiences, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how systemic and relational approaches can support individuals, families, organisations, and communities.
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The Systemic Way
Once Upon A Time In Grandmotherland: Myths, Meanings and Cultural Discourses with Dr Judith Edwards
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In Grandmotherland, Dr Judith Edwards offers an exploration of Grandmotherhood as an intergenerational, relational, and socially constructed position. Drawing on myth, fairy tales, family narratives, and contemporary lived experience, she examines how dominant cultural discourses shape expectations of grandmothers and organise family roles, boundaries, and power across generations. Judith attends to patterns of transmission, alliance, exclusion, and care, situating Grandmotherhood within wider socio-economic and cultural contexts—including the increasing reliance on grandmothers for childcare. Grandmotherland invites systemic practitioners and scholars to rethink grannyhood not as a fixed role, but as a dynamic position shaped by relationships, histories, and social structures.
Judith Edwards is a child and adolescent psychotherapist who has worked for over thirty years at the Tavistock Clinic in London. Love the Wild Swan: The Selected Works of Judith Edwards was published by Routledge in their World Library of Mental Health series, and her edited book, Psychoanalysis and Other Matters: Where Are We Now? was also published by Routledge. From 1996 to 2000, she was joint editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy. Apart from her clinical experience, one of her principal interests is in the links between psychoanalysis, culture, and the arts, as well as making psychoanalytic ideas accessible to a wider audience. She has an international academic publishing record and in 2010 was awarded the Jan Lee memorial prize for the best paper linking psychoanalysis and the arts during that year: ‘Teaching & Learning about Psychoanalysis: Film as a teaching tool’.
Welcome to the Systemic Way. In today's episode, Julie and I meet with Dr. Judith Edwards, who was a consultant, child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tabisdoc for many years. She was a course tutor for the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies for 10 years and gave up the role in July 2011. Apart from publishing papers in academic journals internationally, she also contributed to many books. Today we've got the pleasure of speaking with Judith about her most recent book, Grandmotherland: Exploring the Myths and Realities. In Grandmotherland, Judith offers a systemic exploration of Grandmotherhood as an intergenerational, relational, and socially constructed position. Drawing on myths, fairy tales, family narratives, and contemporary lived experiences, she examines how dominant cultural discourses shape expectations of grandmothers and organize family roles, boundaries, and power across generations. Judith attends to patterns of transmission, alliance, exclusion, and care, situating grandmotherhood within the wider socio, economic, and cultural context, including an increasing reliance on grandmothers for childcare. The book invites systemic practitioners and scholars to rethink Grannyhood, not as a fixed role, but as a dynamic position shaped by relationships, histories, and social structures. Julie, in upon reflection on the episode, the thing that really stood out for me was just the depth of thinking about one particular family role and how our history and how our cultures influenced the expectations or the definitions or the the kind of um creation of what grannies, grandmothers, nannies, nanes, what they should be like. And it was a real um it was a real heartwarming episode. I really enjoyed how Judith dives into this and thinking about her own life cycle and her own life stage and her own grandmotherhood. It was a really, really fascinating conversation and something that I think our our listeners would really enjoy. What stood out for you, Judith?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was thinking the same, Cesar, about how nice it is to sort of go really in depth with one role and the role of grandmother, I'm gonna say far more, which is because that was it for me with Norwegian to bring some language into it. Um, and I guess to sort of add to it, I think from speaking to Judith, I just sort of got that sort of fairy tale myth and creativity and the opportunity, I suppose, of um what we can do to explore certain roles and to write a book all around it and the richness that it can also offer to our practice. So, in a way, that sort of collision really and that in invitation of the all the different places that our systemic practice can go. So I found it really exciting, and I'm here with a smile on my face, and it was just really wonderful to speak to Judith and to have a privilege really to hear about her own journey with grandmothering and the complexities that can come with that and the joy. I hope the listeners will enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, and welcome to the Systemic Way, Judith Edwards. It's a real thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02It's it's a real pleasure to be here. Now we've got online.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. We're here to talk to you about the book you've written recently, Grandmotherland Exploring and Realities.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, and thinking about some of those ideas within the book. Well, so to hear a little bit about yourself, Judith.
