Dr. Richard Hogan

Oh, my God, because, like, what happens often is that, say, the step-parent, right, and the child of the partner is lashing out and rejecting them and being mean.

Often what we'll do there is say really unfair things about them because we're placing the locus...

So many times when I was training as a psychotherapist, you'd hear parents say, that child, you know what I mean?

So it kind of separates the child away from them.

You know what I mean?

This is their own child now.

They're not talking about their own biological child.

They'd say, that child.

And they'd say, this Sinead is really good and we love Sinead.

But that child, you know what I mean?

But that's a very good way of... Arms lengthening.

That's psychologically placing the locus of the issue firmly in the child.

And so then you have no responsibility, like we've often talked here, or any culpability for the dynamic.

And it's just that child.

And I would say to any parent there, if it's your own parent or a stepchild,

I would never go down that road of like positioning it just within the child.

And I wouldn't make a pejorative or a derogatory statement about that fucking, you know, that lazy.

That's that, you know, because that's going to be corrosive to your relationship with your partner.

That's her child or his child.

And when you do that stuff, what you're doing is showing your competency levels.