Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour
I am a Chid & Adolescent Psychotherapist. The podcast are educational and orientated towards parents. We cover a wide range of sometimes, tricky subjects, in the hope of reassuring parents that no matter how hard things may seem, there are things you can do.
Thank you.
Kim
Episodes
238 episodes
Ep 5. Why Trauma Shuts Down A Child’s Thinking Brain
We talk about what happens when a child’s ability to mentalize collapses under stress, and why anxiety and explosive anger can be signs of a nervous system stuck in survival mode. We connect trauma, emotional safety, and polyvagal states to pra...
Beyond Attachment Styles. Ep 2. The Child Who Stops Needing Anyone
The child who never causes problems can be the one carrying the most pain. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m looking at compulsive self-reliance, an attachment-based adaptation where a young person learns that reachin...
Episode 3: Compulsive Caregiving — The Child Who Learns to Look After Everyone Else
The “good” kid who helps, soothes, and never complains can look like a dream to teachers and parents, but that shine can hide an attachment strategy built for survival. We’re talking about compulsive caregiving: when a child learns early that t...
The Psycholgy of Attachment. Compulsive Care Seeking
That restless urge to check your phone, reread a text, or ask “Are we okay?” can feel embarrassing, but it is often a learned attachment strategy, not a personality flaw. We close our Psychology of Attachment trilogy by unpacking compulsive car...
Episode 5: The Adult Relationships of Attachment — Why We Keep Recreating patterns
Your love life may look like a string of different people, but your nervous system might be chasing the same attachment experience every time. We zoom in on the repeating patterns that show up in adult relationships when closeness gets real: wi...
When An Avoidant Meets An Empath
Some relationships don’t look abusive on the outside, but they leave you feeling used, confused, and worn down to the bone. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m introducing a forthcoming series on a pairing I’m repeatedl...
The Empath And The Avoidant<br>
The most confusing relationships often start with the strongest pull: instant closeness, deep recognition, and that feeling that you finally found someone who gets you. Then the tone shifts. Messages slow down. Plans change. Hard conversations ...
The Avoident & The Empath. Ep.2. Chasing Closeness, Chasing Distance
The hardest relationship pain is rarely a single blowup. It’s the slow confusion of reaching for someone you love and watching them step back, again and again. We’re Kim Lee, Child, an adolescent psychotherapist, and we’re continuing our series...
The Empath & The Avoidant. Ep.3. Death By A Thousand Cuts
A relationship can look perfectly fine on the outside while quietly collapsing on the inside. We dig into the empath and avoidant dynamic that ends not with betrayal or a blowout fight, but with hundreds of tiny moments that never get repaired:...
The Day Hope Ends
The breakup nobody talks about is the quiet one: the day an empath finally leaves after years of trying to make it work. We sit with that uncomfortable truth Kim Lee shares right up front: most people assume the empath leaves because of one eve...
The Reckoning
The most misunderstood moment in an empath and avoidant relationship isn’t the breakup. It’s what happens after the empath finally walks away, quietly, firmly, and often with no contact. I call this “the reckoning” because it’s the day survival...
Recovery After The Empath Avoidant Trap
Recovery gets sold as closure, a perfect apology, or a clean happy ending. I see it differently, and in this finale I name it plainly: recovery is when your life stops revolving around the wound. The scar may still be there, and the memories do...
Mentalization In Plain English
A dog cowers when we approach, even though we mean no harm. That moment forces a human question we ask all the time with kids, partners, and friends: what is happening inside them? We start this series by naming the skill behind that question m...
Episode 2,How Mentalization Grows
Your child isn’t learning emotional skills from your best lecture. They’re learning from what it feels like when they’re scared, angry, or overwhelmed and you respond. We dig into how mentalization forms: the lifelong ability to understand ours...
Ep. 3-The Brain Behind Mentalization
We explore what happens in the brain when we mentalize, and why reflection can disappear the moment emotions surge. We connect child development, neuroscience, and real-life conflict so you can understand reactivity with more clarity and less s...
Episode 4. How Parents Become A Child’s External Brain
We unpack why children cannot learn emotional regulation alone and how they build it by borrowing calm from a caregiver. We explain containment, co-regulation, and repair, and why these early patterns often show up again in adult relationships....
Hidden Attachment Strategies In Adolescence. Introduction to the series.
If attachment styles are the headlines, adolescence is where the fine print starts running your life. We pick up where the classic four categories leave off and map the hidden attachment strategies that can look like maturity, virtue, or “just ...
The Social Media Ban Problem
A social media ban for kids under 16 sounds like the kind of clean, decisive fix adults crave when they feel frightened and powerless. I get that fear. Parents are worried, schools are exhausted, and clinicians and safeguarding teams are seeing...
Mentalization And ADHD: Why Perspective Disappears Under Stress
A child with ADHD can look incredibly empathic and reasonable, and then suddenly say something harsh, slam a door, or melt down over what seems like a small trigger. That swing isn’t proof they don’t care, and it isn’t a simple motivation probl...
Autism And Mentalization
Most people think the big question about autism is whether autistic children “understand other people.” I’m not convinced that question gets us anywhere helpful. What actually changes relationships is noticing how mentalization works under real...
Stop Calling It Attention Seeking And Start Listening
If you have ever caught yourself thinking “They’re doing this on purpose,” this conversation offers a different path: wonder what is happening inside the child, not just what the child is doing. We talk about mentalization, the practical skill ...
How Curiosity Shuts Down
Curiosity is fragile, and families can lose it without meaning to. Kim Lee from the Children’s Consultancy unpacks the quiet patterns that shut down a child’s inner world: stress that makes everyone reactive, certainty that turns into labels, a...
Mentalization Episode 10. How Parents Build A Child Who Can Reflect
If you have ever watched a child melt down and thought, “I don’t even know what’s happening right now,” this finale will give you a different lens. We talk about mentalization, the invisible skill that helps us look past behavior and ask what i...
The Hidden Family Stories Behind Child Behavior
Kids don’t always tell the truth with words. Sometimes they tell it with panic, perfectionism, shutdown, rage, or a level of “acting out” that leaves every adult asking the same question: what is wrong with this child? We take that question apa...