"It's becoming a theme." 29th September 2021.

It starts well, I feel that I'm talking to the person, not the role. He tells me his news, I join in. I am interested and sympathetic and ordinary. And I am aware that I'm in another one of the therapy forbidden zones; the place of 'chit chat'. 

But it seems OK?

And he instigated it?

So what goes wrong?

He is saying - not dramatically, but directly and uncompromisingly - 'a theme, it's becoming a theme...'

He says - "There is one narrative going on with you and quite a different narrative going on in me. Mine is being asked to do things which I'm then not allowed to do. For example last week you asked me to talk about the stuff that's here (my assignment?) but we are always side-tracked"

Did I?

I didn't ask him?

I seriously doubt it...

And now I'm panicking! 

Because the real problem must be my feelings for him! 

They have leaked out? 

Is it obvious?

IT IS OBVIOUS!

He knows...

OK, breathe!

But under the surface...

No! Do not try to imagine what is under the surface!

STAY ON THE SURFACE!

To answer his observation with the truth is impossible! 

I feel talked at. I am being talked at.

I'm never going to accept 'it's all about development'. 

Why didn't he talk with me about my research proposal - why is he talking about another assignment, actually why?

And now he's telling me that for clients 'sometimes there isn't even a better'. 

What have I said or not said? 

He says - "But if a client feels that their life is utterly worthless, and the only way they get through each day is knowing that they could kill themselves..."

Oh, this is why he wont talk about my research?

Because I'm focusing on post traumatic growth?

Who is he talking about...

A cold hand squeezes my heart, is it him who feels this way?

I can't let him know what I'm thinking...

I can't let him know how much I care...

So, I defend my position.

I interrupt - "Yes, that is their way - but it isn't about solutions, there is no 'solution' only the ways the person comes up with that work for them, or finding different ways to understand and feel - but they've come to therapy so they have hope that life isn't worthless!"

He says - "It sounds like CBT to me"

When 'Person centered therapists' say 'it sounds like CBT' this is not good. It implies right now that I, Xerpa believe people can think their way out of feelings, or worse, that I Xerpa, will ignore their feelings...and this is about as insulting as it gets in a therapist to therapist dialogue!

I reply - "I'm not looking at what is triggering or going wrong (a process used in CBT), Instead I'm asking 'what are you doing, feeling, noticing when things are better'? It's a very physical, embodied exploration of instances of when the problem isn't a problem - and using the client's language and ideas. And when I've been really fragile, that mode of thought has been the only thing that could get me through. There is no point directing people to look at the shattered mess, or question why did this happen... "

I feel quite strongly about this! 

He reacts against my strong feeling...

Why?

He then says - "I would very strongly advise you to wonder about other people's experiences that are different to yours - some people, let's say when they have been sexually abused in childhood, the last thing they ever want to do is talk about it because that will retraumatize them, and other people the thing they must do to move on, is to talk about it"

I feel dismissed...and not heard. I have no idea what he thinks I'm like in a session with a client, so again I talk from my own feelings - and a safer domain.

I say - "I know that feeling very well - because there were all the things I couldn't talk about when our conversations were on Zoom"

Now a new possibility arises, a new thought. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't speak openly? Perhaps he would have moved my words around into something referencing developmental theory, and he would not have heard and reflected my feelings and thoughts, and missed entirely the power, terror, anger, sadness and the glory of our family's tragedy? 

He continues - "But in this conversation I see the same process happening again, there is slippage which is moving, rather than keeping focus which I think is why you asked me last week to talk about this or perhaps there is resistance about talking about it because you described yourself as being more person-centered, and a resistance to talking about theory like this"

We are not talking!

One of us lectures, the other subverts and diverts towards something leftfield to avoid being spoken at, trying to shift things into dialogue.

But what's happening is - I  am talking from my own experience - my college tutor is Gestalt trained, and so we are taught to take a subjective, phenomenological approach. Which is a very Gestalt way of working. I have come to value and respect it. What I'm not doing here is agreeing that therapy is all about the therapist meeting the child in the client. I don't disagree with him, meeting the child in the client is part of it, but there is much more.

