Staying Sane in Law
Staying Sane in Law with Annmarie Carvalho, the lawyers' therapist. Each episode, Annmarie meets a leader in the legal profession and the therapists who work with them, to talk about balancing high-pressure careers with the ups and downs of everyday life.
Staying Sane in Law
The Midlife Therapist - Helen Shaw on family court, fostering and working through menopause
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This episode, Annmarie Carvalho - the Lawyers' Therapist - meets with her TCC colleague Helen Shaw, a former family court solicitor and now counsellor and psychotherapist. Helen has a wealth of experience in the courts and as a therapeutic foster carer, and is now specialising in the challenges facing women who are working through perimenopause and menopause. Helen has written extensively about how these normal life changes affect working life and neurodivergence, and it's a must-listen for any legal practice that wants to retain its senior female talent!
Hello, I'm Amory Corvallier, the lawyer's therapist and CEO of TCC, the Legal Therapy Coaching and Training Agency. Welcome to Staying Sane in Law, the show where every episode I'm in conversation with a lawyer or therapist talking about the gritty realities of life in the law. Today I am so pleased to welcome Helen Shaw to the show, a former family solicitor turned psychotherapist. Welcome, Helen. Thanks, I'm very good to be here.
SPEAKER_00And it's season two, baby. It's season two. You can't help me back. Season two.
SPEAKER_03Helen, you were a family law solicitor for over 30 years in the Midlands. You have a son who's now grown up in University in Manchester. One of the things that I think is really interesting about your background as well, which I'd love to talk to you about, is you became a therapeutic foster carer a number of years ago, which we'll talk about. And you also took the decision to retrain to become a psychotherapist a number of years ago. And now I was going to say you're lucky enough, but I am lucky enough that you work with me at TCC. And now you provide therapy and reflective supervision to lawyers alongside your own private practice. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. It's fair to say you've been developing something of a specialism in working with women. And in particular with people going through the perimenopause and menopause, which we will come on to. But first of all, I'd love to hear about your experiences within family law. We know it is one of the most difficult and emotional areas of law. And I just wondered what impressions, having worked in that field for so many years, have left you with. What were your experiences like?
SPEAKER_01There's so much, isn't there? There is so much to think about with family law. And it's so much more about people than it is about law at the end of the day. I I think my overwhelming memory of family law is that it brings out the absolute best and the absolute worst in people. And I don't just mean the clients, I mean the solicitors as well. Um and the whole legal profession. Um, I mean, I think most people want to act with decency and integrity, but there's also a very strong human instinct when your relationship breaks down to want to be the person who's right and to blame the other person. And I think that the problem with the legal system is that it encourages that and it doesn't always do very well in helping people to resolve things. So I think some of the things it gets right and some of the things it gets badly wrong, and um it it at the end of the day, it doesn't always do families who are breaking down any favours at all.
SPEAKER_03It's it's really interesting to hear you use the word instincts because I always think that, you know, when any of us are in pain, as so many people in family law proceedings are, or even if they're not in court proceedings within the family law system in general, we act from instinct, don't we? When we're in pain, and we know this, we've all been through breakups, we've all had difficulties in our lives. And, you know, when I, I don't know about you guys, but when I'm when my instincts are threatened, I regress into childlike memory, which is I want, I'm in fear and everyone's against me, and that you know, I'm gonna come out fighting, or I'm gonna kind of wither into this sort of victim-like state. So, as you say, I think it's it's really hard for family lawyers because you're dealing with quite base instincts a lot of the time. And like you say, ours as well, because we as lawyers feel threatened or worried, or you know, there's a barrister we don't like working with, or the judges mean to us, or whatever it might be. So there's loads of emotions going on all the time, and people are coming into it wanting some sort of emotional justice, and they don't get it, do they? Because the system isn't built to provide that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and we do. We get we get drawn in, whether we like it or not, really. And um, I think that's what's so interesting now about being a therapist to family lawyers, really, seeing seeing how that lands and and and how it affects us. Um, I mean, I think there are some really good aspects to family law and the way that the legal system works, and that and there are people trying to do the right thing, you know, ADR, um mediation, um, the the new child focused court, you know, people really trying their best to get people through the system and and do their best for families. So there is a lot of good. I mean, you know, that the there's always been people who are massively committed to making the legal system work. But yeah, I I don't think that the the courts and the the legal system works particularly well in in a lot of cases because you need not only innovative thinking, but you need the resources to put it into practice. And you know, that there are massive structural problems with the court, sometimes literally, you know, that the the fabric of the court is falling to pieces. And we we are stuck with a system that is not working, really.
