Epilogue.

Time to let go to a year's worth of work. 

I began this blog to help me make sense of what had happened to me - and in October 2023 I decided to take this a whole step further - I set my intention to explore the role of Eros in therapy. 

There are many reasons why clients complain about therapists, but the complaint that terrifies therapists more than any other is sexual misconduct. When there is any intimation that Eros is the third presence in the session, the sensations begin to close down rational thought and both people may feel an overwhelming need to brush feelings and energies 'under the carpet'. This is a very powerful feeling for both clients and therapists. And a therapist who starts, merrily brushing away, will probably rest easy, believing that no harm has been done. I don't know if that is how Kit feels. I think he did the best he could do, but brushing things under the carpet was his response. And this turned out to be as harmful as the behaviors more usually associated with Eros in therapy. [+] [+]

So, I want to make this clear -  Eros isn't sexual misconduct, feelings and thoughts are not sexual misconduct. Nor does Eros inevitably lead to sexual misconduct. 

Sexual misconduct is behavior, it is not a thought, not feelings, not hopes, fears and dreams.

But once I'd made Kit aware of my feelings for him, he treated the presence of Eros as a real problem. We couldn't talk about it. He seemed to believe that I was being transgressive, rather than realizing that no one would wish to fall in love with their therapist! His response was simply to tell me that it was impossible, and that I should know better!

I didn't dare talk about it more than twice! I couldn't face being lectured at, being asked why did I think that about him! And being told that obviously I didn't know anything about contracting and boundaries. The implication was that I should not have told him.  I disagree 100%. This was all about his problem and nothing about me.

So why would a therapist react that way? I see it as a problem with our training. We therapists love to tell everyone about the need for strong boundaries.  Our peers are happy to advise us on avoiding, of how to get rid of, and this is always combined with keeping ourselves safe. 

Naïve moralizing is the phrase that comes into my mind. 

And Eros is transgressive! So, in the light of my 'education' and Kit's response it wasn't easy to tell him. I felt ashamed, confused and wrong. And he certainly did nothing to change my mind about that. Underneath those feelings I just loved him, aand it was too easy for him to beleive that my feelings must be a delusion. The 'therapy term erotic transference implies that I didn't know anything about Kit, and that my feelings were only about me, that it was all my projection. I'm not sure if this is true, he told me a lot more about himself than I ever told him about me. 

When I'd found the courage to tell Kit, he reacted as if reinforcing the boundaries was the best approach. He made it clear that I was 'transgressive'! Or rather how could I ever think such a thing of him... And then, as the final session ended I had no reason to believe that he would ever think of, or remember me, except as tangential and contrary.. and glad to never see me again actually.

The effect on me was catastrophic.

When I left his room the final time I was suicidal...I had the plan, I had the means. I'd also made promises, and I have children. But yes, I was suicidal. Practically hallucinating as I left the room, in grief and despair. [+].

Once a client has fallen in love with you, what is the best way to work with this? To find that answer I start by writing this blog.

I am aware also that Kit's choice to not talk about his actual feelings towards me, means that nothing about my feelings for him have changed. Nothing about my feelings for Kit could be understood or transformed. Instead I learnt a lot about him, and why he felt as he did about the situation. 

But my identity was shattered and death is often on the other side of that.  

I've taken back his word- transgression, I take it and wear it with pride. 

I publish this blog in opposition to fear, and as a protest. It feels like talking about it will hurt him. It feels like I should forget and ignore my feelings, my insights, my experience. This sense of thin ice, the feeling that being open will make things worse, is so hard to overcome. I conquered it the first time through honesty, telling him how I felt. But then for him to make it unspeakable? 

And there have been many times when I could have deleted, metaphorically ploughed all that grew from my feelings and experiences under the dark earth of forgetfulness and self doubt. 

But I've experienced that kind of shut-down before - Never again.

Instead I have decided to harvest,

thresh and cook. 

Because -

Love is precious.

And.

Life is short.

Truth matters.