I say - "No, the problem is...there is a gap - a problem in therapy about talking about the real, and external. Looking at  Rogers 19 propositions, there is an emphasis on a person being able to integrate the totality of an experience and psychologically something that can't be looked at can eventually be looked at. But very much in therapy the focus is on the negative, and a person also brings the positive"

He says - "But that's a different issue surely? Talking about theory in order to get an assignment done"

I obviously don't want to talk about theory to get my assignment done! And in truth what I've said is what I believe, that the work of therapy is to enable someone to integrate the totality of an experience, which means finding a way that something that can't be looked at can eventually be looked at! I wonder what that could be in the context of our discussions! And as I have so much Gestalt in my education, I have come to see all interaction - especially with someone else who is committed to increasing their self awareness and emotional intelligence - all interactions as opportunities for knowledge and growth! We have the perfect opportunity - both of us - to learn so much here. But hey, it's OK I don't even know where to start with the 'a different issue entirely' .I'm feeling too shaken and trying to swim through a rising tide of panic. 

I say - "I don't need to be told theory to get my assignment done. I can do theory to the nth degree!"

And this is true, I keep forgetting that I'm good at theory, I keep forgetting that I'm OK. A part of me is still in the living room, headphones on, listening to the band who cancelled - and hoping my son isn't going to start smashing things. I keep forgetting that despite my son smashing things, I passed my assignments in year one. So the probability is - without the omnipresent fear of random acts of violence happening around or to me - I will be able to write pretty well!

He says - "Yes but we didn't do it last week"

I have said in effect 'I don't need this', yet he's continuing. So I take a different path. I try to attribute the pointlessness of his endeavor (as he has clearly gasped the truth that to educate me is impossible) to the esoteric nature of our assignments.

I say - "Also it is quite difficult to work out what is meant by the criteria (given as part of the assignment)"

Our assignments had to be explained by the tutor who marked them, only then would we know what that tutor wanted us to include and cover!

He says - "The same thing happened when we talked about games. I think I started out by saying what do you understand about games theory and you weren't really quite there, and I never got to say because we kept getting side tracked. This is something that keeps happening. Why does that keep happening. Why do we have a focus that you decide on but then we never get there?"

Right then, let's talk about how phantasy is a concept relating to soul and body, or all the other far more interesting things humanity has woven from dream and memory! He has after all interrupted those tangential explorations of ours! But I'm still trying to pass on to him the strangeness and unique quality of my college's Diploma course! 

Me - "But I know a lot more about the assignment because of what I heard in class last week - the wording is ambiguous - so I asked my tutor"

He says - "But I think what they are getting at and I think this is really important is - and let's take a step back - it is impossible to do therapy without a theory"

I say truthfully -"I don't have a problem about theory" 

He replies -"And you said solution focus doesn't have a theory - well it does. If you go on the basis that an open welcoming environment and a person is free to explore, to use the really brutal Rogers shorthand - to actualize - then the theory is..."

The gauntlet has been thrown down!

I say -  "Of course there is theory! The no theory means that the client isn't given a model, we don't offer theories. But if someone came with a self-help book, or believed that they knew why they were experiencing things, I use their theory "

From a postmodern perspective (and there is 'our theory') context is all. Our theory is that we create reality through words, how we talk about reality really matters...

He replies - "There will be times when the client is utterly lost, and if you offer them a framework it really, really helps. So for example one of the two frameworks I use, the TA framework the most habitually of all again and again, and I'll see a client is lost and I'll say 'here's a framework, what do you think of it?' and they can always say no. But, there's 'true self and false self' that's one, in terms of having needs met / not having needs met - going through the world saying 'this is me, I'm OK with this or actually, 'me - this is not acceptable'. There's the false self front (Winnicott).  Parent / Adult/ Child model, and Drama Triangle. They come up again and again, and I see a client in front of me, I can almost visibly see the light bulb go on above their heads -'Oh! That's why I keep doing that! That's why I keep going back, he comes back pissed at 3 in the morning. I undress him, put him to bed and  he wakes up 2 hours latter and he starts pummelling me and I forgive him because it's not really his fault - because I'm a rescuer, and he's a persecutor except when he turns victim!' Just simple frameworks like that can be literally life changing. So, I just want to put a question mark, and I absolutely want to be clear - we are not saying to the client 'Of course, you are doing this' we gently offer it and say 'how does this sound? We keep the client in the driver's seat. Does that make sense?"

