Episode Overview

Podcast: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Episode: You Need Help to Help Her
Date: November 24, 2025

This episode features a one-time counseling session between renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel and a married couple grappling with the painful withdrawal and mental health struggles of their adult daughter. The couple seeks insight on how to support their daughter, who, after being an accomplished student, has retreated from life into severe isolation. The conversation explores parent-child dynamics, the pitfalls of secrecy and withdrawal, issues of adoption and belonging, and the importance of social support—for the daughter and for themselves as parents.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Crisis: Daughter’s Retreat from Life

• Sudden Change: The parents describe their daughter’s shift from a “successful, motivated college student on a scholarship” to someone spending “22 hours a day in her room on the computer…not interacting in the world” ([03:22] A).
• Daughter is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, and PTSD—but the parents feel lost as to what these labels mean in practice and how to help her ([02:23] A, [10:01] B).
• Hidden from Others: The family has kept their daughter’s situation largely a secret: “I can’t keep lying. I feel like I’m lying to everybody, lying to family. I’m lying to friends.” ([02:42] A)

Parental Helplessness and Isolation

• Parental Support System: The parents have a strong marriage and have started couples’ counseling, but receive most support only from each other, lacking a wider network or peer group ([05:19] A, [06:23] A, [07:14] A).
• Withdrawing Alongside Daughter: Esther points out their parallel process: by hiding the truth about their daughter, they are “colluding with her in withdrawal from the world…so you’re trapped in her approach and there is no help that can come in.” ([07:33] B)
• Critical Insight: “You need help to help her…isolation only works when you have contagious disease. She does not have a contagious disease. You need the presence of others.” ([09:06] B)

The Overwhelm of Diagnosis and the Limits of Labels

• The conversation critiques the overreliance on diagnoses and medication; Perel argues the labels “give you a framework. I need to know her experience…help you have conversations with her.” ([11:57] B)
• The episode stresses focusing on lived experience and small human connections, rather than trying to “fix” through medication alone.

Triangles in the Family: Communication and Anger

• Daughter-Mother Rift: The daughter recently expressed she doesn’t want a mother-daughter relationship, even calling her mother by her first name. The mother lets it go, hoping the situation will improve over time ([12:32] A).
• The father often acts as the go-between, feeling triangulated: “the daughter uses the father to be her mouthpiece and her messenger to the mother” ([17:10] B).
• Perel’s Guidance: Rather than forcing the daughter to talk directly to her mother, Perel encourages the father to invite the daughter to share her feelings with him (“Tell me. One of the things that emerges is that the father is triangulated.” [16:25] B).

Adoption, Belonging, and Bullying

• The parents explain their daughter was adopted from South Korea and attended a predominantly white school, leading to self-esteem struggles and racial bullying—much of which they only learned about later ([22:24] A, [23:10] C, [23:30] B).
• The family had “always treated both of [their] children…as miracles,” but now realize that their wish for integration may have contributed to their daughter’s sense of isolation.
• Crucial Reflection: “When a child doesn’t come home to say I’ve been bullied at school, we do need to ask…is there something in the dynamic in the environment at home that silences the child?” ([24:26] B)

Parallel Lives and Secrets

• Both mother and daughter are living “parallel lives.” The mother’s insight: “I just can't keep lying. I feel like I’m lying to everybody… and I just can’t do this anymore. I’m not somebody who lies.” ([44:34] A)
• Esther points out: “You’re pretending life is normal as usual. And that’s what she feels she did for all those years…without knowing it, you’re doing the same thing now.” ([45:06] B)
• This realization is a breakthrough, providing empathy and understanding between mother and daughter.

