{"id":273370,"date":"2026-01-31T08:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T08:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/273370\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T08:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T08:13:09","slug":"therapy-opened-a-can-of-worms-for-me-i-didnt-know-what-i-was-going-to-find-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/273370\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Therapy opened a can of worms for me. I didn\u2019t know what I was going to find\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

About five years ago, Caelan Doris<\/a> arrived at a blind crossroads. He believed he knew the way he had come and where he was headed, but he didn\u2019t know the guts of it yet, or the truth of it.<\/p>\n

A series of concussions had led Doris to a specialist in the UK<\/a>. He had been experiencing issues with cognitive functions: concentration, short-term memory, speech. The impairments were not so intrusive that anybody else would notice, but for a 22-year-old professional rugby<\/a> player in the foothills of his career, it was troubling.<\/p>\n

Throughout his young life, Doris had a cold relationship with worry. He didn\u2019t exhibit it or give in to it. But he also didn\u2019t have a fuse box or a trip switch or an earth wire to manage it. Worry circulated on a closed circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I would have been quite blocked, emotionally,\u201d he says. \u201cMy spectrum of emotion, we\u2019ll say, was quite confined. Some of that was through repressed emotion \u2013 subconsciously not even being able to feel them [the emotions]. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would have been known by family and friends as being quite calm and taking things in my stride, and I probably liked that perception. If I was feeling anxious or nervous about something, or sad about something, [my attitude was], \u2018It\u2019ll be grand, they don\u2019t need to know. It\u2019s fine. It\u2019ll be fine.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat came to a head with the worry around the concussions in 2021. It felt like the level of worry and anxiety around the concussions was too big for that coping mechanism. It overwhelmed that way of dealing with things which was just, \u2018Push down. Push down.\u2019 And my body started speaking to me and being like, \u2018There\u2019s something not right here. It needs addressing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The cognitive issues were managed, and it is nearly three years since he last suffered a concussion. \u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing process,\u201d he says. \u201cI get checked up quite regularly and I feel like I\u2019m in good hands around it, so it weighs on my mind so much less.\u201d<\/p>\n

But around the time when he suffered the concussions in 2021 he started sweating profusely in \u201cquite normal, mundane\u201d situations. He thought at first it was a side effect of the concussions and that it could be fixed with a simple intervention, something skin deep and transactional: a diagnosis, a cure.<\/p>\n

That was a misunderstanding. The issues were out of sight. The sweating was a portal into parts of him that he had never explored or acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\"CaelanCaelan Doris in action for Ireland against Japan at the Aviva Stadium in November. Photograph: Gary Carr\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cI like the quote: \u2018The parts of ourselves that we don\u2019t fully understand or know use our body as a way to express themselves.\u2019 I think that is what was happening with me through the sweating. On the outside I would have looked calm and looked fine, even if internally there was stuff going on \u2013 and even if I couldn\u2019t feel what was going on in the inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, that led me to therapy. It was a bit of a world change for me. It was opening a can of worms in a way. I didn\u2019t know what I was going to find, or what was in there at that stage. But it [the sweating] was my body talking to me in a way I had to address.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris has recently joined the Tackle Your Feelings programme as one of its ambassadors. Designed to address mental health wellbeing among young people, the campaign is being run by Rugby Players Ireland and will be rolled out in schools all over the country.<\/p>\n

In a short video for the programme, and in his own words, Doris paints a vivid self-portrait: it is tender and authentic and uplifting. The two overriding themes are vulnerability and openness. In his own life, he has embraced them both.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time I\u2019ve realised I couldn\u2019t just fight my own way out,\u201d he says in the video. \u201cI had to start talking. Now, I use therapy weekly, meditate daily and lean on the people I trust. When hard emotions hit, I don\u2019t ignore them any more. I feel them, process them and let them move through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris studied psychology in UCD and both of his parents, Chris and Rachel, are psychotherapists; Chris is also a renowned artist. When Doris was a child, they must have noticed something or suspected something, or not always believed that everything was \u201cfine\u201d when Doris said so?<\/p>\n

\"CaelanCaelan Doris is an ambassador for Tackle Your Feelings, a mental health campaign for young people run by Rugby Players Ireland in partnership with Zurich Ireland. <\/p>\n

