Eight years ago, after yet another disastrous festive get-together, my mother decided we needed professional help. Which is how a new festive tradition began It is early December, and I am sitting in a psychoanalyst’s office in central London, about to do 60 minutes of pre-Christmas family therapy. Outside, the Christmas lights are twinkling. I can hear a drunk person literally shouting for joy on the street beneath the window. But inside the consulting room, it is eerily silent. My mother, my sister and I sit in squishy armchairs and pretend to admire the art, but really we are eyeballing one another like prizefighters, looking for weak spots. My father is just a tiny, flickering face on an iPhone, propped up next to my mother on a cushion. My father doesn’t really believe in therapy, but he’s compromised by dialling in via Zoom. He keeps falling off his cushion and on to the floor. Our therapist peers benevolently at us over her spectacles. She is in her 80s and has a world-weary look about her. Like she has seen all manner of dysfunction before. She lets the silence hang for a moment, and then she clears her throat: “Shall we begin with presents? Or the meal?” Continue reading...