Irene Tompkinson

Irene is based in New Hampshire, and I recently (i.e. Sept 2009) attended a retreat with her, and had a one-to-one session with her.

I was nervous about the retreat, no matter how much I wanted to do it. It was sold as being very experiential and I'm a great one for learning about stuff, and analysing it, but not feeling it or doing it. (I do do a lot of EFT which has saved my life probably, and certainly improved its quality. But it's still easy to slip into doing nothing. And perspective from others is always a good thing - it's hard to be objective about your own 'stuff'.)

I was nervous to meet her, no matter that Grace had told me how wonderful she was.

Well, I needn't have worried. She is kindness personified. And compassion. And wisdom. She has a lovely balance between compassion and directness. What's lovely is that she really, it seems to me, sees you as you are - and loves and accepts you anyway. This was HUGE for me as, as a DONM, my mother and father were always telling me how awful I was really and there was always the lingering fear of people seeing the real me.

There were nine other women, and myself and Irene, so 11 of us altogether. Irene said that she finds that the perfect combination of people always turns up, and so it proved on this occasion.

It didn't take long for us all to bond really really well and to get on.

Irene said that there might well be somebody in the group who really triggered you and pushed your buttons and that that would be the woman who would give you the biggest lessons of all.

But certainly as far as I was concerned, nobody pushed my buttons or triggered me (although I can't answer as to whether I did that for somebody else! I don't think so though - certainly nobody gave me that impression and again as a DONM I'm pretty sensitive and perceptive to people's vibes towards me). No, no triggering, we all got on really well.

Irene creates a lovely space for this work. Both physically - it was relaxing and comfortable - but also psychologically. She created a safe and welcoming emotional space for each and every one of us. I teach adult workshops often, although not in anything as challenging as this, and I know how challenging and tiring it is to create that space, so I really appreciated her doing this and knew what an achievement it was.

Another thing which really struck me is how observant she was about each and every one of us - all without making us feel (or at least, without making me feel) like an insect on a pin. But yet, she knew those of us that needed to break through our grief and sadness and access the anger, and facilitated that. And she knew those of us who were stuck in anger for fear of accessing the grief and sadness and fear, and helped us access that. She also had a habit of, with one question or often one word, giving a new perspective which changed everything for the better. A real skill.

The accomodation was basic enough - camp beds in the room, dormitory style. Irene explained she did this to keep the costs down, which made sense. And truly it wasn't an issue - the beds were comfortable, we had fun sleeping in the same room, and we managed really well with facilities such as bathrooms. The retreat was also fully catered by Irene's gorgeous husband David and he did a terrific job - the food was filling, but healthy too.

The first night there, Irene tucked each of us into bed, in a way. Not literally tucking. But came by, touched us on the shoulder, and had a personal comment for each of us. I nearly cried! I don't remember my mother EVER tucking me into bed, you won't be surprised to hear, so this was really really special.

She had us do various exercises about our families - they were all very interesting. For instance there was one where we were to draw our families and ourselves. I only realised afterwards that I drew my mother with no arms!

And then there was a wonderful exercise which involved a baseball bat and a boxing bag and lots of shouts and safe violence. That was VERY powerful and very catharthic and very releasing. Women in our society don't get to express anger at all, but particularly DONMs and other abused children don't, so getting the anger out was - yes, scary, but very freeing and worthwhile.

And then there was a mat exercise. It was different for each of us, depending on our needs (again, acutely observed by Irene), but was very powerful. In this exercise each of the women supported and encouraged and helped the woman who was undergoing the exercise, and that had its own power for sure. I can't remember too much of my own one, I wish I could, but it was so intense it was nearly deeper than the level of concious awareness.

I also saw Irene two days later for an hour or so, and we did some inner child work. I had an issue that I was scared of accessing my power, because I associate power with abuse. Every time I thought of being powerful I had an image of myself as a giant walking through a village where the houses were only up to my knees, and I was wreaking all sorts of destruction.

Not willfully or deliberately, not at all, but due to my sheer size and clumsiness. Picture a big dog and a small toddler. With no malice whatsoever that dog can still hurt the child by knocking her over or slapping her face with its tail.

That's what accessing my power felt like to me. I didn't doubt my sincerity or integrity - I didn't think that accessing power would turn me into a nasty person. But I thought the power would overwhelm me and others around me.

Well, we did the inner child work and imagery work and it was very very good and powerful and I was able to release most of that fear of power.

Another session will complete the process I think, and I'm doing work on myself with EFT on it.

Actually, I had a powerful realisation that I have the strongest need to do everything myself and not depend on others. Even EFT - it's wonderful, don't get me wrong. But it was a way for me to do my own healing rather than look to a therapist for help. It does work for that, for sure. But others go to EFT practitioners to work with the process. Not me. I learned it to practitioner level so I could heal myself. And I home-school my child. And I use herbal medicine as a rule rather than go to the doctor (I'm not stupid about it at least! There's a time and place!). But the pattern is that I feel I've to do everything myself. Interesting, no? But it made it very powerful to trust Irene and let her help me.


Well, I needn't have been nervous. The retreat was absolutely wonderful, and I not only recommend Irene, I now advocate her. She really gets, as far as I can tell, about NPD too. She does work over the phone, and so is available from any location (I'm going to be working with her from Ireland!)

Her website is http://www.irenetomkinson.com/.

Irene is interested in hosting a retreat for daughters of narcissistic mothers. Would you like to do this? Contact me to put your name on a mailing list and we'll let you know.

Or contact Irene directly with any questions or to book a session.