SPEAKER_03Just to add to that, I mean, we've seen, haven't we, lots of strides forward in recent years. So was the I'll give a shout out to the divorce surgery, uh, to Samantha and and Harry, who started the divorce, which probably about 12 years ago, uh, who were the first agency to start the kind of one couple, one lawyer initiative. And now we have lots of people, uh, lots of lawyers who are trained to provide one couple, one lawyer legal advice, lots of incentives to get people into mediation, lots of people trying to practice in a holistic way, bringing in family therapists and family consultants into the process. But I think, like you say, Helen, the issue is structural in this country, certainly. So that as I understand it, in Australia, for example, they have relationship centres, people are encouraged to have couples therapy before the relationship is in trouble. It's just inbuilt into society that we think about relationships and we invest in relationships at an earlier stage. Whereas here, we're a sort of funny little country, I think, in the UK, where we sort of don't, we sort of wake up when it's too late. We're like, oh, we need, you know, we need to support people. And of course, when someone's relationship is in trouble, they think, oh, I'll go and see a lawyer. Um, you know, they might go to couples therapy, but often it's, you know, it's perhaps a little too late, or it's just to sort of work out how do we separate in a reasonably amicable way. But yeah, I think getting in there earlier and actively thinking about relationships at an earlier stage. So people like the Family Solutions Group and um Helen Adam, who were another Shaw Tal, who has recently got an MBE or an OBE. Sorry, Helen, I'm not sure which one it was. But um, the Family Solutions Group we've been talking about, you know, we need um a relationships commissioner, we need, you know, someone to actively be focusing on this because we know it it harms, you know, harm is done to children, harm is done to people when the processes don't work in the way that they need to. But for you, Helen, uh I'd be interested in hearing because that transition from family lawyer to therapist is one that more and more people are doing. And I wondered for you what your motivations were and how that came about as well.
SPEAKER_01So I think one of the things that I've always valued about family law um, and and the part of the process that I really enjoyed was when you see somebody come in at the beginning of the case and they're completely overwhelmed and they cannot see a way out. Um, and the family's falling apart, and you see them through the case in whatever way it takes, whether that's through ADR, whether it's through negotiation. And at the end of that case, they walk out and somehow they have begun to start a new life and the kids are thriving. There is something incredibly life-affirming about that. I mean, it of course it doesn't always work. That's the the aim that we always have as family lawyers to to help that process. But that was the part of it that I really valued. And uh, you know, we've we've talked about some of the problems in family law and the fact that that doesn't always, it's not always possible to do that, and that, you know, we don't always feel as though, for whatever reason, that that we are doing the best. Um and and therapy gave me a way to I suppose enable people to find the tools to make their life better. Um and it it sort of takes the elements of family law that I really enjoyed and really valued. And yeah, after years of working with people and with relationships, I think, you know, you see so much of human life in all its forms, um, that retraining as a therapist became an obvious choice for me.
SPEAKER_03Which brings us on to your experience as a therapeutic foster carer, which I had never heard of this concept before you and I first met. Um, and I'm really interested in this idea and how, you know, actually, Andrew and I, Andrew will attest to this. A number of the people we've spoken to so far on the podcast have had caring responsibilities of one sort or another, be it parents or uh siblings with additional needs or children or whatever um it might be. Um but for you, this this role of therapeutic foster carer, how did that come about and what was that experience like for you?