Looking back, he reckons his mother was \u201cprobably aware that there was stuff I wasn\u2019t feeling\u201d, but it wasn\u2019t something they confronted or teased out. That door was closed from the inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, I\u2019m going to say I was fine \u2013 which is what I always said \u2013 but I was. I was doing OK in school, I had friends, I was doing well in rugby. I was enjoying myself to a certain extent, but there was just \u2026 the range of emotion that I was able to feel was a lot narrower.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think as a kid or a teenager I would have been massively aware of it. I remember my brother saying to me when I was very young that I don\u2019t laugh at TV shows that much and that sticks with me, that memory. But it was only through the psychotherapy [in recent years] that I realised there was a lot of stuff that had been pushed down and kept down.\u201d<\/p>\n

His parents explored their own inner hemispheres and made themselves at home there. Chris and Rachel practised a specific kind of meditation called Heartfulness which led them to ashrams in India for retreats. Doris and his siblings would go along for the ride. The journey to Chennai in southern India was along \u201ccrazy, lawless roads\u201d, but it was an adventure too. Doris was first taken there as a baby and was still in primary school the last time he went. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trish Murphy: \u2018I found a therapist, but I\u2019m worried my parents will look up what they specialise in\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being in the playground, playing with Indian kids for hours while my parents would have been sitting in these massive meditation halls with hundreds if not thousands of people doing group sittings. It was a pretty cool experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family lived in Lacken, in north Mayo, a small townland of about 500 people, 10 minutes from the nearest village, 20 minutes from Ballina, and a stone\u2019s throw from the sea. The local primary school was within walking distance and in his time, it had a roll call of just 35 pupils; Doris had only one classmate.<\/p>\n

I remember, when I was 12, describing it as a six-year sleepover. Getting away from the parents was a big thing at the time<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Caelan Doris<\/p>\n

A few years ago, he was rooting through some old stuff at home when he came across a booklet he had created for his First Holy Communion. One page was devoted to future ambitions and on it he had written: \u201cI want to be a rugby player or a football player.\u201d He also declared his desire to own a house in \u201cMayo, London and New York.\u201d On that front, nothing has been settled yet.<\/p>\n

But even as a boy he was looking at the horizon. After primary school he wanted to go to Blackrock College in Dublin, as a boarder. His older brother Rhian had attended another boarding school in Dublin for a couple of years but didn\u2019t like it. Doris\u2019s heart, though, was set on Blackrock.<\/p>\n

For all of them that was complicated.<\/p>\n

In the early 1970s Chris had been abused in Willow Park, the junior school for Blackrock College. Over a four-year period, he suffered at the hands of two priests and a religious brother. Chris spoke about it briefly in a Would You Believe documentary broadcast on RT\u00c9 in 1992, and in greater depth in an interview with Patsy McGarry in The Irish Times<\/a> 30 years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe abuse stopped when he was 13,\u201d wrote McGarry, \u201cbut Doris was by then \u2018in bits\u2019 he says. He was captain of the school\u2019s under-13s rugby team, top of the class, \u2018but the strain was showing\u2019, and he showed signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust before his summer exams at the end of his time in Willow Park, his brother, who was six years older, died by suicide in the Netherlands on the eve of his 19th birthday, which their sister is now convinced was a result of abuse at that school too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CaelanCaelan Doris. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Chris was 60 when he spoke to McGarry about his experiences. By then, he reckoned, he had been through 800 sessions of therapy to reach a point where he considered himself, \u201cself-healed and pretty free of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to be absent from a lot of things in my life at various times because of this,\u201d Chris said. \u201cI\u2019ve missed weddings and funerals. I just feel like saying \u2018sorry\u2019 to all the people who I love, for not being there consistently as I would have wished to be and say that, \u2018I\u2019m back, I\u2019m back \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

