Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri1 Touko 2025

Hope and Loss with psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal

In this episode, an idea suggested by my conversationalist, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal, we explore the big, painful emotion of loss.

We tend to body swerve feeling or thinking about loss, and who can blame us? It hurts, it’s horrible. But loss is essential to growth - think of a snake shedding its skin. In order to go onto the next stage we need to leave the one we’re at.

But there’s normal loss such as leaving school or a job, and traumatic loss where everything comes at once, like an unexpected or early death or devastating news. This takes far longer to process. Note: process not get over.

The loss I’ve noticed most people don’t want to talk about is death, dying, illness and the accompanying grief and yet, as Dr B tells us, if it’s managed ‘well’ post traumatic growth can be rich.

But where would loss be without hope? There has to be hope to make loss’s losses easier to bear. Have a listen and be kind to yourself if you find this tough.

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Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

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