SPEAKER_01So I kind of grew up with fostering in a way. My my late mother was a social worker. Um, and in the early days, as I when I was a kid in the growing up in the 70s, she would sometimes sort of take me on journeys to take foster children from one home to another, um, and you know, to to go and visit what was in those days called approved schools. So I kind of grew up with some knowledge of the care system. And then uh before we had our son, we applied to adopt. We had realized that it was unlikely we were going to have kids, and we went through the adoption process. And that was just incredibly interesting and uh again very life-affirming. So much so that actually I fell pregnant and found that we were expecting. So we never we never went through with the adoption application in the end, but it was always something that kind of stuck with me. Um, and when our son was secondary school age, we decided that it was time to explore fostering. Therapeutic fostering is is kind of it it's quite widespread now, and um, arguably all foster parents should be therapeutic foster parents. And it it's based on a model that uh uh you kind of your your parenting of of a foster child is uh based on this this thing called pace model, which is um uh playfulness, uh acceptance, curiosity, and empathy. And you know, you you're looking at in order to correct behaviour, you need to connect with the child first. And of course, foster fostered children um come into care through a mixture of uh neglect and abuse, um, most of which really you you have you only kind of see the tip of the iceberg. You probably never get to find out the full extent of the experiences that these children have gone through. So parenting a foster child is is really quite it it it should be therapeutic. Um and I think one of the things that that it taught me was that it should we should we should parent in that way anyway, you know, parent our own kids in that way. Um if my son's listening to this, he's probably thinking, what really mum? Empathy, curiosity? What? But it it's you know again, it's a it is we were approved as foster parents, and then very, very quickly afterwards we had a a child placed with us, a young mum, and it was meant to be uh an emergency placement, and that emergency placement sort of stretched out over a couple of weeks, and then it stretched out over a month, and then it it it turned into four and a half years that he's with us. And in that time, I think I learned so much, uh learned so much about parenting him and about me as a parent as well. I mean, it was tough, it's really tough. Um and I take my hat off to all of these amazing foster parents who who will look after a series of children. And as part of that experience, we actually we became part of a project called the um Mockingbird Project. And this is set up by the fostering agency and it involves um uh a group of families, six or eight families, but who all have their own foster kids. The principle behind it is that um the b the families and the children all spend time together and they become like an extended family. So they kind of share child care. We went on holidays together, we went to kind of Christmas do's together, and it's really quite amazing the transformation, these kids who are in care who've had these really traumatic experiences, uh for them to be able to connect with each other and to kind of form this extended family and just to see them play, you know, to to be children together, um, and and to have this degree of support. Because I think one one of the most striking things about our training as as foster parents was there's a training exercise where you all stand in a circle, and in the center of the circle is the foster child or the the the child in care. And there's a ball of string. And the connections between the foster child and the various people who are involved in their care are all connected in some way. So you're passing this ball of string around, there's all these connections, and one by one, all of these connections are either cut, the people drop out of the picture, or they're broken, or they're just dropped, so that the child is in the end left in the center of the circle without any connections at all. And that is my my teaching really about fostering, all comes from that. This this feeling that there is unlike children in their birth homes, there is no stability, there's no consistency, there's no real safe place for these kids to be, because at the end of the day, all of those connections can be broken and there can be absolutely nobody left. The Mockingbird Project is a really great initiative because it ensures that there is this ongoing connection between the children, the other children in the group, and and the carers, and it kind of grows this sense of connection and of safety.
SPEAKER_03Um perimenopause and menopause is this is a subject close to my heart at the moment. You have developed something of a specialism. You've written a number of brilliant articles around um menopause, ADHD, women's experiences in law. I I really want to sing Woman in Love by Barbara Streisand right now. Is that okay? I keep saying women in law. Uh, I'm not gonna sing. I really want to sing that. Anyway, it's kind of good, isn't it? I am a woman in law. You are a woman in law. Uh I apologize to everyone listening, but it'd be it'd be really interesting to hear from you about your experiences, well, personally, uh, and and with your clients as well. Um, where do you feel like we're at in relation to these issues in 2026?