1st February 2021 from my written journal: 

I was describing to Kit the moment when I first met the cold disdain my husband specialized in. And this is a painful memory because at that moment in time I had trusted that love would solve all problems, and that love would allow each of us to really be who we really are. 

When it happened we were in a hotel room. 

We were hiding. 

He had just told his previous partner that it was all over. His family were in uproar. He couldn't face her bewilderment, pain and confusion. 

He'd been lying to her for how long? 

But I'd thought that their relationship was over long before? That is what he had told me! She lived in another city, he never talked about her. I was busy, I had other things to do at the weekends, I only saw him during the week. 

I was deluding myself of course...

As I talked about this to Kit, I was feeling how numb and dumb I'd let myself be. The man I was going to marry was a liar - who wishes to acknowledge or confront that! 

As I spoke about this I was in the hotel room. We were watching Total Recall - and what I did, it wasn't even a sexual thing...but the man I was to marry turned away from me in anger. My shock at his response was absolute. I was powerless, bereft! The feeling he gave out was a cold, implacable, unspeakable rage. Nothing I could say could made it change. No forgiveness. There was no way to undo it, to make it right. 

As I told this to Kit, the feeling of that evening was seeping in to my present reality like cold, dirty water. I felt ashamed of myself...and as if no one could forgive me. I was feeling as my husband had made me feel...

As I described this I needed to be with a 'trusted companion'. Someone on my side. I was beginning to see the pattern, to see my place in this event and how it would repeat over and over for twenty-five years as I tried different ways to avoid or talk to, or to appease my husband's cold rage..

Talking to Kit I closed my eyes to focus on the sensation, to recognize, to know. And then I looked up!

And this is what I recorded in my journal:

I looked up, Kit's head was to one side, he said "The way you raised your one eyebrow as you described that, I thought..."and a smile widened across his face "minx.". When he called me a minx, his smile, his tone of voice hit me like a bolt of lightning. Waves of shock and pleasure took me momentarily into flame-filled ecstasy. ."

The body responds faster than the mind. Psychologically the power of this can be catastrophic. We are taught that only love or desire can make us respond. 

Eros has a subterranean, chthonic aspect, disconnected from love called subspace, characterized by a loss of personal boundaries, the loss of self. 

Subspace can be a pure bliss of unity, or a dismembering void. I believe it to be a survival protocol, hard wired into our autonomic nervous system. 

 minx in British English

(mɪŋks ) noun. a bold, flirtatious, or scheming woman. Collins English Dictionary.

I imagine that as Kit listened he thought that he was seeing my true intention in just that split second before my husband turned so cold; he probably thought that he was reflecting the real, playful me just before the first clue that the man I was going to marry would shut me out instantly when ever I moved or breathed in the (unpredictable) wrong way. 

Kit probably expected that his 'positive reframing' (?) would help me recast myself as flirtatious in that memory. Instead I experienced shock, misalignment, mis-attunement. He was smiling at me, saying in effect  'you are bold and flirtatious' in response to me in the present. But for me it was as if he'd been there, and we are now here..and my body responded to him now. I felt that he would have laughed and loved me, enjoying what I did - I would have been safe with him. 

And that need to feel safe was so overwhelming. I wanted this man! I wanted the trusted companion who dared go to this place with me, the one who would laugh, call me a minx and not turn away, not be so cruel and empty...

Minx though - synchronicity! I have twenty years and more of Quake 3. /headmodel <mynx>. 

Here ends Part One.

All existing posts about our sessions will now be published.

Muxia.

 Only one thing left to do now.

To change the publish dates of these blogged words.

And leave this blog to be found.

Or do I carry on?

To stay with it, learn more, to speak up for other clients who receive well meaning lectures.

Aversive, defensive in-humane...

ending in

Erasure.

+

But - there is only one choice from this moment onwards..

To live, to carry on.

Because

This happens to others too.

+

Yet in one layer of the multiverse

I'm no longer here.

In the other layer

 I took all the sleeping pills and died 

outside his door, 

huddled

cold on stone, 

cold, 

My heart finally stilled.

