What "Theo of Golden" Teaches About How People Learn They Matter

The useful part

What "Theo of Golden" Teaches Us About Mattering | Psychology Today Skip to main content Rabiya Karamali EdD, MAPP The Mattering Lab Relationships. What "Theo of Golden" Teaches Us About Mattering Noticing, showing care, and contributing are how people learn that they matter. Posted September 3, 2026 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch Share Tweet Share on Bluesky Share Email THE BASICS Why Relationships Matter Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?

How it works

• Noticing something and following up on it can communicate that a person matters to us.
• Someone asks how our appointment went or asks a second question instead of nodding and changing the subject.
• Gordon Flett and Taryn Nepon have suggested that feeling cared about is a central part of mattering, and that what reaches us is how other people show that they care about us in ways we can actually detect.
• He gives people his time, follows through on what he said he would do, and his concern becomes something the other person can feel.
• You can be a longtime member of a group, invited to every gathering, included on all the chats, and still suspect that nothing much would change if you stopped showing up.

What to take from it

What stayed with me was the sheer amount of attention Theo gives to ordinary people who do not seem used to receiving any. Claire McCullough first described it, they framed it in terms of whether other people depend on us, regard us as important, and pay attention to us. Of those, they suspected attention was the most basic—the ingredient on which the others rest.

Example or evidence

• Research on loneliness associates feelings of insignificance and invisibility with greater loneliness, which suggests the core issue is not the size of a person's social world, but their belief about their...
• Find a therapist to strengthen relationships Key points Mattering involves both feeling valued and knowing that we add value to others.
• We become mattering agents by helping others feel seen, cared about, and able to contribute.

Details worth keeping

I recently finished Allen Levi's novel Theo of Golden, and I loved it. I have since been reflecting on it, on its characters, and on what Theo is doing with the people around him. Isaac Prilleltensky has described mattering as two experiences that have to occur together: feeling valued and adding value.

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