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In his forthcoming memoir Spare, Prince Harry claims Prince William attacked him during an argument at the younger brother’s Nottingham Cottage home in 2019. The Duke of Sussex’s first caller after the physical altercation did not to be his wife, who was the main subject of the alleged quarrel between the brothers, but his therapist.
In an extract from the royal’s book, which is due to be released on January 10, Harry writes that his older brother grabbed him by the collar, tore off the necklace and “threw it” to the ground. The argument began when William allegedly called Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, and escalated when Harry fell over the dog bowl with broken pieces cutting his back.
After William left his brother’s house, looking “sorry,” as Harry recalls, the Duke writes that he didn’t immediately tell Meghan, but called his therapist after the altercation. It wasn’t until his wife noticed “scratches and bruises” on his back that he told her about the attack.
Prince Harry is no stranger to therapy, and it’s no surprise that Harry had his therapist on speed dial. Given the circumstances of his life, it is puzzling how he could live without one.
The royal’s foray into therapy isn’t unlike the 21.6 percent of Americans who sought mental health treatment last year: anxiety issues, grieving the loss of a loved one, PTSD after serving in the military and the stress of family dysfunction.
During his 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday evening, Prince Harry revealed that he only cried once after Princess Diana’s death, when her coffin “actually fell to the ground” – and that he later turned to experimental drugs to help him cope with his problems. emotions
Harry, who lost his mother when he was just 12 years old, was haunted by his inability to cry and tried very hard just to muster up a tear. Speaking to Anderson Cooper, the Duke revealed he watched videos of the late Princess of Wales online in the hope they would make him cry and turned to alcohol and experimental drugs, before seeking therapy, to help him to accept his pain. .
“I would never recommend that people do it recreationally. But doing it with the right people if you’re going through a lot of loss or pain or trauma, then these things have a way of working as medicine,” he said during the Sunday evening television interview.
“For me, they wiped the windshield, the windshield, the misery of the loss. They erased this idea I had in my head that I needed to cry to show my mom that I missed her. When in fact all she wanted was for me to be happy.”
While it’s unclear how often Prince Harry sought out these therapy sessions, or when they stopped, the royal has said it wasn’t until meeting Meghan that he encouraged him to see a therapist again.
In the Apple TV Plus series The Me You Can’t See , Harry recalled an argument he and his now-wife had in the early days of their relationship, admitting that he would risk losing “this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with” if I didn’t go to therapy.
Prince Harry does EMDR psychotherapy with Oprah
“I saw GPs, I saw doctors, I saw therapists, I saw alternative therapists. I saw all kinds of people, but it was meeting and being with Meghan,” he said. While he did not reveal what the argument was about, he added that Meghan suggested she seek professional help after “getting back to Harry, aged 12.”
“It was probably in my second session, my therapist turned to me and said, you look like 12-year-old Harry again,” she said. “I felt a little embarrassed and defensive, how dare you call me a boy? And he said I’m not calling you a boy, I’m expressing sympathy and empathy for you and what happened when you were a child. No you never processed it, you were never allowed to talk about it, and all of a sudden it’s coming up in different ways now as a projection.”
Harry has been open about the trauma he has experienced over the sudden death of his mother Diana. During her interview with Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan on Monday, January 9, she talked about her struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI), another term for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“It was very PTSD, more of an injury than a disorder,” she said. “I fully appreciate that for a lot of these guys and girls, not just in the military but in society at large, people are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But I’ve tried to reframe that as much as possible to say it’s an injury because you can actually heal.”
Because of this, he has sought out forms of therapy beyond the average leather couch session, such as EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EDMR is a special form of psychotherapy that “enables people to heal from symptoms and emotional distress that result from disruptive life experiences,” using a series of eye movements as part of the long process of acceptance of repressed traumatic experiences.
“EMDR is always something I wanted to try and this was one of the varieties of different forms of healing or healing that I was willing to experiment with,” Harry said. “I would never have been open to this if I hadn’t put in the work and therapy I’ve done over the years.”
Prince Harry gets EDMR therapy on The Me You Can’t See
(Apple TV+)
In a society where men are stigmatized for seeking mental health help, Prince Harry has demonstrated time and time again his dedication to healing and has used his platform to help men do the same.
In 2021, the percentage of adult women who received any mental health treatment during the year was significantly higher than the number of men. Among adults aged 18-44, 28.6% of women received mental health treatment while 17.8% of men sought therapy.
Of course, that’s easier said than done when the majority of the population doesn’t have the same access to therapy as a royal. Although Prince Harry is an advocate for therapy, he could benefit from shifting his platform’s focus to finding affordable mental health resources.
The average cost of a therapy session in the U.S. ranges from $100 to $200 per session, according to a 2019 report by SimplePractice, but that can vary depending on the type of health insurance you have or the state you’re in. what are you living Still, an estimated 30 million Americans lacked health insurance by 2022, making access to therapy even more difficult.
Although the number of men seeking therapy has increased over the years, archaic ideas of masculinity have forced men to keep their emotions hidden. For decades, men have been told that expressing their feelings is a sign of weakness and that they should handle their emotions “like a man.”
This stigma makes it difficult for men to admit when they need help and could lead to even more serious mental health problems in the future. And in a family like Prince Harry’s, whose motto is “never complain, never explain,” that stigma is just the norm.
Perhaps Prince William, who has championed mental health, should take a page out of his brother’s book.
This article was updated on January 9, 2023.