SPEAKER_02Well, um, I'm I'm Dr. Judith Edwards, and I worked at the Tavi for nearly 40 years before I retired. Uh, and um and then I started writing. And so this book, Grandmotherland, came out of a really, really difficult and sad situation because at that time I was out of contact with my grandchildren, and I felt really sad and alone and vulnerable. And then I found there were loads of other people. I went on to the internet and I and I and I found there was a um a group of people. There were over there are over two million kids that don't see their grandparents, which is a lot. And and as I think we all know, uh children really do benefit from good relationships with their grandparents. So um that's that's that's a huge knack. And um so I I just started writing, and um my uh my dear late friend Hilary Mantell, she said um this is an area right for exploration. Uh, and and so I decided to sort of dive straight in, which I did. And and and and what I wanted to do was explore some of the myths around being a grandparent and some of the realities about being a grandparent and where they where they came together and where they didn't.
SPEAKER_01Judith, I I was I suppose my curiosity when when you were talking about that was um, I suppose you know you've got your background as a psychotherapist.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01And so I was sort of curious about how that background um interweaves with the book that you've written and perhaps the myths and realities of being a grandkid. Right.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, it was so interesting because I thought, actually, what have I done wrong? You know, because I had a lot of colleagues and friends who had decent enough relationships with their uh with their grandkids, and yet I didn't. And and so I started to think about all the different aspects that come together with being a being a grand, it's grandparent as well as grandmotherland, but I but I was thinking about grandmothers. And so it's it's kind of history and it's geography, and it's personal history, it's personality, uh, and it's the kind of um the way in which this all comes together to form something which uh can be seen to be quite a saccharine sort of thing. And I was what I wanted to do, there's a book by someone called W. G. Sebalt called Ostelitz, and he talks about um the uh the the painted scene behind the battle of Ostelitz. And I wanted to see something about the behind the painted scene, which is put up for grandmothers, because there's a huge um issue about you know, grandmothers and are they what are they like? Are they practically perfect? Um, and what do you what do you have to do to be one? Do you, you know, you actually are, if you have kids and they have kids, you are automatically a grandparent. Um, but you know, whether or not this is something which will be easy or more difficult, um, will be affected by all these different issues. And and actually it is, it's a whole system, as you know, of how of the way things come together in a particular way. There's no one size fits all here. Uh it's it'll be come together in a particular way because of the particular circumstances of that particular family and that particular grandparent.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Judy. I want us to kind of dive into some of the key themes and ideas come out of the book. Well, I've got a question just before I guess hearing you say um your own estrangement would it be from um in your family as a grandmother at the time, it kind of drove you to write the book. And I'm thinking what your hopes were for the book and what you would want the audience, what might be some of the key messages that you want audiences to take from it?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's very important um to actually have an understanding that it might be you, but it might not be you, it might be something else in the whole system which makes it very, very difficult. And um, we all have the history of our own grandparents, and I had really good history with my grandparents, although it was complicated, and so um one actually has to unpick it all as you go along. Does that make um sense? Is that enough for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um maybe maybe we should talk about some of the key ideas, and one of the yes, one of the ones that initially that was sticking out was the kind of cultural myths and stereotypes, yes, apple cheeked granny and the monster grandma, and thinking about the impact on kind of societal expectations on grandmothers. You speak would you like to speak a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's interesting that uh I thought about the idea of Granny being off her rocker, and it used to be that that was thought to be you were a bit mad. But actually, uh grannies are off their rockers now and they're they're they're working, and they haven't lost their marbles either. They are working, and and it actually doesn't make it that easy for them to look after their grandchildren if the um if the um parents assume that they're going to be the child minders because they aren't necessarily going to do that.
