Podcast
Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour
Hosted by Kim Lee · EN
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
30episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Dangerous relationships. Recovering Your Reality
2d ago00:16:57Tap to summarizeSend us Fan Mail
Transcribe →Dangerous Relationships. Narcissistic Patterns. Emotional Insight Vs Intellectual Insight
2d ago00:15:22Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailSomeone can sound deeply self-aware and still be emotionally unreachable. That single contradiction sits at the center of many dangerous relationships, especially when narcissistic behaviors or narcissistic traits shape the rules of the bond. We start by answering two hard questions: how a person can appear generous, thoughtful, and believable to everyone else, while the people closest to them live with a completely different reality, and why smart, capable partners often end up doubting themselves instead of doubting the relationship.We break down a distinction that changes how you listen: intellectual insight versus emotional insight. Intellectual insight can be impressive, even persuasive. It uses the language of reflection, therapy concepts, and self-description. Emotional insight shows up in what someone is willing to feel, including the impact they have on you, and whether that feeling translates into real behavioral change. When you’re hearing apologies and explanations without a shift in how you’re treated, it creates a specific kind of confusion: the words sound right, but your body and your life keep telling a different story.From there we explore the “public face vs private reality” split, why admiration can become necessary, and how the relationship can slowly reorganize itself around protecting one person’s psychological equilibrium. We talk about what happens when you set boundaries, disagree, or say no, and how subtle patterns like tiny criticisms, dismissive reactions, and memory-challenging reframes can accumulate into self-doubt. We also touch on how narcissistic control can be expressed through dominance, intimidation, guilt, withdrawal, triangulation, or emotional dependency, and why the most important measure is the impact on partners and children.If any of this feels familiar, listen closely, then share this episode with someone who might need language for what they’re living. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what helped you start trusting your reality again?
Transcribe →Dangerous Relationships. Narcissistic Traits Vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder Ep1.
3d ago00:14:05Tap to summarizeSend us Fan Mail“Narcissist” is one of the most used words online and one of the most misunderstood. I want to slow the conversation down and bring the term back to something useful: not a casual insult, not a shortcut to certainty, but a way to think clearly about patterns that can make relationships feel confusing, destabilizing, and unsafe.We start with a distinction that surprises a lot of people: healthy narcissism is real, and it’s essential. It’s the self-recognition that helps us build confidence, set boundaries, and hold onto our worth when life gets hard. From there, we move into narcissistic traits, the very human moments of defensiveness, admiration-seeking, and sensitivity to criticism that can show up in any of us, especially under stress. The key question isn’t “do traits exist?” but “are they flexible?” Can someone reflect, take responsibility, repair, and genuinely empathize, or do they stay locked into denial and self-protection?Then we talk about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) as something deeper than arrogance. I explain why behavior has consequences, yet also communicates an internal world, and why “explanation” is not the same thing as “excuse.” Finally, we connect all of this to dangerous relationships: the way one person’s inner world can gradually reorganize the emotional lives of partners, children, and even professionals, often while looking charming and credible to everyone on the outside.If you care about psychological safety, emotional abuse warning signs, and clearer boundaries, hit subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review. What’s one behavior pattern you wish people would stop calling “narcissism”?
Transcribe →Dangerous Relationships. Episode 1 part 2. Addiction. When Love Becomes Enabling
4d ago00:18:15Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailDanger has a way of becoming normal when addiction sits in the middle of a family. Promises break, fear spikes, secrets multiply, and suddenly everyone is living around the addiction instead of living their own life. We name that reality clearly and then do something harder: we hold compassion for the person struggling with addiction while staying honest about the profound damage carried by partners, children, parents, and siblings.From a psychotherapy and family systems perspective, we talk about enabling, boundaries, and why recovery often starts by increasing discomfort rather than reducing it. We explore what it means to think strategically instead of reactively, how responsibility gets quietly redistributed across a household, and why addiction recovery is rarely an individual project. Real change typically involves a wider recovery system: addiction services, medical and mental health support, therapists, family members, and safeguarding professionals when children are involved.We also spend time on the child’s experience, because kids in addicted homes adapt in heartbreaking ways: becoming little carers, peacekeepers, perfectionists, or going invisible to stay safe. Those survival roles can echo into adult life, shaping future relationships and increasing risk for addiction or abusive dynamics. The turning point is learning that love and boundaries are not opposites. Love tells the truth, stops protecting the addiction, and supports recovery with clear limits.If this resonates, share it with someone who needs language for what they’re living, then subscribe and leave a review so more families can find support and practical guidance. What boundary feels hardest for you to hold right now?
Transcribe →Dangerous Relationships. Ep 1 part 1. Living With Addiction
4d ago00:14:25Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailAddiction doesn’t just change the person using. It rewires the whole home. When someone is living with addiction, everyone else can end up living in a constant state of watchfulness, waiting to find out who is coming through the door, what mood they’ll be in, and what damage might follow. That unpredictability is exhausting, and it quietly trains partners and children to organize their nervous systems around danger. We break down why addiction becomes a family system problem, not simply an individual behavior problem. We talk about the progressive loss of freedom that can make “good intentions” collapse under pressure, and we map the familiar loop of craving, use, relief, regret, promises, renewed hope, and relapse. We also name one of the most painful dynamics I see in families: the way hope can keep a relationship alive while keeping everyone trapped when meaningful recovery and treatment are missing. Then we go deeper into enabling, not as weakness, but as a protective strategy rooted in love, fear, and the unbearable urge to prevent consequences. We address the unspoken terror many partners carry about setting boundaries, insisting on treatment, or leaving, especially when overdose risk and suicidal talk are part of the picture. We close with a hard truth that can also be liberating: you can support someone, but you cannot recover on their behalf, and confronting reality is often the first step toward reclaiming your life. If this resonates, subscribe for Part Two, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find support. What boundary feels hardest to set right now?
