Helping you understand the patterns that keep you stuck and create meaningful change.
Welcome to The Online Therapist
I’m Dr Nicholas Jenner, a counselling psychotherapist specialising in relationships, codependency, emotional patterns and personal change.
Through therapy, coaching, group programmes and self-help resources, my aim is to help people move from understanding their patterns towards creating meaningful change.
Why do adult children go no contact with their parents? Explore the reasons behind family estrangement, including emotional neglect, unresolved conflict and differing family expectations. Discover why parents and children remember relationships differently, when cutting contact may be necessary, and whether damaged parent-child relationships can ever be repaired through understanding.
Chat with Dr. Jenner Now!
Why do adult children go no contact with their parents? Explore the reasons behind family estrangement, including emotional neglect, unresolved conflict and differing family expectations. Discover why parents and children remember relationships differently, when cutting contact may be necessary, and whether damaged parent-child relationships can ever be repaired through understanding.
What does a coach in your pocket actually do? Explore how Awareness to Action helps you prepare a boundary, work through overwhelm and turn reflection into a manageable action, then review what happened. Available on iPhone and Android.
Why do you still feel responsible for your ex after separation? Discover how codependency, guilt, attachment patterns and emotional obligations can continue after a relationship ends. Learn why setting boundaries feels difficult, how to recognise unhealthy responsibilities and how to move forward without feeling responsible for your former partner’s happiness.
When couples stop arguing, it doesn’t always mean their relationship has improved. Sometimes, silence signals emotional withdrawal, resignation or relationship exhaustion. Explore why partners emotionally disconnect, how codependency and attachment patterns contribute, and whether a relationship can recover when one person has stopped trying to make things work.
Awareness to Action is now on iPhone and Android. Explore how describing a difficult decision, choosing a manageable action and reviewing the outcome can help reflection lead somewhere.
Awareness to Action is now available on the App Store and Google Play. See how the Boundary Room can help you prepare what to say, choose an action and review what happened.
Mindfulness helps us step out of past regrets and future worries by returning attention to the present moment. This article explores how mindful awareness can reduce stress, improve emotional wellbeing, support better sleep, strengthen conflict resolution, and help us make calmer, more conscious choices in relationships and everyday daily life.
Understanding your patterns does not automatically change them. This article explores the difficult journey from awareness to action, looking at codependency, the nervous system, Internal Family Systems and behavioural change, and how practising different responses while tolerating discomfort can gradually turn psychological insight into meaningful and lasting change.
Children learn about relationships by observing how their parents handle affection, conflict, repair, boundaries and independence. Dr Nicholas Jenner explores how the relationship between adults can influence a child’s developing expectations about intimacy and emotional safety, and why respectful repair may matter more than trying to avoid disagreement completely.
Many adults avoid conflict not
Why is it so difficult to let go of unhealthy relationships? This article explores how childhood attachment, the nervous system and emotional familiarity influence adult attraction. Discover why you may miss the feeling more than the person, and how understanding these patterns can support healthier, more secure relationships.
Why can independence feel frightening after years of codependent relationships? This article explores how attachment patterns, childhood experiences, the nervous system and protective parts can make healthy boundaries feel unsafe. It explains why anxiety can increase during recovery and how greater independence can gradually support healthier connection and personal freedom.
Therapy as a couple is hard and there are few guarantees. Many factors determine success or failure. Timing, willingness, the right therapist all come into play…
Discover “Therapy Shorts,” a collection of quick insights and gentle nudges to help you along your healing journey.
This week is about Recovering from Narcissistic Abuse
These posts, published twice per week with a short audio, provide bite-sized wisdom to help you grow and discover yourself. Join me as we investigate the small ways we can bring peace, clarity, and connection into our lives.
When we start a new relationship, we let a few things go that we might not later. We don’t always set boundaries or recognise so-called ‘red flags’. The adrenaline is just running too high and that is just the way we want it…
A clinical exploration of narcissistic and codependent relationships, how both stem from attachment wounds, and what healing through self-leadership requires.
I talk a lot about boundaries. I believe they are the foundation of a healthy relationship. Setting boundaries means being emotionally honest, assertive and it means protecting your emotional
When I sometimes take the time to analyse my patients at any given point, there are always many codependents among them. This might be because I have had my own issues with this and like to work with them…
Some years ago, I wrote about the concept of the golden child in a family. Succinctly put, this is a child who is asked to maintain the self esteem of a narcissist parent…
My last two posts, I have looked at very dysfunctional voices in our heads and how easy it is to follow them. They offer quick-fix solutions that have no substance at all…
Being in a relationship with a narcissist “type” can be hell. However, what if the narcissist is your parent and has cloned you to be a living “perfect” version of him or her? A child chosen to heal the parent’s own broken past…
Among my patient group (and circle of friends), there are people who continually allow others to take advantage of them, continue to give and stay in very toxic relationships…
Why do narcissists and codependents often form relationships? Explore how these patterns complement each other and how awareness can lead to change.