As a child, Doris knew about his father\u2019s experiences. Not deeply, of course, and not with any understanding of how it might impact his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never a big family secret,\u201d Caelan says. \u201cMy parents were always open about it. It was part of the discussion around us going to secondary school. There was never any kind of shame or embarrassment or secretiveness. So, I think the way my parents dealt with it was great. There was nothing to hide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go to Blackrock with the rugby side of things so my dad spoke to relevant people or did a bit of due diligence on the school, on the figures who were there when he was there versus who was there now. So, obviously it was a very different experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years in his work as a psychotherapist, Chris often shared a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel von der Kolk which, McGarry wrote, \u201cshows how trauma devastates the victim, but also their partners and future generations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Until the past couple of years, Doris had not considered that possibility. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cool journey that brings up a lot of stuff that I mightn\u2019t have faced had I been doing something easier, or less in the spotlight or with less demands<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Caelan Doris<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t aware that it affected me. I avoided it, basically. I think, subconsciously, it was just too big a thing. So, I pushed it to the side and it\u2019s only coming up now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do remember sharing [my dad\u2019s experience] with some of the boarders when I was in first year. It wasn\u2019t that I never thought about it or wasn\u2019t aware of it, but, as my dad encouraged, [the school] was a very different place when I was there versus when he was there, and to make my own memories and make up my own mind about the place.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the intergenerational stuff around what happened with my dad is stuff that I\u2019m working through at the minute, and you can probably see…\u201d he pauses, \u201cI feel a little bit emotional talking about it because … it\u2019s hard stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris flourished in Blackrock. Part of that was a desire for independence. In his first year there were 12 boarders, all of whom slept in the same dorm. You would think it must have been daunting, coming from a small place and a tiny school on the north Mayo coast, to this rarefied bastion of private education in the heart of Dublin\u2019s southside, but that was not how he felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually loved it. Within my family, I felt quite constricted. I felt like I had more of a personality or I was able to be freer in myself [in Blackrock]. It was an opportunity to express myself more, find out who I am and get away from my parents and my family. I remember, when I was 12, describing it as a six-year sleepover. Getting away from the parents was a big thing at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also felt freer and more expressive on the pitch [playing rugby]. As boarders we always had a ball in our hands, just throwing it around, playing tip in the evenings. But when you\u2019re asking me, \u2018Did I feel differently playing rugby?\u2019 I wasn\u2019t aware of not feeling normal outside of rugby. It was just the way things were, and things were good, generally. I want to emphasise that it\u2019s not as if I was massively struggling or it was like rugby was my escape, because that doesn\u2019t feel true or genuine. It was just that things were a little pushed down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CaelanCaelan Doris and Andy Farrell with the Six Nations trophy at the tournament’s media launch in Edinburgh on Monday. Photograph: Lesley Martin\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

Players like Doris are drawn to captaincy, whether they like it or not. Picking him would always have been safe and obvious and smart. When it came to his final year in Blackrock, he was selected to captain the senior cup team. A couple of years after that he captained Ireland\u2019s under-20s at the Junior World Championship.<\/p>\n

Bigger roles were bound to follow. Within the space of a few weeks in the autumn of 2024, Doris was made captain of both Leinster and Ireland, the two most successful and scrutinised entities in Irish rugby. Doris was no longer just one of the best players, he was a member of middle management.<\/p>\n