And I don't have the energy to say anything except.

Of course it makes sense.

He - "So do you want to go to the...what do you want to do about the 19 Propositions?"

I am exhausted and beaten. 

My thought is: OK, let's do theory, I assume that this is what he wants to do! We are not going to do truth because I'm scared of his reaction. Because we are already in conflict. He has a need to be heard and to fulfil the role of teacher (I am assuming this, by the way, I don't know...) and I want to speak from the heart...but when I access my feelings or speak from my personal experience he feels that we are going off at a tangent.

And, you know that there are five styles of dealing with conflict...which of course we could link to states of the autonomic nervous system (Ventral, Dorsal and the other one! Polyvagal theory) but hey - not now!

1. Avoidance, 
2. accommodation, 
3. competition, 
4. compromise or 
5. collaboration.

I ponder briefly is this me accommodating or compromising, or am I competing? How is it that I feel like I have to compete, in order to get us in to collaboration - and to be honest this is the underlying 'game' of every session!

All righty then, I fire up the 'intellectual' core - let's play philosophy!

Me - "..there is an implied sense of autonomy in here - but he (Rogers) never uses the word autonomy - it is as if he juxtapositions autonomy against responsibility"

He - "Not juxtaposed I think. The two have to go together and...

Me - "For the good..."

He - "So for example not knowing - I'm not sure if I know where you want to go with this? The first thing I thought was - the client has more autonomy than the therapist always. The client can go and talk to anybody they want to about anything thing they've said in therapy - the therapist can't! And the client can spread themselves all over social media, pictures of them when they are drunk. and if a therapist does that they are bringing the profession into disrepute. but also you know, the therapist is obliged whatever they do to have the motivation that this is for the benefit of the client. It doesn't have to benefit the therapist at all, ever. So it is quite, quite different"

"The client can go and talk to anybody they want to about anything they've said in therapy." I take my authority to write directly from his statement.

Me - "But it's about fostering autonomy, because I'd say that inherent in the 19 Propositions is the concept of autonomy. Therapy requires a person to feel safe and secure enough to be able to face things that are scary. So, to have self mastery which is control leading to inner autonomy - So I'd say that inherent in the 19 is a sense of allowing a person to understand 'internal locus of evaluation' leading to a similar concept; autonomy. So it seems to me to be quite close - autonomy and internal locus of evaluation? That sounds like a question!"

He - "But I'm wondering - autonomy as distinct from what"?

As well he might! Because I'm not sure what I'm saying either. Nevertheless I am very clear about what gets in the way of autonomy... 

Me - "Coercion. To use a TA kind of concept - feeling-thought is 'I never want to go to that place!' but then the internal  Parent is 'Well you've got to do that!' and the inner dialogue misses out the Adult (middle) who says 'I can and I can't but I will weigh the situation up'. So that's an internal coercion."

He - "So that's a wonderful illustration. The Adult ego state is the only autonomous one"

Me - "So it (Adult) is supporting, and allowing the energy of the other two (Parent and Child ego states) to play? Inherent in the 19 Propositions...I don't like to use the term 'self-actualization' I imagine angels and bells and a stairway to Heaven, because it is a lofty term. But, to be aware of how one really feels about stuff fosters autonomy.

Every single memory of any event is reconstructed in the here and now. Therefore each character in the Drama triangle is only us, when we replay and remember. But what we do next to create the future is constructed through recombining, modifying and rearranging memories to visualize a different future. 

And nothing here in my way of understanding this conflicts with Balint and his basic fault, or attachment theory, or any other theory for that matter. And I'm trying to impress him, I know that. And I probably just sound mad.  And I don't understand why I so much, so need to really know him. 

He - "And while you were talking something hit me with great force - your history, thinking oh...is this in the background somewhere. Your experience (sectioning) with your son is the very opposite of autonomy. 'You must do this and if you don't you are non-compliant. It has the force of law behind it. So this is a real contrast to that. and if I'm hearing it right, what you are saying about autonomy may also be seen in terms of respect. I wonder if another way of talking about autonomy might be respect, respecting the client, giving the client their own voice seeing them as a separate person - back to autonomy again rather than an extension of the therapists process and will - respecting the client's own process and will"

Me -"Yes, that's very well put"

He - "Which goes I think with exactly what you were saying about theory, that if it's ever going to be used it needs to be in the service of the client rather than opposed upon them - like in psychiatry 'here's your disorder!' But it also fits in exactly with <pause>1950s/1960s radio broadcast, true self false self?"