SPEAKER_01I'm not sure that we're that much further on than we were many years ago, in some ways. The one thing that is brilliant about it is that we are starting to talk about it openly on podcasts like this, on the way that we are um dealing with it in our own work. So, yes, we're we're starting tentatively to make some steps towards talking about it and it it being not a sense of shame or a sense of something that we've just got to get through. Because I think that's that's the the problem here. I think my early experience was that um it it it happened pretty suddenly for me because I had a surgical menopause many years ago and then was on HRT, and that was great. So I missed out all of those things. And the silver lining to that particular cloud was that I missed out all of those horrible fluctuating hormones that you you tend to get and that all my my peers and friends got in their 40s and sailed through. That was good. And then I stopped taking the tablets, and I thought for a few minutes, I thought, yeah, this is fine. This is all going well. And then a couple of months later I thought, oh, who am I? Where am I? And and why do my joints not work anymore? And uh what's happened to my memory? And um, why am I not sleeping? So all of those things just it was a perfect storm, really. So I I suppose that I had a fairly it it hadn't hit me. And although I empathized with with other women who were going through all of these symptoms, it was not something that was particularly on my own personal radar. And then that suddenly came in not only those symptoms, but it made me realise that some of the coping strategies I'd used for why I then realised was my own neurodivergence were no longer working. And so it it was, it was a perfect storm for a while. And it also made me realize how little we do talk about it, really, in a in a uh in any sort of meaningful way in the workplace.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And you know, when people do talk about it, I still feel, and I've had to actively restrain myself from doing this. I feel like there's still a certain, you know, sometimes you sort of use it for comedic value, or you know, I'll be there going, oh, I can't remember. I mean, last week I I said to my husband, I think I feel like I've spent 30% of my time this week looking for stuff that I've misplaced in places and ringing up places where I've been saying, Have I left my kids' paw patrol figures in your restaurant or whatever it might be? But I would sort of make make a joke of it in the past. Whereas now, and for some people that's fine, they can make a joke of these things, but for me personally, I've stopped doing that because I'm actually, I know, and we do know from the people that we work with, from the women that we work with, and the horrible stories we see in the press. This is really, really serious. The impact on some women it is absolutely huge. And it can lead to suicide, it can lead to all sorts of things. Just yesterday I saw a report about a woman who'd taken her own life, which was largely related to perimenopause her family had had reported. So I think, yeah, that's that's one thing that I think about. I think also it's interesting to hear, it would be good to hear a little bit about your experience of the, like you say, the sort of intersection with your realization around your neurodivergence as well.
SPEAKER_01Would yeah. So I think that I'd always struggle with organization, and and you're absolutely right. You know, we make jokes about these things. Oh, you know, wherever put the glasses. Um, but there is a real frustration behind that, that um suddenly you really aren't able to work out, you know, your short-term memory is affected and your organization skills, and you feel as though the the skills that you put in place, the kind of scaffolding that you put in place to uh help you remember things are no longer working because you've got an extra challenge going on at the same time. Um, I think the other thing about menopause is that it it can very much take away your sense of identity. You know, when um I I've come across a lot of lawyers who've had this issue, but they feel that they have always been organized, they've always been well, they've always been dependable, emotionally contained, all of these things, and then suddenly that all feels like it's being undermined, and um, and women suddenly feel as though that's no longer there, you know? Um and that can be really, really difficult.
SPEAKER_00You've written quite extensively about how uh menopause, premenopause can affect women with ADHD. And and and as I've been reading that, it strikes me that this is another glass ceiling that hits women at a senior moment in their career, right? I know I don't mean a senior moment.
SPEAKER_02We know what you mean.
SPEAKER_00As women reach senior leadership roles uh and you know they've got a a career behind them, they've got the experience, they've got all of this, there is another whammy that hits you, which is is biological. What reasonable adjustments should should uh sort of forward-thinking practices be deploying for their senior female lawyers because you are squandering all that experience, all that talent, all that resource if you don't. So I mean it strikes me it's a business imperative, surely. So for the the men listening who are running chambers, this this is the the juicy bit they need to listen to, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01It is. But I think that it that is also uh uh to some extent, we are very, very reticent at asking for these reasonable adjustments because it it spells a sense of failure. So I think the first thing that we need to do as women is to be slightly more militant, a lot more militant about this and say this is this is something, this does not mean that I am incompetent. This means that I'm going through a kind of biological transition that is not my fault, that that is is having an impact on me, and that I need these these adjustments because it's going to make me function at my best, and that you need me in this workplace because I'm bloody good, and I always have been, and this does not mean that I'm no longer good. So that that's a change that that needs to happen and needs to be recognized, not not just by women, but by leaders generally. But yeah, I mean again that there there are practical adjustments that we can make, taking time out between meetings, as I think Anne-Mauri's identified, having flexible working. And by that I mean proper flexible working, I don't mean just kind of coming in at at 10 o'clock and leaving at four or or you know, having a day off here and there. But if you're having a really, really bad day and you do not feel up to working that day, then you can you can shift it to another day. Or, you know, we we need to be a lot more creative about the way that we work as well, that we have workplaces where it it's not simply the responsibility of one person to do this job, that we have a tag team that if you're not available at a particular time, that someone else is is capable of doing that work and and handing it over. So I think we need to think about how we work in the legal profession because we're working with a structure that's been in place for a hundred years or more that that doesn't, it's not menopause friendly, it's it's it's not women friendly really, is it? Despite 60% of the entrance to the legal profession being women, it really isn't built for women with family commitments or or or or hormonal issues at all.
