Forget that "full of grace" stuff, Tuesday's child will be a perpetual (and neurotic) hero if he or she is the first of the brood.

"You're stepping up to take the blame all the time, and need to know how to push back a bit," says psychotherapist Jackie Furey.

She's at Australia's Single Width Users Group in Penrith last month, trying to help the newspaper print site managers in the room to understand themselves better.

And she's a hoot: A natural stand-up with style that would endear her to the most demanding comedy festival audiences, she's ready to dish the dirt on her family to make her point.

An Irish catholic from Liverpool - "grannie had 16 kids," she says - she lapses into the scouse dialect - "we need electrocution lessons" - and admits that she met her husband on an anger management programme (but doesn't disclose the roles each was playing).

Relationship problems of family members are also fair game: "Men are taught not to have feelings... women do it differently, not that one's better than the other.

"And if you don't do your feelings, they'll do you," she warns.

She counts the six women in the room before adding, "ties or testicles, you'll have a problem with it."

One problem identified is the impact of the "romantic shit at the movies - women aren't getting it; men can't give it," she says. "What they both have in common is that they both thought they were perfect.

She urges her audience to think where they come from and consider the importance of mental strength and emotional fitness: "Under pressure and stress, you'll forget the last thing you were taught and go back to the first thing you learned," she says

But back to your place in family, the realities of "who you are" in which your parents "will control you from the grave": She describes second-borns as "rebels with a chip on their shoulder; not bad, but spirited; good at manoevring, maybe manipulating," and recalls her Liverpool days (scouse again) when a sibling announces that "mum'll be unhappy... because I'm going to make her".

In a team environment - which is what this SWUG element of leadershiup coaching is all about - "think of someone who might set you up... because that's what is going to happen, was always going to happen".

Third-born children are escapers, "but sometimes forget about themselves, developing psychotic illnesses because they hold everything in." she says.

"Mascot-like" fourth-born children, "know what the family is thinking before the family does, and can derail things," she says. And the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth repeat the cycle.

Of only children, she explains, "The only problem is that you're not damaged enough.

"Only an only child thinks they can put cake in the fridge for later."

There are lessons here, and recalling a tense family car trip on the Gold Coast, Furey warns, "It's amazing how grown-ups get triggered, even without alcohol.

"It's important to know what's happening, and understand the tools for mental and emotional fitness - confidence, competence and courage.

"You men are crap at taking," she says.

Amid a discussion about feelings - how they rise up and are suppressed - and the need for disconnection, even golf, there's another flash of childhood recollection: "'If you think violence doesn't work, you're not using it properly,' dad would say.

"You need to know how to be soft, let people connect to you... and question yourself, 'Why'," she says.

And, "thank yourself for who you are, and if you're not living a rich and healthy life, ask yourself why not."

Jackie Furey - "just a bit nuts like nannie," her son says - has got her message across, but there are still unanswered questions: "If someone with your knowledge has all these relationship problems, how are we going to avoid them," asks Mike Condon, visiting the conference from Dubai.

Easy: Most of the conflict is from a decade ago and "no-one's perfect," she says. "I just want you to be more happy about who you are." And, "the grass is greener on the other side... because it's fake."

Does that help?

Peter Coleman