Lola trained as a psychiatric nurse at the Maudsley in 2001. She talks about her formative years working in "the Castle" and how she used Balint groups to understand what was going on beneath the surface of the nurse-patient relationship ("the transference"). Lola worked with a lot of families who were under care orders. Social services had intervened in a punitative way rather than trying to understand the mothers' disturbance. "Nobody went beyond a facade of the toughness to actually see a soft needy person who might have been neglected herself. Nobody looked after the child in her." That's where Lola's gifts come in. Lola describes having a "parallel mind" - she was so in tune with the patients that she could anticipate when they were in trouble or about to self-harm.
Titilola
I liked the kitchen, I liked cooking and for me it was an important thing because I spent a lot of time cooking with the young people and they loved it. And I always remember our Christmas dinner that we cook together. We kind of did the specialist aubergine Vegan thing that was so good because the chef did the main Christmas menu and then we prepared the special recipe for all the vegetarian and vegan in the house.