SPEAKER_01I guess sorry, um my head's going here, Judith. I'm just thinking of actually about the changing role and expectations of being prepared from you know, from now, from I guess for instance, you become a grandparent to when maybe your parents were grandparents, you know. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's interesting. And I think there is, I've just um turned up here. Um when I went on the internet when I was I was very, very feeling very sad and vulnerable, and now I do have. I mean, we it has taken a lot of money, but anyway, I I I am now seeing my grandchildren, which is great. And and there are all these books on the internet, and there was one called the complete guide to practically perfect grandparenting. Well, sorry, but there isn't such a thing. And there's the pocketbook of the good grannies, stuff every grandmother should know, your first grandchild, the survival guide. So, you know, is there is there something you need to survive in order to carry on and thrive and let your grandchildren thrive? And you know, there's it's a two-way process. The grandparents are very important for the grandchildren, and the grandchildren are very important for the grandparents, and so it's it's definitely a a two-way process, and we all have our our memories of um our own grandparents, and there's a there's um a chapter in this book called Flow and Co. And it's about my own grandmother, Flo, and it's about lots of other grannies as well, and and how and how they actually fitted into this this um idea of what a grandmother should be. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Yes. Um there is an idea that a grandparent I mean it's interesting actually that um there's always there's a there's a three-person relationship because there's the the son or the daughter and the daughter-in-law or the son-in-law, and that's that's the that's the couple, and this is as it should be. And then, but then there's the the grandparent. And um, you know, and it's how and how do you find a way of managing that without interfering, uh, without waiting um too long to be asked, but actually being there um in order to be what is necessary uh and what is needed in that particular family. And it may be difficult to find out until you're actually in it, and it's different in every family that that there's a kind of um uh I think I I did um say to you that on Facebook they had, you know, they have these happy, happy photos of people, and that's she's not that like that all the time. And um when I was working years and years ago, um there was a woman, and she was a very kind of ordinary down-to-earth woman, and she said, Oh yes, she said, there's the mother care baby, and then there's the one you get. Well, it's the same with being a granny, that that actually there's there's all this kind of fantasy. Um, and and I and I talked a lot about um the heifer lump. And I don't know if you maybe you don't know about the A.A. Milne's book, The House at Pooh Corner. And actually um uh Christopher Robin came along and Pooh and Piglet said, We're going to catch a heifer lump. Um, and actually, of course, a heifer lump is a is a mythical creature, and so's a granny. And so I thought maybe we needed to have a granny trap and actually see what we could find uh and and and actually um offer up what what is available and see how it can fit in and and how it maybe doesn't. And and and so there's a way in which Dickens wrote that book called Great Expectations. I think it's very important to have very tiny expectations, even no expectations as a grandparent, because you just really need to fit in with what is needed and what feels appropriate to the parents. Does that um answer your question, Julia?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does. It it I mean it it it kind of took me to wondering about your experience of flow, actually. Um and some of your memories from being grandparented, because I'm sure that will shape would have shaped.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And and and you know, something very difficult happened, which you know, if if you want to read my book, Pieces of Molly, you would find out what happened. But anyway, before that happened, um my my grandparents were terribly important people in my life. Uh and and so they did really shape how I thought I could be as a grandmother when my grandchildren came along. But it didn't turn out like that.
SPEAKER_01That you had as I suppose I suppose part of writing this book is that you found your own pathways with it. And that's just something of sharing that it makes me think of like what what your expectation and your thoughts of becoming a grandparent might be, but also kind of the new pathways that you exactly, and and uh as as Emerson, the 19th century philosopher, said our purpose is not to be happy but to be useful.
SPEAKER_02And he also said, uh, don't go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. And that's that's what I wanted to do because I thought actually, nobody's really done this before. And it is actually quite surprising that no one's done it before, but uh there you go. It's it's been done now, and you know, I just feel um this is a kind of I'm happy that I've that I've done this, and hopefully it will help people. Um all along the way, there's the the good granny, the bad granny, the granny in the deep dark wood, and there's something fascinating about when I asked people uh what their what their memories were of grandparents' stories, everybody said Red Riding Hood. And I thought, well, this is amazing. So I then went on to the internet, good old internet, and I found there are 58 different versions. And then actually, you know, on the on the superficial level, it's oh yes, you know, uh don't dilly-dally in the deep dark wood and don't pick flowers and go straight to granny's house. I mean, which would you have a granny in a deep dark wood? You wouldn't now. There'd be huge safeguarding issues, however. Um, and then I thought, maybe actually, the big bad wolf is the other side of the good granny. And and there was a way in which uh Money Curl, who was an early uh analyst, said, uh, we've all got dynamite in our pockets. And and that actually, who had the dynamite? Was it the granny or was it the little girl that made made the granny into the person with the big ears and the big teeth? Um having been the sweet other side of the granny.
