Claim OwnershipBeyond Survival - The Therapy Podcast with Katie McKenna
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This Podcast is for anyone who grew up up in a dysfunctional or narcissistic family system and now finds themselves stuck in patterns of people-pleasing, anxiety or unhealthy relationships.
Each episode offers real-world insight into trauma recovery, relationships, boundaries, nervous system healing and reconnecting to your true self.
Whether your just starting your healing journey or looking to deepen it, you’re welcome here - just as you are
39 Episodes
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Did I do the right thing? Am I being unreasonable? This week we hear from a listener who grew up with a controlling father who monitored finances, belittled her mother, mocked her intelligence, and ruled the house with, “If you live under my roof, you do as I say.” She became the responsible daughter. The fixer. The emotional support system. The one who stayed close. After decades of being pulled into her parents’ toxic marriage, she set a boundary: Don’t involve me in your disputes any...
In this episode, we’re exploring The Fawn response through the experience of a listener who grew up in a home shaped by addiction, conflict and emotional unpredictability. With siblings who needed significant care, he learned very early that the safest way to exist was to be low maintenance. Mature. Independent. No trouble. He became highly attuned to other people’s moods — scanning faces, tracking tone shifts, apologising first, and doing whatever was needed to prevent arguments. What ...
If you grew up with a parent who rewrote history, denied conversations that clearly happened and turned every attempt at repair into an explosion… this episode is for you. In this episode of Beyond Survival – The Therapy Podcast, I read a listener’s story about going low contact, then no contact, after years of gaslighting, DARVO, and emotional manipulation. We explore the role of the enabling parent (deflection, minimising, suggests you’re “misremembering” or "mentally unwell") and the...
A listener writes in with a question that many people carry quietly (and can often feel ashamed for even thinking) Does life get more peaceful when they die? This listener was adopted into a family where love was conditional and pain was reframed as devotion. A father who minimised abuse as “loving too much.” A mother whose behaviour ruined milestones. Public humiliation at her wedding. Health crises used as leverage. And finally, a breaking point — being told to “fuck off” in front of ...
In this episode, we hear from a 44-year-old listener whose role as “the strong one” began far too early. Raised in the 80s as the eldest of four children to unmarried parents, she grew up learning to stay quiet, stay alert, and stay responsible. With a hard-working, emotionally absent, father and a mother she had to tiptoe around, she was placed into the role of parent long before she had the chance to be a child. Labelled, blamed, and isolated from friends, she became the family scapegoat — ...
In this episode, we read a letter from a listener who has spent her life being criticised by her mother — called “stupid,” shamed about her body, and told she was a mistake. When she shared the news of her engagement, her mother ignored her for a week. When she tried to express how hurt she felt, she was accused of “looking for trouble” and acting as if she thought she was better than everyone else. She’s now considering taking a break from the relationship and is asking a question many adult...
In this episode we hear from a listener who has navigated years of emotional turmoil within her blended family. After a life-threatening childbirth, she faced ongoing manipulation, smear campaigns, and boundary violations from her mother-in-law, who sided with her husband’s ex and sought to control their family. This powerful story explores the exhaustion of protecting your marriage and family while maintaining your own sense of self, and the ongoing challenge of living your truth in th...
When you leave a narcissistic family system, the separation rarely ends with you. Often, it comes with a quiet guilt for the sibling left behind - and for the children who loved the version of the family you worked so hard to preserve. In this week’s episode, we reflect on a letter from a listener who shares the painful complexity of this experience. For ten years, she helped her children see the good in her parents - explaining that love could look different, facilitating online contact, and...
Perfectionism can look like competence, control, or high standards, but what often hides underneath is a survival strategy. In this conversation, I’m joined by, Podcast Host & Mindset Coach, Claire Fealy to explore how perfectionism hides in plain sight - in our work, relationships, bodies, and inner worlds. We talk about how perfectionism develops as protection, how it keeps us stuck in self-monitoring and self-pressure, and why it can feel so hard to let go of. Together, we explor...