No drama, just the truth of it. 

--

These words were at are the end.

(semi-psychotic visions - written the evening after the final session May 2022...)

[+]

21/2/24 Why this blog exists.

 21st February 2024.

Finally! 

As close as we can get to resolution - and instead of a 'dual relationship' that was conscious, careful, considerate and worked out we have a 'non-dual' relationship that is supposed to hide any inconsistencies or problems under the screen of client confidentiality. And we have a non-dual non-relationship that is 'fraught with ethical problems' so, go figure. 

Clearly he doesn't see any ethical problems relating to his response! 

In the light of this, my criteria now for defining ethical behaviour and therefore what an ethical therapist would do in this situation comes down simply to this; an ethical therapist shows courage enough to state his or her feelings with honesty - and compassion. 

I'm relatively happy with his statement, I have never shown any interest in you. 

But a part of me is asking, is that statement 'for the camera'? 

His attitude towards me at the beginning of 'therapy' was not clear - there were three occasions at least when it was possible to interpret his behaviour, as interested. But the fact remains that if he had said that he didn't have any interest in me when I'd asked, instead of acting with incredulity that I could ever think such a thing of him, and on a second occasion when I sought clarity, his embarrassment - indeed blushing - we could have got somewhere better, sooner! 

So forgive me for wondering, is this outraged 'how could you ever think such a thing of me'  - a fine example of what Herr. Freud called a reaction formation? 

Fortunately this is his problem not mine. I simply have but one decision to make. To shut down all communication - as asked - and then to open the black box up for everyone, or do I not do this?

When a client has an issue with the therapist that needs to be resolved, the first rule is to make contact the therapist.

And if the therapist closes all communication down, fulminates and splutters? The next step is a complaint to the professional governing body. The question I ask is this, what is more important? Receiving an apology from him saying that he understands that he handled this very badly. Or, do I make our interaction freeware - in the hope that it might help you to see your way through a similar dilemma, if such befalls you!

I had said:

Option 4 - if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. The anonymized information stream will be archived as freeware.

Kit has been given an opportunity to seek resolution. 

Resolution failed: 

Therefore the outcome of this email dialogue between us is that all posts are scheduled to publish each Monday, and anyone who reads is at liberty to draw their own conclusions. 

Correspondence.

13th February 2024.

• I believe that what happened to me is too important to be ignored. 
• I also believe that technically speaking, this subject is too personal, and it should be confidential - and absolutely not put in a blog! 
• But this feeling of embarrassment, this feeling of I shouldn't say it, is full of shame and guilt actually, but ultimately I have to ask myself, is my sense of shame and guilt, my silence doing any good? 
• Silence contributes to maintaining the problem - silence prevents things changing, silence - my silence - cuts off any possibility of learning how to make improvements. 
• Clearly I think that this information should be in the public domain, as much information as possible actually. 

I wrote to Kit to open up dialogue.

Recent emails.

13th February 2024.

If there is emotion, something matters. I trust in the beauty and dignity in expressing need, and I see an innate value in communication. Making a request is about finding a way to meet needs. To ask is to acknowledge our interdependence.

Dear Kit,
When I left your room for the final time. I felt bereft, I needed harmony, mutual recognition, to be seen and heard and respected. Especially to feel trusted - I felt unsafe for feeling as I do about you. I needed it to be put into a safe form. And for all sorts of reasons , that simply hadn't happened .

Most of all, I needed to know what I could do to make it possible for you to suggest a way for ‘coffee fuelled discussions’ - ongoing communication and joy, to continue; because I think I am someone with whom such discussion is often fun, and dare I say, enlightening. I enjoy taking ideas, theories and concepts apart, and of course I always want to go deeper into the discussion. I valued your intelligence and energy, and especially your clarity. I wanted to continue to learn with you and from you.

 
Ultimately though, this had to be in a way that would be OK for you. I can imagine how you feel about maintaining the boundaries between therapist and client and the queasy sense of unease around this subject. But in truth, I felt disempowered and gagged by those boundaries.