SPEAKER_00That's fascinating. Um it is. The various versions of Liver and Ridinghood. And also in your chapter where it's grandmothers around the world, you talk about the differences and similarities. Yes. Could you tell us a little bit about that journey in the process of researching? I imagine there's the different kind of construction of one more.
SPEAKER_02No, I did I did a lot of research about this and uh grandmothers all the way around the world. And it's interesting, for instance, um I I saw a Chinese analyst the other day, and she and we were talking about the the one child policy in in China. It's been relaxed now, but she said everybody wanted a little piece of this child, and uh in Japan, uh it was it was um considered absolutely the norm for the the for the granny to move in with with the mother and to look after the the mother and the and the new grandparent and the new child. But actually, they found that uh that the the satisfaction rating went down hugely uh because of course no granny can fulfill all these expectations, so it's best to have none, as I said. Uh and that um, you know, it it does vary around the world in some cultures. Um grannies are the disciplinarians, in some cultures they're not. Uh, and and those I I ended this chapter with something about um Israeli and Palestine, and that and that actually the Israeli grannies and the Palestinian grannies got together and they called themselves the Grannies Project. And the Palestinian granny said, I don't want to be a grandmother of a dead body.
SPEAKER_00And there's something about you know really trying to kind of go forward and and and see if something helpful can be put in place in terms of um not killing but actually having live bodies making me really think, Judith, about this um this mythical creature of the grandmother and how it lives in societies and communities and and the grand role of grandmothers.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And it's interesting actually that that we think in our in in Western white western culture, when we're old, I mean I'm 80 for goodness sake, um you know, you're considered elderly. But actually in other c in indigenous uh cult cultures you're thought of as the elders, and I think that's much better because there's something about the wisdom that you've picked up along the way, which isn't nothing.
SPEAKER_01Do you think in terms of the book that you've written, it makes me wonder about going through through the process of writing the book and exploring grandparenting, let's say, and grand being in grandmother land and journey to it. Um you know what was what what was there something that sort of surprised you in your sort of discovery?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the Red Riding Hood thing was pretty interesting. Um, and actually, um Confer, look, I'm gonna show you. Confer, um unfortunately, they they um collapsed and and but they did manage to do this really interesting book cover. And at first I found it hard to read, and I thought, I don't understand this, but actually it talks about the high, it's really the highs and the lows that actually even good grannies can have times when they don't feel so um. Brilliant. And they can't. It's interesting that actually some grannies I know who are good grannies didn't want to write at all because they, you know, they felt it was all very delicate. And other people thought they could write and they and they did. And people did write about being bad grannies. And actually, you know, it's very difficult when for people that are bad grannies, um, that that actually, you know, people might say, well, turn to better objects, but actually, it's quite hard to do that if you're you're because you're involved in what's being called ambiguous grief or a living bereavement. There's something, it just doesn't go away. And you can you can think about these grandchildren growing up, and you're not part of their lives. And I and I and I'm so pleased now to be part of my grandchildren's lives. And and um, and one of them said to me, Um, Granny, I love you to the stars and back. There's something about actually this relationship which is tremendously important if it's allowed just to be. It's not about doing, it's about being. And uh one of the things I looked up was um Melanie Klein as a grandparent. And uh, of course, Freud Freud was a grandparent to Lucian Freud and Clement Freud, and they two brothers who never spoke because uh Lucian Freud was considered to be the favorite one, so they say. But anyway, Mel Melanie Klein, um she uh her uh two of her grandchildren were talking about um their experience, and they said, well, she didn't really play board games and stuff with this, but she listened a lot. Uh and uh and I think that's very important to be able to listen and think and just be. Melanie Klein had another daughter called Melita, and they they had very, very public um spats and altercations. And Melita didn't have a child, but I don't I think if she had a child, Melanie Klein would have been a bad granny.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm interested in what you think then some of the insights that the book offers um on the kind of the emotional and relational toll of grandmothering.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Um particularly when it's kind of like the significant caregiving responsibilities, when they have that role.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Well, and when I when I worked, I worked for many years in a family um consultation center, and I saw quite a lot of families, Filipino families, where it was quite the norm to send the children back to be with the grandparents in the Philippine, uh Philippines and send money to them. But actually, that did create difficulties for the children in bonding with their own parents. And and so, you know, there's all sorts of different ways in which how this plays out according to culture affects the children.
