Somewhere in the past, a child had to be perfect in order to deserve affection. Tantrums, bad habits and nasty thoughts had to be banished. The child became outwardly ‘good’ and inwardly ashamed and lonely. We need to move towards a more humane and mature model of complex love; a love that tolerates imperfection and ambivalence, that accepts that we can have faults and love ourselves and can see the faults of another person and still love them.