A much needed re-contracting, didn't happen.

When I heard you asking, during several sessions, if coffee fuelled discussions would suit me too? I felt inspired, hope, trust, mutuality. But I couldn’t pay you for this; the benefit of such talk needed to be mutual.

I prize and need equality.

Then when I heard you explain how such discussions ‘never work’ I felt hopeless, powerless actually. When you asked me how such a thing could work I needed to know how you imagined it. It required our cooperation. I needed you to say what would be right for you.

And so to honour my need for challenge and exploration I am suggesting that we return to what we did best; to examine the underlying history and concepts that underpin the work we do. I will be ‘contrary’ because I don’t accept dogma, I chose to ask if ideas hold water for me and if not, why not, as an investigation into properties. I will take tangents, because meaning is implied via relationship, rather than as an intrinsic property. And I suggest such discussion should be by email; perfect for including links, a slow form of communication providing time to think through and refine arguments. I see no reason to shut down, close off, reject or abandon the best of what was.

If you cannot see a way towards this, what would you need to know, or what could I do, to make it possible for you to say yes?

Requesting session notes.
When I read your words, 'never contact me again' (16.9.22) after I'd tried to explain how I'd felt harmed 'by therapy' I felt my need for harmony most acutely. The metaphor I wished to avoid, became unavoidable - that of the plane crash. If there really is no possibility of any communication between us, then the only thing left to do is to learn from, and reflect upon what happened as a rich source of information. 

I would prefer communication with you about this as a ‘coffee fuelled discussion’ - as an investigation into navigating powerful feelings’ - I would value a correspondence about what happened in our sessions after I gave you the recording ( see transcript at the top of this page) to see if we can both understand a little better, where we were each coming from. Would you be up for that?

I see it as an ethical duty to retrieve the 'black box', and make sense of the information it contains.

With love,

---

Agenda.

Aim - Resolution.

Proposed action to achieve this

1. Consensual dialogue.
2. Or explanation and apology.

Motivation.

1. Personal.
I value you as a person, for your intellect and knowledge, I cherish the potential of a continuing dialogue. I wish to honour the harm that has occurred to both of us, through gaining information - a prerequisite for the creation of knowledge.

2. Wider context.

Awareness is core to the accuracy with which we interpret another person's motive. The imputed motive organises our perception of their behaviour. I interpret your explanation of 'erotic transfer' in the therapy room as simplistic, dismissive and avoidant. I believe that your surprise when I communicated my feelings about you (to you) indicated a lack of awareness. I had reason to raise the possibility of a similar underlying dynamic in other sessions with other clients - in the past. And unless your awareness is increased, it will happen in the future.

Number, mode and purpose of 3 future communications.

1 - 13th February 2024 - Email+ letter - a request for dialogue.
2 - 26th February 2024 - Email+letter - a request for session notes’ (Under ICO there is a legal requirement to comply within one month of receipt of the request).
3 - 21 st June 2024. Letter - all information will be sent to you..

4 - 21st September 2024 - if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. the anonymised information stream will be archived as freeware.

No other actions are required. // I do not see any purpose in further action // I expect this situation to be resolved by the options outlined in this email + letter.

Wishing you well,

---------------------------

His reply.

Fri, 16 Feb, 10:25

Hello,

I received your hand-written letter and email yesterday. I am unclear about the meaning of some of the contents and need clarification so I know how to engage.

You would like “consensual dialogue” when you know already from my previous emails since the end of sessions that it would not be consensual, so I am puzzled as to what this could mean.

You would like an “explanation and apology” but you don’t state who is explaining what to who, or who is apologising for what and to who. I have already explained myself many times. To explain again would be to repeat myself.

You request further contact, with a schedule I am expected to adhere to, with what reads like a threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.

“21st June 2024 – letter – all information will be sent to you”. You do not state what information this is, why you are holding it, or why it is significant.

“21st September 2024 – if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. The anonymised information stream will be archived as freewave.” I will take this in parts.