SPEAKER_01And in in I suppose, yeah, how it plays out in regards to culture, and then it also kind of makes me think um where my head was going to towards, I suppose that will then shape identity in some degree. Yes. Made me think about sort of um attachment as well. I didn't know more for you to say if you wanted to share around that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I I think it's tremendously important to actually feel that there is a family culture where there can be attachment to many different people, and the grandparents can be um uh people, cousins that the that the grandchildren are attached to as well as the parents. Uh but also, of course, it's very difficult because sometimes there is the idea that um if if the children are attached to the grandparents, they might not love the parents so much. And so there can be separation issues as well. So it's a it's a kind of multifaceted business. And as I said, you know, you can't you can have a few general ideas in the back of your head, but every time you meet a family, you kind of need to put those in the background and just think what's going on. Uh, and uh it's interesting to go back to Melanie Klein. Um her daughter didn't have any um children, but her other her other daughter was married to her son Eric, and and and she was called Judy, and uh she left the baby with a neighbour and went out and she said the baby was fine. Ah, said Melanie, it was repressed grief. Well, you know, that's I think it was quite um courageous of her to say that, because uh, you know, it's uh it's sometimes tremendously uh uh important to hold back and not not not come on being all um sort of omniscient and and no and knowing things, but just let the parents find it out themselves.
SPEAKER_00That's really helpful to hear because my my next question was thinking about like systemic family therapists, you know, like we're systemic family therapists, and we're I guess I'm interested in what you think about um how some of the ideas in in the book might help systemic family therapists understand the role of grandmothers or grandparents in in family systems.
SPEAKER_02That's a very good question, Cesar, and I think I don't know the answer. I think it is something which um when people read the book and think about it, things um that occur to them in particular family systems that they're working with will come to mind. And and again, it's not a one-size fits all, it really isn't. And and it's about actually um seeing how this fits with this particular family system, uh, and and and how how this plays out uh in terms of how the parents relate to the children, how the children relate to the grandparents, and how the grandparents relate to the children. And it is always a multifaceted business.
SPEAKER_00You you also talk a little bit about the importance of humor. Could you say a bit more about that?
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, yes. It sometimes you just it's about there's there's a thing on the the internet is a marvelous thing, isn't it, when it's not being difficult. Uh and and and actually there is something sometimes about not taking things personally and just laughing a bit. Uh and and and and and actually, and it's interesting, my my grandchildren. Um, I was I saw them, and was it last weekend? And uh the two eldest were um looking at some screens, and my son said, Um, oh granny will help you because he was doing something else with uh uh the little one. And and my my eldest grandchild who's eight he said, Oh, granny's rubbish with computers, she doesn't know anything about them. And of course, that's true, and so I had a laugh. It's very important not to take it personally because of course there are all sorts of things that we are rubbish at, and we we um we can't turn the clock back. However, um it's very important, and I and I have found that actually I'm not the only one that finds it really quite hard uh to sort out how to be, uh, and how to be in a particular situation rather than be busy doing stuff. You don't need to be doing things, you need to be kind of being in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00Does that make sense? It's being a grandparent, a doing grandparenting, the distinction between the two.
SPEAKER_02Yes, exactly, exactly, and you know, and doing, well, you know, you might do a bit of that, but if it's all about doing and there's not about thinking and being, then it might not be that brilliant in the long term. But you know, it's it's it's very important to look at what's said in the book and look at it in terms of a particular family that you're seeing uh and seeing how it plays out for them, because it will be different. It will be different, be different because the parents have had different relationships with their own grandparents. Uh, and I I read there's another thing online, well, actually, it was in The Guardian last week, about um there are some adult children who just won't let their who divorce their parents really, and and so that the the parents don't have any relationship with the grandchildren. Well, that's really, really, really sad. And hopefully, you know, there can be some thinking and talking, and as we know in our profession, talking helps a huge amount.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Judith. I think as we've been having this conversation with you, it's taken me back to stories that I've heard my parents share about their grandparents and the sort of the roles that they played in in their life. Like I know for my dad, for example, he he often talks about um his grandparents lived lived above lived above them, so it was kind of a place of retreat that he could run and to be held and to be heard to get away from sort of rules at home, for example. Yes. And you know, and then I sort of journeyed a bit, I suppose, to to my own relationship with my grandparents, and and it made me think of food as one thing of going and food and sharing food with them and going off on adventures. And then I suppose you brought brought us to me to also then thinking about being in a room with families, and like you said, like how how is a systemic family? You know, we we sit in the room often, and then how many times have I invited those stories or explored stories really about grandparents and and how much it might offer internally?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, Julie. And I think there's something always about saying, and what was it like for you? Just quite simple, you don't have to make it complicated, and things things come pouring out, they do. Because they're part of all our they're part of all our internal worlds.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we may not get any of this back, but it is inside our minds, yeah, and and and I guess even within that, it's um I suppose there's something about presence as well when you're talking about being that the presence of a a grandparent, the being of the being in that space imprints something quite important, I guess, in people, which I guess links in some way to attach attachment in the way that um yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02And actually, I'm sorry to interrupt you here, Julie, but just want to say that some parents um actually would like their grandparents to be the child minders because they feel they didn't really do a very good job, and perhaps the grandparents can do a better job. Uh you know, it there's so many fantasies, unconscious fantasies, pH fantasies as well as f fantasies, um that that actually make up the whole situation in any in any family.