SPEAKER_03I'd like to sort that we sort of do away with the R-word, resilience as well. Because I think as as you mentioned, Helen, and sometimes we I've had a number of women in the therapy room like this, and I know it is an issue where we equate all of these biological changes with a lack of resilience, or we suddenly think, if you know, why is it that I can manage all these people, but then I'm really struggling with one-to-one client meetings, or you know, it might be a a perceived lack of resilience might come up in all sorts of different guises, but often it's not, it's not uh it's a it's a biological thing, as you say. And I think um we need to understand that as women and and also the legal world as a whole needs to understand that a little better, I think.
SPEAKER_01Do you think we've we've kind of weaponised the word resilience in a way that we use it wrongly? That what we what people will mean when they say, oh, she's really resilient is stiff up a lip and just get on with it. Uh and it's almost an excuse for not shouting out, making it making yourself heard, or or saying that you need help. And for me, true resilience is is the ability to bounce back, but it's also the ability to seek help, the ability to actually look after yourself and and and reach out for the help that you need to get you through.
SPEAKER_03I think you're right. I think it's been equated with cognitive dominance, hasn't it? You know, because that's what's been prized in the legal profession. And actually, as you say, I think actually resilience is people who can embrace their emotional sides and accept that and their cognition and use those two together and see that all of that stuff makes up who you are as a human. And it's all valuable. You know, we started by talking about family law, didn't we? About, you know, the value of empathy and emotional intelligence. Um and that's a crucial part of it. You know, I would never I always think the family law, you know, who would I want to send a family member to? I certainly wouldn't want to send a family member to a family lawyer who had no emotional intelligence and just sort of clodhopper the way all over everyone's feelings. That's not that's not a decent family lawyer to my mind. So I would talk to you all day if I could, Helen. Um, and I'm sure Angie would agree. I think it's been absolutely fascinating.
SPEAKER_00This is the juicy stuff. This is what people want: lived experience, practical insights, actionable stuff. That's, I mean, from with my producer hat on and my my venal uh media brain is is firing off thinking, Jesus, I can make money out of these chicks.
SPEAKER_03We're all venal here. We're ex-lawyers, though. We're venal creatures of the night as well. Thank you so much, Helen, for joining us today for staying sane in law. It's been an absolute pleasure. Um, listeners, you can find both Helen and I at uh our TCC website, carvalliotherapy.com. That's C-A-R-V-A-L-H-O, uh, or hanging around on LinkedIn, like a bunch of weirdos. Um, I'm talking about myself there. Um LinkedIn.com forward slash in forward slash Amerie Carvalho or forward slash Helen Shaw. Um, you can find my legal agony and column in the Financial Times on Thursdays. And please check out the other episodes of the podcast at stainsaininlaw.buzzprout.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much, Helen, for coming to speak with us today.
SPEAKER_01It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks very much for having me on the podcast. And um, yeah, see you soon.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much. Um, and thank you to lovely Andrew as well. It's good to be back for season two. And remember, listeners, we are all a little bit wonky.
SPEAKER_00I you know what? I the fact you said puppy, I'm just thinking I look that young. That's the nicest thing. You know what? That's that's right, ladies. When you're hearing this voice, think puppy.
SPEAKER_03Um that sounded really creepy. And you're not creepy, I promise it.
SPEAKER_00Um I did, dude. That was terrible. I can't believe I said that.
SPEAKER_02Ladies, I'm just like a puppy.