In this episode, I’m joined by psychologist and author Dr Rachna Buxani, whose book Unseen: A Therapist’s Reflection on a Daughter’s Journey Through a Narcissistic Father’s Shadow. Together, we explore what happens when a father’s love feels more like control than care? We discuss the impact of growing up in emotional silence, the silent erosion of self-trust, and how a child learns to survive by disconnecting from her own voice. Dr Buxani shares reflections on memory, self-doubt, and the inv...
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Natalie Fabert to explore a question I often return to: What if a narcissistic family system operates like a cult? When we hear the word cult, it can conjure images of something extreme, distant, or dramatic, something that happens to other people. But what if a cult simply describes a system. A system where one person’s reality becomes the only acceptable reality. Where it’s “my way or the highway.” Where you’re trained to question yourself, but never the p...
In this episode, I explore the trauma responses many of us developed just to survive childhood and why they still show up in our adult lives. I’ll break down the main trauma responses, the core wounds they originate from, and how these patterns are shaped by growing up with narcissistic parents. I’ll also walk you through the four types of narcissistic parents and how each one impacts a child’s nervous system, sense of self, and relationships, and why your responses were never flaws, th...
1This week, I'm unpacking one of the most common yet misunderstood experiences for adult children of narcissistic abuse: Narcissistic Parentification. I’ll walk through the different roles the children are cast into; Scapegoat Child, Golden Child, Enmeshed / Gilded Child, The Invisible Child, and how these roles profoundly shape your relationships, boundaries, identity, and sense of self today. By understanding the dynamics behind the role you were assigned, you can finally challenge the...
In today’s episode, I'm diving into Instrumental Parentification — a dynamic where a child becomes the household’s “mini Cinderella.” They’re the ones cooking, cleaning, managing bills and appointments, caring for siblings, or even being conditioned into the role of caregiver for an ill family member. We’ll explore how these adult-sized responsibilities shape a child’s sense of self, and how the impact often follows them into adulthood, influencing their relationships - especially with their ...
In this solo episode, I’m diving into the topic of parentification — what it looks like, how to recognise it, and why naming your experience is the essential first step toward healing. Before we can deconstruct and dismantle the roles and patterns we grew up with, we need the language to understand what truly happened to us. I’ll be sharing real, relatable examples to help you spot the subtle and not-so-subtle signs of parentification in your own family system and explore how these dynamics m...
In today’s episode, we dive deep into the complex topic of enmeshment—what it is, how it forms, and what healthyfamily patterns actually look like. We explore the journey of emancipation: how to recognise the conditioned roles you were assigned in childhood and, most importantly, how to break free from them. Joining us is Dr. Ken Adams, renowned national lecturer, workshop leader, and consultant specializing in child abuse, dysfunctional family systems, and sex addiction. Dr. Adams is the acc...
“I started this work at the age of 19. I was a child abuse advocate, a sexual abuse advocate, a domestic violence advocate, a therapist — and yet, I didn’t know it was happening to me.” Dr. Christine Cocchiola is a leading expert on the experience of adult and child victims of coercive control. But even with all her knowledge and training, she found herself living inside the very dynamic she’d dedicated her life to understanding and preventing. In this powerful and deeply personal conversatio...
Solo Episode - This week on Beyond Survival – The Therapy Podcast, I’m unpacking the truth behind people pleasing. So often we think of it as a habit or personality trait - but in reality, it’s a deeply ingrained survival response. When a child grows up in dysfunction, their nervous system learns that safety comes from centering others and erasing themselves. This fawning response isn’t about being “too nice” - it’s about self-abandonment learned in an environment where needs, emo...
This week a listener asks a question: How do I let go of all the rage? After years of no contact with her abusive family, she’s exhausted by how much power the past still has over her present. She doesn’t want revenge or empty apologies - she just wants peace. But how do you move forward when there will never be justice? In this episode, we explore what rage really is beneath the surface, why it can feel impossible to release, and how to begin freeing yourself from its grip so you...
This week, I read a letter from a listener who’s been no contact with her mother for two years - but still feels like she’s living with her shadow. Every bark of the dog, every knock at the door, sends her body into high alert. Even something as simple as checking the mailbox feels dangerous. Myself and Dr. Ruth Callaghan will explore what it’s like when no contact doesn’t bring peace, and how our nervous system can become stuck in fight/flight - especially when the person w...
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