SPEAKER_00Judith, I'm interested in this idea of um corrective family scripts and where grandparents being in a particular life stage, life cycle um stage of their life, at times may have an opportunity to um correct some of their um maybe some of the challenges or difficulties they had in their relationship with their children, they then have other opportunity with the grandchildren to undo some of that stuff or to to reorg some of their kind of relationships and what that experience might be like for the parent, seeing the grandparent's relationship with their child.
SPEAKER_02I know. I again, you know, I think you have to, I think you have to tiptoe here. You really do, and it's no good going in with the hobnail boots, even if you are Melanie Klein, uh and actually thinking you can sort it all out because you know the parent that they're they're not your children. They're the parent. This is the news, as I say in the book, you're not in control anymore. It's the parents that are in control, and it's and it's very important to kind of think with them and um defer to them really, uh, that actually these these aren't your children. You may have all sorts of um opinions uh about um how they're being brought up, but you just need to be very, very delicate about how you explore it.
SPEAKER_00That's the potential pitfalls and challenges, and exactly if I I guess sharing a personal story um to contextualize where my thoughts were. And so um growing up, my my dad worked in restaurants, right? Yes, so our our lives didn't cross over so much. I was a school, he'd be working when I come home, he'd be off to work in restaurants. So I held a certain narrative of my relationship with my dad, one being of absence of play. Yes, when I when my dad became a grandfather to my brother's kids, and I thought my dad by that stage he'd retired from work and he'd been very different stage of his life. I'd see him rolling around the carpet with a grandparent in a way, and I was like, What he's got I didn't even know he had that in him, but it it done something to me, and it done it um it was quite therapeutic in a way in my relationship to my dad, and it it it shifted something because I got to see him in his grandparent role, which changed my what I held, story I held.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's interesting this idea that you that you've just uh introduced about narrative, that actually whose narrative is is the is the is the one that we're following, really. And you had a different one uh when you saw your dad rolling around with your son, his grandson or daughter, I don't know. Um, but that there's something about it's never too late to change, it's never too late to kind of think again uh and and and offer different ideas about the whole issue about where you are in the family, who you are in the family, where you might be going in the family. And of course, as I say in um in the book, you know, grannies and grandparents, they're gonna die. You know, they are. And grandparents and grandchildren are gonna grow up and they're not going to be so into being with their grandparents necessarily. Uh, and that the the whole thing is is constantly on the move. And uh, and and actually, interestingly enough, one of the I I I asked a whole lot of people to write about their good experiences and their difficult experiences. And one of one of the people who wrote about her good experiences, she now has died, you know, and and this this will happen. This will happen to us all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and the opportunity to maybe undo or to to um work through things is I guess yeah, yeah, but also on the flip side, acknowledging that it could be really re-triggering of things that have may have been part when the the child becomes an adult, has maybe sort of moved on from some of their early attachment issues or relationship issues when they've become a parent, and then seeing the grandparent grandchild relationship may re trigger things, may bring things back up.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's it's very true, and again, you kind of just have to notice that, which you do, of course, as a therapist, and you know you notice when people are being triggered, and you quite gently say, you know, oh that that seemed to uh hit a nerve, or it's you know, uh John Bowlby said when he saw things differently from Freud Freud, he said, very gently, he said, I think I'm wearing a different set of spectacles. And that and that and there's a way in which um it's very important. I I think gently does it. You know, it was it was Winnicott who said, you know, we can we can have all sorts of clever interpretations, but they don't actually do the patient much good. It'd be better if we just were shut up and and just let it come out so that the patient, him or herself, comes to a particular idea without it being shoved into his or her mind by the therapist.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Judy.