“if resolution fails” What do you mean by resolution? It appears to mean if you don’t get your own way, i.e. if I do not respond as required to your implied threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”. 

“then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed” What promise and when? What does “all information” mean? What does “closed” mean? This appears to be cryptic and threatening language.

“The anonymised information stream will be archived as freewave.” What does this mean? What is an “anonymised information stream”? What does “archived as freewave” mean? Freewave is a data company. Does this mean you have been keeping recorded or typed records of our sessions on Freewave? Does putting it on Freewave mean it is no longer anonymised? All of this needs explaining, as I am having to guess what it means.

“No other actions are required”. Requiring anything of me is not “consensual dialogue” but giving me orders.

Please clarify.

Kit

--------------------------

17th February 2024.

OK...so that did not go well! I thought my emotionally rich language could be a bit much, though it is clear and honest, and it says exactly what I wanted to say. 

But then I gave him 'the agenda' because this is serious..

And he sees it as 'giving him orders'.

I see it as enabling an informed choice.

I replied.

------------------------------------

Mon, 19 Feb, 16:19

Hi Kit,

You wrote:

<<You request further contact, with a schedule I am expected to adhere to, with what reads like a threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.>>

Consensus, leading to consensual dialogue, does not exist between us. If it is to exist, it requires at the very least, dialogue.

You wrote:

<<“21st June 2024 – letter – all information will be sent to you”. You do not state what information this is, why you are holding it, or why it is significant.>>

Information is significant because there is a problem regarding the way that you responded to my honesty, my experience was of coercion.

You wrote:  

<<"if resolution fails” What do you mean by resolution? It appears to mean if you don’t get your own way, i.e. if I do not respond as required to your implied threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.>>

My preference is resolution via dialogue with the intent of understanding; with the aim of doing things better in the future. This mode of communication includes joy and growth, curiosity and change. 

If dialogue with you remains impossible, there can be no growth or change. I will instead be performing an autopsy - on 'dead' information. Suffering and frustration are not worth anything, they harm, not help. 

Remember recommending Jstor to me?

Aron Swartz?

Freeware derives from hacker ethic - the belief that information is a form of wealth that no one should be deprived of. 

I'm not the only person to have fallen in love with their therapist - Eros, has the potential to kill. This makes it a legitimate subject to share in a way stripped of personal identifiers.

You wrote:  

<<“No other actions are required”. Requiring anything of me is not “consensual dialogue” but giving me orders.>>

My apologies, Kit, for using words in a way that causes you to feel threatened, and ordered - and indeed coerced. But nor do I believe that life is a zero-sum game, in which for me to win, you have to lose, or for you to win, I have to lose. Preferences are not fixed, our wants can and do change.

With love,

+

The definition of coercion.

"Being forced to enact even a true theory, against one's will, is psychologically indistinguishable from - and therefore exactly as harmful as - being forced to enact a false theory". Sara Fitz-Claridge.

----------------

Tue, 20 Feb, 10:03

From Kit:

You have now sent me 2 emails that do not answer my question.

Your letter read like a threat: do as I say or else ... Or else what? You have still not stated what, only more cryptic messaging. This is deliberate vagueness, of course. You state only that you are akin to a hacker and: you will share information - what information? where will it be shared? how will it be shared? with who? as freeware - I have no idea what that means: you will create a programme that spreads information from our sessions, breaking therapist-client confidentiality? 

Do not apologise for "using words in a way that causes [me] to feel threatened, and ordered - and indeed coerced" when that is exactly what you are attempting to do.

---

20th February 2024.

I honestly don't know what to make of his reply. All I can be sure of is that he clearly has no wish to understand what might have been harmful in his approach, therefore he has no intention of asking himself what he could do to improve. 

I'm fortunate to have had this experience, and rest assured I would not treat any client as he treated me. But also, if someone wanted me as a therapist to help us (because therapy isn't one person) to resolve a crash, I'd be negligent not to step up and do my best.

I'm saying that his conduct breaks our ethical code.

