To Call Myself Beloved

An account of a therapy, told from the patient’s perspective, that offers a fascinating window into the complex intimacy and power of the therapeutic experience, as well as a thought-provoking insight into the trauma of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Written in an engrossing novelesque style – yet with nothing fictional included – the book recounts, with engaging honesty, the arc of one human journey in a Belfast-based therapy from 1988-1997.

To Call Myself Beloved shares what it is like to bare one’s soul, both on a couch and in a group, making accessible a world that is usually private. It explores the intriguing breadth and depth of a committed therapeutic relationship, in the search of self-understanding

and self-love. And it gives brave voice to the fragile nature of humanity, standing witness to an ‘ordinary’ experience of the ‘Troubles’, to the human impact of terrorism and political war.