Transcribe →Dangerous Relationships, Introduction to the series.
5d ago00:15:13Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailSomething about the word “dangerous” feels extreme until you’ve lived through a relationship that quietly teaches you to shrink. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m opening a new series called Dangerous Relationships with a clear definition: this isn’t about ordinary conflict, rough patches, or a couple who argues. It’s about a repeated pattern of behavior that steadily diminishes emotional wellbeing, psychological freedom, sense of identity, and the ability to make independent choices, sometimes alongside threats or risk of physical harm.I dig into why patterns matter more than isolated incidents and why so many smart, capable people don’t recognize the danger while they’re still in it. Harm often grows gradually, almost imperceptibly, until the relationship reorganizes around one person’s needs, fears, and expectations. Along the way, confidence fades, decision-making gets harder, self-trust erodes, and you may start seeing yourself through the other person’s eyes. I also name common red flags like control replacing mutual influence, fear replacing safety, guilt replacing honest conversation, conditional affection, and apologies that repeat while the behavior never changes.I also push back on the pressure to label someone a narcissist, psychopath, or “disordered.” Diagnosis is complex and requires a qualified clinical assessment. The more useful question is simpler and more urgent: what is it like to be in a relationship with this person, and what is it doing to you and your sense of self? When children are involved, the stakes are even higher, because kids don’t just witness relationships, they grow up inside them and build their attachment blueprint from what they experience.If you want the next episodes on addiction-centered family systems, narcissistic patterns, borderline dynamics, antisocial traits, and recovery, follow the show now. If this resonates, share it with someone who needs language for what they’re living through, and please leave a review so more people can find it.
Transcribe →Emotional Decontamination And The Self Beneath
6d ago00:14:19Tap to summarizeSend us Fan Mail
Transcribe →Not Everything You Feel Is Yours
1w ago00:15:02Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailNot everything you feel belongs to you and once you truly take that in, your whole inner story can change. We talk through emotional contamination as an invisible, gradual process where another person’s fear, anger, shame, or disappointment gets carried into your own body and self-beliefs, often starting in childhood when you absorb emotional life long before you have words for it. The result can look like “personality” when it is really a relational pattern you learned to survive.We lean on a practical, grounding shift: moving from self-judgment to curiosity. Instead of “What’s wrong with me?” we ask “Where did this come from?” and “What is happening right now?” That single change opens space for self-awareness and emotional decontamination, especially when certain people reliably leave you feeling inadequate while others leave you feeling steady. We also unpack why understanding someone’s past does not excuse what they do in the present, and how compassion and boundaries work best as partners.To make it real, we dig into the automatic “sorry” habit and why chronic apologizing can be a sign you are carrying a belief that you will get it wrong before anything even happens. We connect this to the nervous system, describing the move from limbic reactivity to the prefrontal cortex, and why practice matters more than instant certainty. If you’ve ever wondered whether your guilt, shame, or anxiety is truly yours, you’ll leave with a question to use all week and a clearer sense of who you are beneath the borrowed weight. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the one line you’re taking with you.
Transcribe →Emotional decontamination
1w ago00:14:04Tap to summarizeSend us Fan MailThis series is about emotional decontamination, and it is the companion series to emotional contamination. Its purpose is to move beyond the understanding of what happens to us in our relationships, how we internalise and hold the emotional state and judgments of others, and make them our own, to identifying and removing those things.
Transcribe →When No Is Only Today’s Answer
1w ago00:14:09Tap to summarizeSend us Fan Mail“No” is one of the most loaded words we hear. It can land like a slammed door from a school, a doctor, an employer, or just life, and it’s easy to assume the conversation is over. We don’t accept that assumption. We talk about “stickability” the steady, quiet decision to keep going and to keep showing up with care, evidence, and dignity when the stakes are real.We tell an anonymized story about a young person being denied access to the subject they most want to study, and how months of thoughtful, respectful persistence changes the outcome. The point isn’t winning or forcing someone to back down. It’s creating enough space for people to think again, to revisit a decision without being cornered, and to discover solutions that weren’t visible at the start. If you care about advocacy, education pathways, mental health, and practical conflict resolution, this is a grounded look at what actually helps.We also get honest about motivation: doing the right thing cannot depend on gratitude or recognition. When your values stay independent of other people’s reactions, you stop being controlled by praise, disappointment, and the need to “win.” That mindset matters in the messy, real-world work of supporting children, families, and patients through appeals, care plans, and professional pushback, especially when a justified request meets resistance.If you’ve been told “no” lately, consider whether it’s the final answer or only today’s answer. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the moment you’ve had to turn “no” into “not yet.”
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