Now I don't know which of us is right - there are many FUBAR theories in psychotherapy. But you gentle reader can read my account of the sessions and decide what you think. I am sorry that we don't have the whole thing, it would be better to have his point of view too. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do.

So, I was rattled by his tone, actually....here is my reply,

------

20 Feb 2024, 13:26 

I will attempt plain English.

"

"

"

"

"

Right.

Breathe...

I am not a hacker, this idea is almost flattering but...I have a compelling image of myself now being led to the dunking stool and if I 'drown' I'm proved to be innocent.

- My ability to code is confined to writing webpages using xhtml, and using Quake engine console codes, as I used to write 'walkthroughs' for 'Quake engine games' 

- hence I needed to:

• a. use console codes.
• b. write xhtml.

-  Using code  isn't the same as designing and evolving code. I have no idea how you can reassure yourself that I know as much as a fruit fly about writing code.

- The concept of 'freeware' derives from 'hacker ethic'.

- 'Hacker ethic' was described in a book by Pekka Himanen.

- When I use the term, I mean the belief that 'information is  analogous to wealth, and that no one should be deprived of it.

We are now on the subject of who owns information, and how information is shared.

Back to Mr Swartz, and Creative Commons copyright.

The term - 'Share information'.

Information 

- in this specific area information means, but may not be confined to:

My point of view, my knowledge, my thoughts, opinions, insights, I am 'the creative' so to speak, and unless I ask for money, the information I share is 'freeware'. 

Share.

- allow to be in the public domain.

- format undecided.

breaking therapist-client confidentiality.

?

Please explain.

-------------------------------

(I asked him to define confidentiality because our sessions were conducted with a standard therapy agreement. This requires him to protect my confidentiality it is not a reciprocal agreement. A client can say anything at all about a therapist. 

His contract says nothing about my limitations. It is well understood that people receiving therapy are at liberty to share any or all of it, whatever they wish, and how ever they wish. And this is important - because there is a power dynamic in favour of the therapist regardless of how much the therapist pretends otherwise).

I had promised him 'confidentiality' but I now see it as desperation and panic on my part. It absolutely should be blown to bits.

14th February 2022.

Me -  "And it was hard. But it's OK, hard and difficult are OK. So what's the best way to manage something, I have to be truthful, otherwise...but you talk about the ethical code! To not have told you, by my own standards, then I'd be breaking the ethical code. So what's the alternative? Find another therapist, well I can't particularly because what do you think would be uppermost in my mind? Dealing with this! I can't talk about this with another therapist, I know we all have confidentiality 'vows' but this is between I and you. But coming back as a client, how could I come back as a client! I couldn't "

------------------------------------------

Wed, 21 Feb, 20:10

From Kit:

After my email of 16.9.2022 telling you not to contact me again, I did not reply to your following card, email, letter, email, and another email. I only replied to your letter/email of 15.2.2024 to understand the meaning of your threat. 

Now that I see you either:

(i) don’t have a completely clear idea of what you are threatening me with or 

(ii) are not willing to tell me, and that you have confused matters by not understanding the meaning of freeware, this conversation has served its purpose.

Ethical psychotherapists and clients or ex-clients do not have a non-therapeutic relationship of any kind – friendship, financial, professional, or romantic. That would be a dual relationship, and fraught with ethical problems. I draw a clear line and do not make exceptions, nor should any good therapist. You should have known this as a principle from your course. You certainly knew it from me, as I repeatedly told you. I have never shown any interest in you, other than the appropriate interest of a therapist to a client. To tell the story any other way is a fantasy, a fantasy that is clearly making you very unhappy. Let it go. 

Do not contact me again.

Denial.

It has taken me almost two years to admit the obvious.

I don't want to say that I'm a victim, but his reaction to my honesty was harmful - I was harmed. And it is a therapist's responsibility to know what is going on within his or herself, and not let it 'contaminate' sessions. 

There were times when he may have hinted that he guessed?

But somehow he could never actually say it or ask me...?

How or why is that possible!

