Gill Gorell Barnes: ‘Fathers are no less important than mothers’ | David Brindle

When families split, men get left behind emotionally and lose out on bonding with their children to the detriment of both, says the renowned family therapist

From the age of seven Gill Gorell Barnes found herself mixing with a louche 1950s crowd in a cafe run by her father in London's Soho. The experience left her entirely non-judgmental, she reflects, teaching her to respect actors, musicians and prostitutes alike as she served them tea and toast and, later, the exotic new offering of frothy coffee. Her father was bisexual and her mother frequently absent, as an editor in the film industry, making her childhood less traditional. Summers were spent with a grandmother in Margate, where she spent long hours alone on the beach. Nothing much she has encountered since in a distinguished career as one of the UK's leading child and family social workers and therapists has come as a great surprise.

Gorell Barnes, now 74, has specialised in fractured and reformed families, learning to see divorce and repartnering from the child's point of view. In a new book, Staying Attached: Fathers and Children in Troubled Times, she focuses on men and children who live apart, their relations often complicated further by mental health difficulties - an issue largely neglected in family therapy, she argues.