In this short video, I explain how an absent, harsh or unreachable father goes on shaping a grown man, and what shifts once we look at that inheritance together.
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Online father wound therapy helps you understand how your father, whether he was missing, critical, frightening or simply out of reach, still shapes your temper, your work and your love. We meet by video, one to one and in English, for 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, at an hour that suits your time zone.
I help you notice where you are still chasing his approval, fighting him in your head or turning into him, and then find footing of your own. This is a focused branch of online masculinity and identity therapy, within my online psychotherapy for men.
To start, reserve a session, arrange a free 30-minute call, read the client policy or get in touch.
Online father wound therapy is for men, wherever they live, who sense that their father still has a grip on them, whether he was around or not. He may have been seldom home, impossible to please, frightening or just silent. You want to understand what that did to you and stop it steering your life and your relationships.
Some situations around fathers and families call for a different focus. If one of these lines is nearer the truth, the page linked will suit you better.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“Looking back over my 22 years of practice, the men most governed by their fathers are often the ones who tell me he barely matters. They live in another country, work in another field and run a very different household, and still every big choice is quietly a reply to him. One voice inside asks ‘Was I ever reason enough for you to come home?’ Another says ‘I gave up needing anything from you long ago, and I will not start needing it from anyone else.’ I am convinced you cannot escape a father wound by becoming his opposite. It heals when you grieve what you never got, and then decide, as a grown man, what to do with what you did get.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Lucas is 43, grew up in Lyon and now manages logistics for a shipping firm in Singapore. His father, an army officer, praised other boys and corrected his own. They speak by phone at Christmas and on birthdays. Last month Lucas’s son, who is 10, fumbled a catch at cricket, and Lucas heard his own voice deliver his father’s exact sentence. The boy’s face fell. Lucas drove home without a word and lay awake half the night.
I would start with that sentence at the edge of the pitch, word for word, and ask whose voice it really was. In a first video session he would probably notice how much of his father lives in his tone and standards, and how much sadness sits beneath the anger.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried hard to leave your father in the past, yet he keeps appearing in the way you work, react and love.
You do not need a particular age or a dramatic story to look at your relationship with your father. Noticing that he still colours your moods, your ambition or your closeness to people is reason enough, and no diagnosis is needed. Over 22 years I have heard countless men begin with “it was not that bad”, and I can tell when an old hurt has set into a pattern.
I will help you see what you took from him, what you are still waiting for and what keeps it all in place. Notice which of the 6 questions below catch you.
If you are, take it seriously. Plenty of men carrying a father wound are tireless, first online in the morning and last to log off. A word of praise from a boss lifts you for an afternoon, while one critical comment spoils the week. You may train until it hurts, or drink to come down, and still feel you have not done enough.
I would look at whose approval you are really chasing, and what happens in you when it fails to arrive. That separates healthy ambition from an old hunger. If this is you, book a session with me and we will start there.
Both can be true, because each guards something different. The boy in you is still waiting for him to say “I am proud of you”. The man in you has learned to expect nothing at all. So you ring, hope, feel let down and vow never to ring again.
I do not ask you to pick between longing and distance. I help you hear what each is protecting. The goal is neither reconciliation at any price nor a clean cut. It is to decide from steadier ground what contact, if any, fits you.
Many men do. A curt email from a manager or your father-in-law’s silence at a family meal can drop you straight back into being a boy. You replay it, hunt for your mistake and feel a blend of fear and fury far bigger than the moment.
Wanting older men to respect you is natural, and I will not make you wrong for it. I help you spot when the old alarm sounds, tell apart the man in front of you from the father behind him, and ask for what you need rather than over-performing or going cold.
This is one of the clearest shapes the father wound takes. You meet a coach or senior colleague who believes in you, and for a while you stand taller. Then you start to feel watched or indebted, and you drift off or pick a quarrel. An older man’s backing feels like rescue and like a snare at the same time.
I help you catch the moment when trust turns into suspicion, often a fear of being let down once more. I respect your caution, and I will also help you stay in good relationships with men long enough for them to do you some good.
Many sons of distant fathers do. When your partner cries or your child clings, pressure rises in you, so you turn practical or find a reason to leave the room. Nobody showed you how to stay, so staying can feel like going under.
In my view this is not coldness. Nobody taught you this, and what was never taught can still be learned. I help you see what the distance shields you from, remain a few minutes past your comfort and say “I want to be here, give me a moment” before the retreat sets hard.
When a father looms large, a man can spend decades defined by him, following his path or doing everything in reverse. In both cases the choice is not fully yours. You may feel successful and oddly unanchored, particularly if you live far from the family and its history.