He said at the time that he felt \u201cimpostor syndrome\u201d and that he was hectored by \u201cself-doubt.\u201d Over a period of time, people like the former Leinster coach Stuart Lancaster and the current Ireland coach Andy Farrell convinced him of his aptitude to be a leader, or at least made him see what they could see.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very uncomfortable step, even though deep down I knew it was something that I wanted to do, and something that I could do, and something that would benefit me, and that I would grow into. I see it as a vehicle for personal growth, and continually expanding my comfort zone. It\u2019s a cool journey that brings up a lot of stuff that I mightn\u2019t have faced had I been doing something easier, or less in the spotlight or with less demands.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Caelan Doris brings a presence to captaincy which makes Ireland prosperOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the self-doubt is still there, definitely. The funny thing is that a lot of people who are high achievers, or who succeed at things, a big driver can be self-doubt. Or the feeling of not being enough and needing to have accomplishments in order to feel complete. I would say that\u2019s quite a common thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was that his experience?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, yeah. And I probably wouldn\u2019t have been aware of it again until this kind of \u2013 I don\u2019t like calling it a journey \u2013 but this delving a little deeper and getting to the core of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The upcoming Six Nations that starts on Thursday will be his second as captain. When Doris won his first cap for Ireland six years ago, Johnny Sexton had just taken over that role, and when Sexton retired, the honour passed to Peter O\u2019Mahony. They were different personalities, who commanded the dressingroom in different ways. O\u2019Mahony was still in the squad when Doris was made captain 18 months ago, and Sexton has since returned as part of the coaching team. He has leant on them both.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny\u2019s will to win is incredible and I think I\u2019ve got some of that \u2013 probably in a more muted version. It probably manifests itself in different ways at times. We\u2019ve had some good conversations [about captaincy]. And then Pete,he connected with everyone and he was just such a good person to have around. He was a good sounding board and he was by my side through the transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try and build connections with team-mates as much as possible on a deeper level as well. But ultimately, I\u2019m growing in the role. I\u2019m far from the finished article with how I would like to be as a leader, but I think I\u2019m on the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Andy Farrell on his Six Nations ambitions: \u2018We\u2019re hunting again. We were being hunted for a while\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

At the beginning of last year, Doris was one of the leading contenders to captain the British and Irish Lions until a shoulder injury he sustained in Leinster\u2019s Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton ruled him out of the summer tour. That setback was a field test of the mentality he was trying to build.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to feel a little bit of the progress in the [therapy] work I\u2019ve been doing, based off how I processed that,\u201d he says. \u201cI was with my friend in the car on the way back from the scan when I got the news around how bad the shoulder actually was, and I just allowed myself to cry and feel the sadness and feel the loss or grief of what I\u2019d hoped [would] be a very different summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I saw it as an opportunity to dive deeper into some of the psychological work, into the roots behind the things like self-doubt and some of the anxiety and the harder emotions. I also met my girlfriend at the start of that period, so there were lots of positives. I would definitely frame it now as I made the best of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CaelanCaelan Doris with teammates after defeating Scotland during the Guinness Six Nations 2025. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

It sometimes feels foolish to ask someone if they\u2019re happy, because it exists in such a state of flux with such an endless spectrum. Being good at pursuing happiness, though, is a different thing. More manageable maybe. You wonder if the journey into himself has made any difference to that? If he is somehow happier now that he has asked difficult questions and been accepting of uncomfortable answers?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a funny question for me at the minute, because it\u2019s a bit of a challenging period [working through] what happened to my dad, but I\u2019ve felt a lot truer and more present and more connected to my core self. There\u2019s been a lot of challenging emotions that I wouldn\u2019t have felt for years, or maybe ever. But I can feel the spectrum of emotion widening.\u201d<\/p>\n

He mentions a retreat he did over the summer, and a quote that has stayed with him from it \u2013 \u201cJoy is the matriarch of all emotions, and until you welcome her children \u2013 fear, sadness, anger \u2013 she won\u2019t come visit.”<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why we strive for happiness but then often ignore it when it arrivesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my mom is a very good example of that; she\u2019s probably one of the happiest people I\u2019ve come across and finds joy in the smallest, most mundane things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris and Rachel are in Costa Rica at the moment, where Rhian is based now. He moved from LA where had been living for the past seven or eight years. Doris says his brother is tapping into \u201ca spiritual vibe, as well as doing more inner work\u201d.<\/p>\n

Would he describe himself as spiritual now?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say I don\u2019t have a full grasp of it yet, but I do think I\u2019m moving towards that way. One definition of spirituality that I heard recently is \u2018Sensitivity to reality\u2019. I think I\u2019m certainly becoming more sensitive to my reality anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the road less travelled.<\/p>\n

Tackle Your Feelings is a mental wellbeing campaign by Rugby Players Ireland in partnership with Zurich Ireland and the Z Zurich Foundation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About five years ago, Caelan Doris arrived at a blind crossroads. He believed he knew the way he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25747,56297,28581,61,60,1449,11287,709,410,15551,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-273370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-blackrock-college","10":"tag-caelan-doris","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ireland-rugby","14":"tag-leinster-rugby","15":"tag-magazine","16":"tag-mental-health","17":"tag-six-nations","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}