It doesn't automatically indicate denial though - A supervisor once told me that 'the best therapist never needs to ask a question!' That didn't work out well in our sessions! I believe on the contrary  that asking a straight question demonstrates trust in oneself and the client! 

But really - isn't this all his transference and my countertransference?

I pick up his feelings and feel them as if they are my feelings....And I couldn't get clarity because I'm not the therapist! 

In his room I felt so blocked, so confined, so unable to ask him for his feelings or to describe what was happening to him, so I just couldn't get a clear enough picture.

The awful feeling of dissonance kept reoccurring.

And when I couldn't stand any more of it and was clear about my feelings, his reaction was to explain over and over that he hadn't known, and how could I ever imagine that he could feel that way about me!

Reaction formation.

I need to get clarity - I needed it then, I still need it!

So I have just written to him:

I value you as a person, for your intellect and knowledge, I cherish the potential of a continuing dialogue. I wish to honour the harm that has occurred to both of us, through gaining information - a prerequisite for the creation of knowledge. 

But.

Awareness is core to the accuracy with which we interpret another person's motives. The imputed motive organises our perception of their behaviour. I interpret your interpretation/explanation of my feelings as 'transgressive' as simplistic, dismissive; and your refusal to talk honestly, as avoidant. 

I believe that your surprise when I communicated my feelings about you (to you) indicated a lack of awareness. I have reason to raise the possibility of a similar underlying dynamic in other sessions with other clients - in the past - and unless your awareness is increased, it will occur again in the future.  

Can't say that I like my tone of voice, but what if I am correct?

Coercion.

OK, this is hard - I need to dig deep. The pain of it is almost beyond my endurance, and yet at the same time I am above, observing, watching and recording. The pain is like wearing a dress made of nettles.

And so I turn towards it, embrace it  and connect.

Holding out my hand I ask into the empty air, 'what is your name?'

In the roiling blackness of the void I hear the words 

'I am your intoxication'. 

Gently I ask the pain, what do you need? 

My hand touches something cold and rough, like shark's skin. And below me deep under an ocean of tears and a crimson gush of my heart's-blood, the words 'love and soul' boil, radiant and poisonous as a nuclear flash. The sun turns blue, a 'vision' of Cherenkov light, 'the blue sun' I'd seen in my semi-psychotic state when I had left the therapy room for the last time.

"love and soul..."

Returning from inside to out, directing my vision to the keyboard, to the soft white light of the screen. And I know, with certainty that I'm once again connected to the layer of  ultra-strange I experienced before, way back when this all began. That I am gifted once more with the precious third vision, when songs condense half glimpsed impressions, sensations and knowledge. Telling me more than I wish to know - visions intrude, describing in metaphor something unknown, in a twilight language of image and movement, and overwhelming sensation.

I am returned to a time of warnings.

No longer can I attribute this to stress. I no longer feel as if my mind is cracked into a thousand, fragmenting mirror shards now almost two years away from the last episode in the breaking up and breaking apart of my life. [+]

And the song that has coalesced and condensed, is not a good omen, as I hear it flavouring and echoing what I dimly perceive to be underneath, this is the reality I believe myself to be within - as a consequence of beginning a process of requesting my therapy notes. 

I'd sent Kit (the therapist) an email to say that I was thinking of doing this, two weeks ago.

And - no reply.

I sent a hand written letter that arrived on Thursday explaining that I will send a formal request next week - that I seek resolution.

I received a reply. 

Behind the apparently calm language he uses I hear far, far more, and this song - MTT 420 RR - grabbed me by both shoulders, turned me around, away from the sky, away from the earth to look directly into the storm ahead.

A long, long time ago I was taught this definition of coercion:

Being forced to enact even a true theory, against one's will, is psychologically indistinguishable from - and therefore exactly as harmful as - being forced to enact a false theory.

This is the measure I used when my son was threatened with sectioning by the mental health team if he didn't take his SSRIs and it is the explanation of what is happening when one is suffering gaslighting. 

Coercion occurs when one has to enact a reality that makes no sense - 'or else' something undefined but awful will happen. 