SPEAKER_01I guess I'm wondering, um I don't know, we we like to sort of move towards asking people about sort of future hopes um as we draw our conversations to a close. And and I and I guess I suppose my question for you is it in regards to the book, what your hopes are for what it offers um the field of psychotherapy or therapy, um, and what you think it might offer. Yeah, let's start there.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's I think that's a really good question, Julie, because uh I didn't want it to be an academic book with loads of loads of academic references, and and I wanted it to kind of be more open so that people generally could find their way through it. It's interesting, I was reading last week in The Guardian, the Japanese novelist Harukami, and he said, I like to leave people with questions at the end of my books, and that's what Beyon said. He said, Keep your questions in good repair, and I think it's very important, and that you can have a conversation and it can be rounded and it can be as grounded as it can be, and then that's where you take off and do your own thinking and make a new trail. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I like that, that it's sort of inviting us to sort of have conversations and absolutely curiosity forward and going to new new new places, perhaps.
SPEAKER_02And uh, and you know, we we talk was interesting, we talk about this word parliament, and we actually don't really think about it, but actually it means parliamo, it means let's have a chat. And I think I think this this book is about let's having a chat, and I I didn't I didn't want it to be, you know, exploration is an exploration as far as we've got now, and I was so glad that my dear late friend Hilary Mantel thought it was good too, and she also said, because you know I did tell her a bit about what was happening to me, and she said, nothing is lost, Judith, ever. And she was right because I wrote this book.
SPEAKER_00And what might you um if you were to inspire someone else to continue the this exploration of grandmother land? What would you offer yourself if you was to write a kind of a continuation or a follow-up? What would be places that you weren't quite able to get to in the first book that you would gosh, well, you know, again, I think that's kind of open to the person who takes up the baton.
SPEAKER_02And uh Seamus Heaney, the poet, said, I rhyme rhyme to set the darkness echoing. And I think you know, our own uh darknesses can be echoed by reading a book, and then we can take it forward. But so I wouldn't I wouldn't like to be prescriptive. I I would uh like to think that anybody who takes up the baton may may rhyme their that get set their own darkness echoing.
SPEAKER_00It's really beautiful. I I think we could probably sit and hit listen to your literary um quotes for hours.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but you know, that that is the one thing that when when I was um I've always been very uh interested in linking psychoanalytic psychoanalytic ideas with other ideas. And I I wrote a book called with some colleagues called Psychoanalysis and Other Matters, because other matters matter, and it's not just psychoanalysis, it's not at the top of a tree, it's just one of the branches.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Judith. I'm I'm resonating with uh that I I rhyme to is it let the darkness set to set to set the darkness going and it's then shows that I'm gonna be listening out for and to take forward to for a good chat.
SPEAKER_02I've I've really enjoyed our good conversation. I I think it's been really interesting and it's set my mind wandering too, so hopefully it will set yours. And um I said to Cesar that um the applied meeting of um the Institute of Psychoanalysis also doing a talk about this, and it's now um um Teresa says she's put it up in the in the Tavi um library on the notice board. Julius, is there anything that we haven't quite got to that you wanted to say? Uh no, I think what I'd like to say is that actually I think it's particularly important to have um relationships with grandparents when there are different cultures involved. Say more. Can you say more? Uh well, not without getting very personal, I can't, because there is something about the way different, you know, there might be all sorts of different religious wrapping papers, but actually, um, you know, you need to find a way of managing the differences without seeing them as being completely unacceptable.
SPEAKER_03That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00It does, it does. Um, we really appreciate the book really blends real personal stories with real kind of um wider narratives around power, caregiving, aging, and the role of grandparents. So it's a real real gift to the field. So thank you very much, Judith. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02I have really enjoyed our conversation and thank you so much for asking me. Okay, thank you both so much. It's been a really nice conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. Bye.