Blog post – 20th October 2022
If you are a writer, what should you write? Thoughts about books and writing…
By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
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Books about life scripts and problematical mothers…
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Are you aware of your own life script?
It is not easy for a writer to know what to write.
There are so many books in the world, and so very few readers.
More than 25 of the many books which are queuing for your attention were written (or co-authored) by me.
Recently I thought it would be good to write a book entitled ‘What is your Life Script – and how to change your destiny’.
It took quite a while for me to realize that this would duplicate a large part of a book which I have already written. Here is a brief extract:
“Most people spend the whole of their life living as largely non-conscious victims of a script that they wrote for themselves, with the aid of their parents, when they were less than seven years old, when they hadn’t got enough sense to write a really good script for themselves.”
(Source: https://abc-bookstore.com/personality-and-destiny-how-to-change-them/)
That book is titled as follows: Who Are You, And Where Are You Going? Transformative insights from psychology and the philosophy of psychotherapy.
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The Mother Wound
Anyway, before I could make much headway with sketching out the content of a new volume on life script, I was overtaken by the desire to write a book about the way in which many humans are harmed, in the most vulnerable period of their lives – in the first three or four years – by damaged or difficult or unskillful mothers.
(Of course, motherhood is an impossible job in the modern world [and perhaps it always was!]; and it always surprises me that it works out as well as it does, for the exploited and oppressed mothers and their strangely resilient children!)
This volume would be like a cheese sandwich, with my Story of the Relationship with my Own Mother as the cheese; and with an opening slice of bread that would explore the nature of “mother wounding”, the symptoms resulting; and how to heal a “mother wound”. The final slice of bread would be about how you can assess whether or not you have a “mother wound”; and,if so, how to heal your own “mother wound”, resulting from neglect, abuse or abandonment (physically or psychologically).
However, in the process I overloaded myself, and had to mothball this project for a quieter time in my later life.
And, in any case, I have written at great length about my relationship with my mother, in my fictionalized autobiography: Metal Dog – Long Road Home.***
The writing of that book was a significant part of my own personal-therapy journey – and it came close of healing my “mother wound” – with just a few bits left over which has since been cleaned up.
The extract from Metal Dog shown on the ABC Bookstore does not focus on my relationship with my mother; but the core of my fictionalized autobiography is about that relationship, and the aftermath of its dysfunctionality.
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The compulsion to write – as it anybody gave a tish!
And this morning – Thursday 20th October – I awoke with an uncontrollable urge to write something about books and the arts of reading and writing; and also about the frustrations and difficulties of living in a world in which there are too many books, and not enough readers; and not enough time to read all those things we could benefit from reading. For more, please go to this blog post: Too many books will never be enough; The books that build us up and tear us down!
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That’s all for now.
Best wishes,
Jim
Dr Jim Byrne
Doctor of Counselling
ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy Services
The Institute for E-CENT Counselling
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ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 
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