I help you sort what you took from him, what you threw out and what is genuinely your own. I will challenge you when you are still arguing with him in your head, and I will not prescribe the man you should be. The aim is a life that fits you, rather than a reply to him.
If you recognised your father in these questions, book a free call to talk it over, or choose a session time and we will begin.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Understanding your father helps, yet the real work is changing how his legacy shows up in your days, your temper and your love.
I will help you see plainly what happened between you and your father, notice where it still drives your reactions and make changes your partner, children and colleagues can feel. Being able to explain him in fine detail, while still flinching at every criticism, means the work has only begun.
I take an active role. Men’s work has been part of my learning since 2010, and it adds to and deepens my psychotherapy training rather than replacing it. Eli Buren, a dear friend and mentor, has been a central influence. Sam Keen’s “Fire in the Belly” helps me show men how many fathers lost themselves in work and competition, and handed that loss to their sons. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette describe the King, the part of a mature man who blesses those in his care, and what a son goes without when that blessing never comes. These 6 questions show what we aim for.
Related reading: I know exactly why I do it. Why can’t I stop? and Why do I find it so hard to let anyone help me?.
I help you tell apart the story you tell about him from what actually lives in you today. The core is rarely one event. More often it is a feeling: never quite seen, never quite enough, always braced. The overwork, the temper or the distance grow around it.
I tell you what I see, and which explanations keep you stuck, such as “he was doing all he knew, so I should have moved on”. We also work with dreams, the body and the inner voices you carry, because this wound sits beneath words. Book a session with me and bring the story as it stands.
You can learn to notice it before it lands. There is usually a chain: a tightening jaw, a sharp phrase forming, an urge to lecture or to walk off. Each link you recognise gives you a little more room.
In our sessions we replay recent moments slowly, so you see what triggered the reaction and what it shields. Recognition is only the start. We rehearse the response you would rather give until you can reach for it at bedtime, in the car or over breakfast.
Steadiness is not pretending you are over it. It means feeling the fury or the sorrow fully while keeping the choice of what you do next. Many men with this wound know only rage or numbness, and both keep them stuck.
I help you feel the wave earlier in your body and recognise how old it is. I will also ask you to practise between sessions, because what changes on an ordinary Wednesday counts for more than what happens on our call.
It begins with knowing what you feel and what you want from him now, if anything. Years of swallowed anger or quiet hope make that hard, so conversations with him slide into stiff politeness or a row.
Together we look for words that are truthful and sized to the moment. I challenge you when you keep the peace by staying silent, and when you still expect him to turn into the father you needed. Sometimes we rehearse a real call. Sometimes we write a letter you never send.
Choices get clearer when you peel guilt, duty, family pressure and leftover hope away from what you actually want. Whether to fly home more often, see him less or sit at his hospital bed, these are heavy decisions, and many men make them on autopilot.
We think through the options together and what each would cost you. I will offer my opinion and say so when I think you are avoiding the question, but the decision and the relationship stay yours.
Criticism stings without flattening you, praise is pleasant without being necessary, and you can stay beside an upset child. You may find older men you trust, or let work take up less of your life, as Sam Keen encourages men to do.
I help you keep what was good in your father, and there often is something, and put down what was never yours to carry. The point is not to erase him. It is to become your own man, with your own way of blessing those who depend on you.
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His story does not need to be sorted out first. We begin with the ways he turns up in your life today.
When you begin, I listen, help you put the central hurt into words and give our work a clear direction. There is no need to recall it all, to defend him or to put him on trial.
This is focused online psychotherapy, centred on you, your father and your relationships now. If the pattern is mostly playing out with a partner who is willing to join, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you expect the work to take time, therapy discounts and bundles give you real savings and a plan you can count on.
I ask what brought you now, how your father shows up in your life today, what you have tried and what you want to be different. I also ask a little about his own father, since the wound is often older than either of you.
By the end you hear my first reading and a suggested direction, and you decide whether the approach suits you. If you prefer to talk first, book a free 30-minute call.
Nearly always, at least at the start. This wound lives in your history, your inner voices and your reactions, and all of that can be explored with nobody else listening. Many men find it far easier to speak openly when no family member is present.
Working alone with me, you get continuity and steady challenge from week to week. My page on structured individual psychotherapy online describes the wider frame.
Choose couples work when your relationship itself needs sustained attention. If your father’s pattern has become a loop at home, with your partner reaching and you retreating, or the same argument about criticism keeps resurfacing, working on it together helps you both.
