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• You find me in playful mood. Might be the fact that the ‘Dun Listening’ sign is in the window and I’m looking forward to a long weekend off. I’ve been reflecting on words. One of the things I enjoy most about therapy and counselling is the endless opportunity (no, more than that, the requirement) to ponder the meanings of language. And the word that is the object of my current fascination… PRIDE.
  
  I find pride the most puzzling, and troubling, of emotions. Ever conscious that it often precedes a fall, I might confess (on a good day) to feeling a measure of pride in certain aspects of my working life. Pride in self, I can understand. It is pride in the achievements of others that I struggle with.
  
  I began considering this in earnest after the Beijing Olympics when watching on the TV news the glorious bevy of British medal winners stepping off the plane to the adulation of a proud nation. What’s wrong with me, I wondered, as my chest failed to swell with pride? I was happy for ‘our’ winners, delighted that their years of training and commitment had culminated in medal success. But proud of them? Nope, it just wouldn’t come. Is it because I’m half-Irish, I wonder, that inhibited me from taking pride in their achievement? Perhaps. But I suspect there’s more to it.
  
  When we swell with pride at ‘our’ athletes’ success, aren’t we really feeling good about ourselves, taking personal comfort that maybe this little island isn’t so bad after all? And isn’t it much the same with parental pride? ‘That’s my boy/girl!’ we beam, as our offspring secures the clutch of A-star grades that ensures their place at Oxbridge, or scores the winning goal for the school hockey team?
  
  But whose success are we really celebrating, theirs or ours? And with that success, the blessed confirmation that we weren’t such awful parents after all? If delight is generous, then pride seems selfish. My heart leaps with joy and relief when one of my offspring passes their driving test at the umpteenth attempt; my eyes fill with tears when another shows me her baby daughter for the first time. I say, ‘Well done you, that’s great’ and mean it. But the words, ‘I’m proud of you,’ never seem to occur. And if they did, they’d probably stick in my throat.
  
  And what of ‘national pride’? Our birthplace or parentage wasn’t due to our own endeavours, so is there really anything to be proud of in accidents of conception and geography? I’ve lived in Britain all my life. I recognise myself in some of its idiosyncrasies; I marvel at its varied landscape; comfort myself with some of its traditions; hate its traffic jams and its class-ridden institutions; I appreciate its architecture and enjoy its range of accents. I may like Britain, or loathe it, but pride doesn’t enter into it. Threatened with invasion during the 2nd World War, thanks largely to Churchill and the heroic efforts of ‘the few’, we ‘many’ enjoy a relatively free and independent nation. But do I feel pride in the Battle of Britain? No, I feel deep gratitude to those who fought and gave their lives. Maybe my problem (or saving grace?) is that I don’t easily do collective; or do I mean possessive?
  
  If pride is one side of a coin, then the flipside is surely shame. If I grant myself the right to be proud of you, then I must also have the right to be ashamed of you. Pride and shame seem essentially concerned with self; one inflates us beyond our measure; the other makes us cringe and shrink from exposure.
  
  Well, that more or less states my case. Trouble is, I’ve stumbled across a flaw in my argument, and it’s been gnawing away at me. I’ve counselled many clients over the years who remain not only convinced, but also deeply pained, that their parents do not feel pride in them. Not content with care, or love, it is parental pride that these clients long to elicit above all else; that expression of pride which they would then construe as evidence that they are indeed good enough. But the more I reflect upon those clients and their yearning to be a source of pride to their parents, the more I sense that their desire is not simply to be judged approvingly, but something deeper still… The longing to be joyfully recognised and claimed as the other’s own. It feels good hearing a teacher, parent or supervisor say, ‘You’ve done really well!’ But perhaps what some of us long for even more than approval and appreciation is to be happily claimed as the other’s own, and the words that seem to convey this sense of belonging and connection, like no others, (despite my misgivings) seem to be, ‘I’m proud of you!’

• Kevin Chandler is a therapist and supervisor in private practice, and author of Listening In: A Novel of Therapy and Real Life.