The Need for Parental Support, Not Just Couples Therapy

• The couple realizes that while their marriage is strong, they need support as parents facing a child’s mental health crisis—not just as spouses ([06:04] B, [10:01] B).
• Perel urges them to “connect with other parents,” seek out support groups, and broaden their social circle to sustain themselves and break their own isolation ([11:55] B, [41:47] C).
• “You can’t keep this. It’s not an embarrassment, it’s not a shame…it’s going to deal with you not creating a parallel life in which you end up doing what she’s doing. Without the diagnosis.” ([41:56] B)

Family Dynamics and the Power of Systemic Change

• Perel encourages the family to think holistically: “A family is made up of interdependent parts…when one of the members changes their role because they are sick, because they have a breakdown…anything, the whole system adapts.” ([29:08] B)
• She cautions against making every choice feel dire: “Right now, the back on track is us not feeling that every slight decision is become an existential decision. If I say, come for breakfast, am I keeping her alive or am I killing her?” ([34:02] B)

Dealing with Helplessness and Finding Agency

• Perel articulates how depression creates a dynamic where the person struggling holds all the power: “The person who is the most down in the end has all the power because they have the power to disempower everybody else’s fantastic ideas and make them feel as helpless as them. And so we all end up in the same spot.” ([30:52] B)
• The couple comes to realize: “We don't have control over her illness. We do have control over our actions and how we react to her illness. So the best way that we can help her is…find ways for us all to communicate what's going on with her.” ([48:30] C)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Our daughter] was born in South Korea and she went to a school that was mostly Caucasian kids. Now…she was told she was a mistake, but we didn’t know this till afterwards. She held this kind of stuff in and I don’t think…these things are the cause, but I think she internalized a lot of things over time that we weren’t aware of.”
  — Mother [23:30]

• “You need help to help her. Do you understand? The idea that you are protecting her by colluding in the same silence as her and by withdrawing from the world like her is creating shame for you. Isolation. And I’m not sure it’s helping her.”
  — Esther Perel [09:06]

• “We have a really strong marriage…I think every day about the people doing this alone. I don’t know how anybody could do that. And I’m really fortunate to be doing it with somebody that I could talk to and cry to.”
  — Mother [05:19]

• “I think she was really mad at…me that I wasn’t part of the conversation that morning. And I think that conversation really angered her…or put pressure on her, did whatever.”
  — Father on daughter’s suicide attempt [35:21]

• “You can’t keep this. It’s not an embarrassment. It’s not a shame…you’re not there to talk about her. You just have to say, I’m going through something really difficult.”
  — Esther Perel [41:47]

• “We’ve been so focused on what can we do to help her illness that we didn’t really see that how we’re reacting to her and her illness is making it worse.”
  — Father [47:49]

• “When things go well, you think it’s the right place. When things don’t go well, you start to question all kinds of decisions you made…with the purest intention.”
  — Esther Perel [24:26]

• “We don’t have control over her illness. We do have control over our actions and how we react…so the best way that we can help her is to…find ways for us all to communicate what’s going on with her so that we can deal with it.”
  — Father [48:30]

Highlighted Timestamps

• [03:22] — The dramatic change in the daughter’s functioning described in detail.
• [05:19] — Mother’s gratitude for marital partnership in the struggle.
• [07:33] — Esther diagnoses the parents’ parallel process of isolation.
• [09:06] — Esther: “You need help to help her.”
• [12:32] — Daughter expresses not wanting a mother-daughter relationship.
• [16:25] — Triangulation and communication via the father.
• [22:24] — Adoption background and racial identity.
• [29:08] — Family systems theory applied to the crisis.
• [34:02] — The existential stakes of every family decision.
• [35:21] — Suicide attempt, emotions around helplessness and anger.
• [41:47] — Prescription for parental support and ending secrecy.
• [48:30] — Father’s realization about their sphere of control.

Episode Tone and Closing Reflections

The session is raw, reflective, and often emotional—marked by the parents’ persistent confusion, sadness, and exhaustion, as well as Esther Perel’s compassionate, systemic approach. The episode closes with breakthroughs in reframing the problem: shifting from secrecy to openness, from helplessness to agency, and from focusing solely on “fixing” the daughter to tending the entire ecosystem of family and social networks. The holistic, networked approach is positioned as more powerful—and healing—than isolation for both the daughter and her parents.

For Listeners

This episode is a powerful reminder that real healing—whether individual or collective—often requires breaking cycles of silence, moving from labels to lived experience, and drawing on a broader community of support. The deeply personal struggles recounted here are both particular and universal, offering insight for anyone facing similar family challenges.