The mental health team could not respect my son's justified fears, and threatened him with sectioning for 'non-compliance'. My husband could not bear to see the effect of his lies on me, and so he made out that my pain was impossible to understand. 

Because I thought that he was an intelligent man I tried to explain it...but he didn't seem to understand.

So I'd explain it in different words

Which gave him permission to tell me that I was treating him like a child, and that I was imagining things. And how there was something wrong with me because I kept explaining things that didn't make sense, to him, 'over and over' as if he didn't understand.

Coercion will happen when there is a power dynamic one can't easily walk away from...a sense of being trapped by bonds of loyalty, of love, or by threat. It creates dislocation, a tearing of self rupturing from self. 

And then erasure - which is probably a safety override...

And it feels like that now, again...

It cannot be impossible for a therapist to understand that I want to get to clarity, to seek resolution. And as he imagines me reading his email I imagine him saying, 'that's not the answer you were hoping for' 

And telling me that I'm not listening.

But I think I did, and I think I really am...

Who knows!

The way out of a conflict between incompatible theories requires both people to truly want something better for them both and to really want each other to be happy; to talk, to play and then find a different way for both of them to proceed, one that feels good and works. 

The last session felt like he was glad to be getting rid of me. As I left I'd had enough of seeing exactly how powerless I am and I 'kept my dignity' but I left the room feeling psychologically beaten, and bereft of strength and courage. I knew that no one would hear, or catch me if I fell - I left that room hallucinating, almost unable to walk...because I had complied, I did what I had to do - I appeared to have kept my head.

I think overall, there is quite a lot to be said for embracing a full ANS meltdown (autonomic nervous system - fight, flight, panic, fawn, freeze...) when grief and loss really are too much. The pain is real, it deserves to be honoured - to contain it, to have to act as if it isn't happening is again a safety interlock. It is like putting the experience into cryo, for revival only when things are safe enough to process what happened.

It preserves the pain. 

It's stuck, frozen, intractable.

It had to be that way because to demonstrate that the pain is a result of how a 'health professional' has behaved - will not end well. I want this to be understood - I left 'with dignity' only because there was a threat of worse.

And when ever I've been forced to keep silent, I don't.

As a therapist I will never agree to believe that pain should be treated as if it is inevitably stuck, frozen, intractable.

If he choses to behave as if there is nothing: nothing happened, nothing to happen, nothing can happen...what do I do?

Requesting my notes.

3rd February 2024.

I would never have believed how difficult it is to write a request to see my therapy notes, if I hadn't tried. 

And failed.

I just can't find the words.

It should be done - it makes sense for me to do this.

What gets in the way of just asking, is the second guessing, and the rich cocktail of emotions I'm almost knocked out by; a mixture of sadness, anger and futility. OK, I know it, I know what I'm doing, I'm second guessing how he will feel to read the request, and I don't want to be the catalyst that opens up those feelings. And sure, I'm second guessing that his reply - if he replies - will be to ask me why?

I do not wish to answer that question. 

Not because I have any need for secrecy, or feel that he shouldn't know why. But simply because it is over stepping the mark. He isn't my therapist, I'm not asking for therapy. I just want to get a 360 degree crash report. 

So, if this were me, and a client asked me for my notes about them - I have no problem with offering the truth. My answer is, 'the sheet of A 4 I wrote things down on during the session has been destroyed. I will copy and paste the notes I keep for my records to you, and I hope that you get in touch with me if there is anything in there that doesn't make sense or I've got wrong. If there is I am happy to change it'. 

I'm not going to suggest that we sit down together and go through the notes. But I might ask if they would like to do that. 

My inspiration for how to practice is a supervisor who wrote something I felt could be detrimental when I was in placement. I requested that she changed her wording, and she simply apologized and changed the wording. 

No drama - gold standard! 

5th February 2024.

Email:

Dear Kit,

This email isn't a formal request.

This is a notification, to let you know that I'm thinking of requesting my session notes from you. 

I will let you know my decision at the end of February.