Dr Nicholas Jenner, Author at THE ONLINE THERAPIST

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Therapy Shorts 93: What a Healthy Relationship Looks Like: Spoiler: It’s Boring!

Healthy love is rarely dramatic. This article explores why emotionally healthy relationships can initially feel unfamiliar to people shaped by codependency, anxious attachment, or conditional love. It examines the difference between emotional intensity and genuine intimacy, and why calm, consistent relationships often feel uncomfortable before they begin to feel safe.

Why Understanding Yourself Is Not Enough

Explore the Dr Nicholas Jenner Audio Programme , a deep therapeutic recovery course for codependency, narcissistic relationships, emotional exhaustion and attachment wounds. Includes lifetime access to all audio sessions, practical therapeutic insight and two free therapy or coaching sessions. Designed for lasting emotional change rather than temporary motivation.

Therapy Shorts 92: Should You Bother Trying To Set Boundaries With A Narcissist?

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

From the Archives: Codependents: It’s Ok Not To Forgive Your Toxic Parents

The headline is perhaps a confusing one to anyone who has experienced trauma and abuse in their life. The helping professions are full of practitioners who deal in the art of forgiveness...

Therapy Shorts 91: After A Narcissist… What Next?

So, you have done the hard part. The narcissist is thankfully gone. It matters little whether discard happened or the courage was finally found to get rid of them, the…

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Therapy Shorts 90: Not Every Difficult Ex Is a Narcissist. Sometimes You Were Just Addicted to Chaos

This article challenges the habit of labelling every difficult ex as a narcissist and explores whether the deeper issue may be an attachment to chaos. It examines codependency, emotional intensity, nervous system familiarity, and the tendency to mistake instability for connection, chemistry, or meaningful love in adult relationships.

A chain link shatters dramatically with sparks and glass fragments flying outward

The Codependent Fantasy: If I Love Them Properly, They Will Change

This article explores the codependent fantasy that enough love, patience, and understanding will change another person. It examines how hope, self-abandonment, and early relational conditioning keep people attached to harmful relationships, and why recovery begins with seeing reality clearly rather than trying to rescue someone who will not change.

Therapy Shorts 89: Discipline And Responsibility Are The Keys To Happiness

About two years ago, I wrote a rather philosophical post pontificating about What Do We Need to Make us Happy? As I generally do, I placed this article on various websites for people to read and comment...

A sparrow breaks free from a chain as the sun sets over a mountainous coastline.

Therapy Shorts 88: Why Leaving a Narcissist Can Feel Like Betrayal

This article explains why leaving a narcissistic relationship can feel like betrayal for codependent people. It explores guilt, loyalty, trauma bonding, hope, emotional responsibility, and the fear of abandoning someone difficult, while showing how leaving can be an act of self-protection rather than cruelty.

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Why Successful People Can Still Be Codependent

Codependency does not always look needy or dependent. In high-functioning people, it often appears as competence, over-responsibility and being the one who holds everything together. This article explores how success can hide emotional over-functioning, self-abandonment and exhaustion, and why recovery means separating self-worth from being endlessly useful.