Why do we repeat behaviours we already understand? Dr Nicholas Jenner explains why insight alone does not create behavioural change and how nervous-system responses and short-term emotional relief keep codependent patterns alive.
Two online therapy groups begin this October with Dr Nicholas Jenner. Codependency: Awareness to Action focuses on turning insight into behavioural change, while Narcissistic Abuse Recovery supports emotional healing, identity restoration and healthier relationships. Both programmes provide structured, small-group therapeutic work delivered online via Zoom.
The media and TV often celebrate people who are “strong”. Especially in the western world, strength is indicative of the ability to get things done, have a mindset of ambition…
If we are honest, clinically and theoretically, this type of person can change. Narcissistic traits exist on a spectrum and with long term intervention by a skilled therapist, some individuals can develop more self-awareness, emotional regulation and a degree of empathy. However, in practice, the theory doesn’t usually work because such people are very resistant to the process required to make change happen.
do you smack your children? If so, you could soon be punished by law if lobbyists in EU have their way. Let me pitch in. There is no excuse in this world that can justify assaulting a child in the name of discipline!…
The ideal woman for many men comes straight out of a codependent checklist. Many women are taught from an early age that they have to be a certain “way” around men…
Learn how to navigate a relationship with a narcissist and prioritize your mental health. Discover ways to exit toxic dynamics for good.
The messages we get from our parents as we grow up determine the way we see the world as an adult. If all things go well, we grow up to be independent with a secure attachment to the family base. However, when dysfunction happens, we become locked in a cycle of codependency…
I am an avid watcher of the many well-produced documentaries on Netflix. They cover a wide range of topics from unsolved crimes through the working of the drugs trade…
Discover “Therapy Shorts,” a collection of quick insights and gentle nudges to help you along your healing journey.
This week is about Recovering from Narcissistic Abuse
These posts, published twice per week with a short audio, provide bite-sized wisdom to help you grow and discover yourself. Join me as we investigate the small ways we can bring peace, clarity, and connection into our lives.
I have lost count of the amount of times I have been asked by desperate clients why they cannot let go of an abuser and a narcissist. It seems that they have been injected by some form of drug that has formed an addiction and no amount of logic, common sense or realism will help them…
Narcissists always get a bad press and probably rightly so. (At this point, we should note that we should only use the term narcissist when someone has been officially diagnosed with NPD…
In my job, I deal daily with lots of angry people. There are those who are angry about something specific (and sometimes have a right to be) and those who are just angry…
The belief that anyone or anything external to you possesses power over you is an illusion. The only reason they can exert power over you is because there are unresolved aspects within you that enable it.
Continuing my post on moving on from a bad breakup, let’s look at steps 4 to 6…
If we are honest, clinically and theoretically, this type of person can change. Narcissistic traits exist on a spectrum and with long term intervention by a skilled therapist, some individuals can develop more self-awareness, emotional regulation and a degree of empathy. However, in practice, the theory doesn’t usually work because such people are very resistant to the process required to make change happen.
Among my patient group (and circle of friends), there are people who continually allow others to take advantage of them, continue to give and stay in very toxic relationships. They attempt to make themselves indispensable for their partners (and everyone else) and become the local and family martyr…
I run a feature on my blog titled Ask Me A Question. It is there so anyone can pose a question concerning their situation, disorder, relationship or anything else that they want some advice on…
These days we throw the words “narcissist” and “codependent” around like confetti. It is easy to label someone who appears self-centred as the former and one who gives a little bit too much as the latter.
Among my patient group (and circle of friends), there are people who continually allow others to take advantage of them, continue to give and stay in very toxic relationships. They attempt to make themselves indispensable for their partners (and everyone else) and become the local and family martyr…
People like me are always trying to make others see the value of setting healthy boundaries in the spirit of emotional honesty. That is expressing what you feel honestly and assertively when there is a feeling that a boundary needs to be set…
Therapy as a couple is hard and there are few guarantees. Many factors determine success or failure. Timing, willingness, the right therapist all come into play…
The internal life of a vulnerable narcissist is a battlefield of self-doubt and imagined superiority.
Starting the process is easier than you may think. All you need to do is contact me by mail or telephone and arrange the first consultation. This is free and will allow you to present your issues.
Join Dr Jenner and a small group of other participants in a series of totally private six 90-minute online group therapy sessions.
Join me for an audio program dedicated to addressing codependency issues and recovery, offering practical guidance and insights to enrich your journey towards well-being and recovery.
Safe Harbour Therapy And Counselling LTD (2025)