With both of you on screen, I help you see the cycle, own your part and build a safer way of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and some men do their father work first.
It depends on how raw this feels, what else your life holds right now and how much continuity you need. Father work tends to stir strong feeling, so a steady rhythm matters more than speed.
I usually suggest weekly or fortnightly video sessions to begin with. I will say if the gaps grow too long, if a closer run of sessions would help or if we can ease off. Back-to-back sessions over a few days are possible when a regular slot is hard to hold.
A bundle fits when you know this will take several sessions and you do not want to weigh up after every hour whether to continue. In father work, the urge to stop often arrives just as something important is surfacing.
You get real savings and the security of a plan already in place. I will tell you honestly whether one suits your situation. See therapy discounts and bundles and the bundle cards below.
It is done when your father takes up less room in your reactions, you can think about him without being flooded and you can carry on without this support. You still have a history. It simply no longer drives.
We look at progress openly, and I have no interest in endless therapy. Sessions can become rarer, pause or end. If his illness, his death or your own fatherhood stirs things up later, coming back is part of life.
Unsure whether this is where to start? Here is how online father wound therapy compares with the nearby options men most often consider.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online father wound therapy (this page) | Your father, present or absent, is at the heart of what you want to change. | Weekly or fortnightly 1-hour video sessions |
| Online masculinity and identity therapy | The wider question is what kind of man you are, or want to be. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online therapy for shame in men | A hidden sense of not being enough is what weighs most. | A steady course of video sessions |
| Online therapy for fathers | You want to work on being the father your own children need. | Video sessions at a pace you choose |
Online father wound therapy with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men whose relationship with their father, through absence, harshness, distance or loss, still shapes their lives. You come to see what he passed on and decide which parts to carry forward.
It is a sub-branch of my work on masculinity and identity, rooted in depth psychotherapy and informed by men’s work. Where the pattern clearly runs back through grandparents and beyond, generational work may fit better.
Come when you notice him in your temper, your work, your fears about fatherhood or your distance from the people you love. A dramatic story is not required. If you feel he still has his hand on your shoulder, that is reason enough.
Over 22 years I have learned to watch for the quiet signs: the overwork, the flinch at criticism, the vow never to be like him. If these sound familiar, they deserve attention.
Yes. Most of this work happens inside you, so it does not depend on him being alive or willing. His death can make some things easier to say and others harder to bear. I offer steady, serious work rather than a quick fix.
In my clinical experience, a man often starts mourning the father he lacked only once the actual father is gone. I would make room for both: the man he actually was, and the father you needed.
No. Many men worry that therapy will push them into a showdown or a break. It will not. What you do about your father is your choice, and many men end up with a calmer, more honest relationship rather than a dramatic one.
We work out what you want, what is possible and what you could live with. Sometimes that leads to a conversation. Sometimes it simply means reacting differently the next time you see him.
Both protect you from the same old hurt. Chasing says “perhaps this time I will be enough”. Pulling away says “I will never need that again”. Many men swing between them with bosses, partners and their fathers.
I help you see which move you make and when, what it costs and what lies under it. Then we work on a steadier middle: wanting respect without begging for it, and keeping your distance without turning cold.
We start with your life now and where your father appears in it. I ask about him, about your grandfather if you know the story, and about the kind of man you were raised to become. By the end you will hear my first view.
Nothing needs preparing, although you are welcome to have a photo or a letter beside you. When you feel ready, book your first session, or start with a free discovery call.
Think in months rather than weeks, usually weekly or fortnightly at the start. A wound that reaches back into childhood takes time to understand and change, and rushing it rarely helps.
From 22 years of practice, my advice is a first stretch that we then review together honestly. After that, you and I decide whether to continue, ease off or stop.
Video works well here, and it often helps that you can speak from your own room, far from the family home. You need privacy, headphones and a steady connection. Your father does not need to join, certainly not at first, because this work is about you.
Later, a planned conversation can sometimes help, but it is never required. If the work turns towards your own role as a dad, online therapy for fathers may suit you better.
It is individual psychotherapy, booked as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. You will see the current fee in US dollars on my prices page.
Booking several sessions together as a bundle cuts 10 per cent from each one and gives the work a structured plan. See therapy discounts and bundles for what is on offer.
Book your first session whenever suits you, or start with a free 30-minute call to get a sense of my way of working. Every time in the calendar appears in your local time.
If no slot suits you, or something with your father has just happened, contact me. I keep some room for acute cases, usually within days, and acute online psychotherapy explains how that works. Choose a time, and we begin.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
