Lorraine Millard

It was a great pleasure for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Lorraine Millard who has been a therapist since around 1984 and works at the University of Kent. We talk about how she has a job which deals with authenticity and how great an honour that is, and we discuss the evolution of student support over the years and the leap that students have to make from school to university. The conversation then turns to student debt and the different ways in which students will, or will not, interact with their peers.

Lorraine speaks about how she stumbled into her career and we learn that she studied Literature, Philosophy and Drama in Higher Education. We discuss how you don’t really know what you want to do until you start the journey and Lorraine talks about an individuation, in Jungian terms, in each person and how we cultivate happiness.

Lorraine talks about the joys of therapy and who would have supplied that role in the days before professional therapists and Lorraine discusses the importance of being ‘present’ for the other person in a counselling context. She talks about the importance of storytelling from when she was young before moving on to discuss our inherent worthiness, and the difference between Buddhist and Christian understandings of sin and guilt, as well as different conceptions of God and the importance of the ‘hero’s journey’ and how film comprises our modern day storytelling.

The conversation then turns to Ed Stewart, Motown, Gilbert O’Sullivan and reggae and we learn how Lorraine was very politically active when she was younger.

We talk about mindfulness and being driven by our thoughts and how it is (now) being taken seriously in university. Lorraine speaks about being a seeker and the importance of meditation and how mindfulness changed her life more than anything else, and the communal aspect it involves. We also learn why her ‘go to’ music is Indian chants.

In the final part of the interview we learn why Lorraine’s memories are chiefly positive and why she has become more compassionate towards her younger self, and whether she has achieved what she used to want. Lorraine talks about the time when she undertook work on ageing and mindfulness and the importance of being as present as possible, and how the things that make us feel alive are often the simplest.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Lorraine Millard and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.