Me - "Winnicott?"

He - "Yes, Winnicott talking about the holding environment. That's what it is isn't it, it's valuing the client. In the holding environment it's saying 'you can grow here, which again we are back to Rogers aren't we" 

And on we go - and we are getting on so well! Until proposition number 11. This was the beginning of a real problem.  

Proposition 11:

"As experiences occur in the life of the individual, they are either...

•  a) symbolized, perceived and organized into some relation to the self, 
•  b) ignored because there is no perceived relationship to the self structure, 
•  c) denied symbolization or given distorted symbolization because the experience is inconsistent with the structure of the self." [Carl Rogers]

He - "In psychodynamic terms, a) is transference.

Me -" symbolized, perceived and organized into some relation to the self. Symbolized is transference, are you sure? Because in my understanding symbolized represents the healthy version of processing experience. So, b) ignored or c) denied are especially relevant in psychodynamic as an error. I think a) symbolization is the healthy one...I believe"

He - "Well, not necessarily - if for example if one has the experience of never being listened to, being ignored by parents, then that becomes symbolized. What's very, very likely to happen they will look out for people who are not listening to them, and replay that. 

Ah, not symbolized - this is ignored or denied, stuck, unprocessed - the unconscious mind is trying to resolve thorough conflict (see the five styles!)! This is the very foundation of why therapy works, and why a therapist collaborates to enable change! 

Whatever!

Me -"Well this goes back to what I understand about language, that language is a set of symbols - that there is no intrinsic meaning to a word or letter, and we share meaning through having experiences broadly in common."

He - "But I don't think he is talking about language here

Me - "I don't understand...everything is a symbol, meaning is constructed..."

Therefore everything we experience is technically transference! Everything we perceive is seen in terms of what we already know, and what we know is memory. Curiously we are now on the same page...

He- "Well essentially I think he means the same thing that Stern means when he talks about RIGs - representations of interactions generalized - 

Me -  Reading Proposition 15.

"Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of self...

 So you are saying I think, symbolized means not really integrated?

He - "A symbol is just an internal representation, so for example if ...just think through a really unthought through response a child might have. so, Mom is in the habit of beating the child with a rolling pin to punish the child. So Mom always has a particular look on her face and goes marching out of the room  to fetch the rolling pin when the child is in trouble. So now the child has symbolized it; when Mom looks like that, when she walks like that the child knows she will be punished. One day this child is in school and the bell's gone oh, it's 9 o'clock and oh, no teacher, and now it's 3 minutes past 9 and the teacher comes rushing in the room which reminds the child exactly of when the mother is going to get the rolling pin. This child is cringing and falling into themselves  and is getting ready for the beating. Because the child has symbolized the beating in that way"

Me - "So the child has an inexplicit theory, the child can't actually say what it is, but something has happened and the child feels...and maybe  if he could sit calmly he could bring to mind  the way the teacher moved reminded him of his Mom...like my lecturer who looked like my husband, he looked like him, moved like him...But I thought symbolized was what people needed to do with memories that couldn't be thought about safely. I mean I think I know what you are saying but I don't think that is what he (Rogers) means"

He - "It's about sitting in front of somebody and trying to absorb and understand their world, and what the world means to them"

Me - quoting Proposition 13:

"In some instances, behavior may be brought about by organic experiences and needs which have not been symbolized. 

I think Rogers is using the word symbolized as a positive.

He -"Well for example, it's almost midday and time to eat, and when I eat I don't have any particular strong feelings around eating. I eat because I need to eat. It's not been symbolized, whereas if i was sitting here thinking I need to eat, I'm ravenous I can't even focus on what I'm doing now, that may be symbolized, that may be because...

OK, going to break the 4th wall. This is me writing in 2023: I hear a lot of the same thing in his examples, in almost every session, and it is relevant. And significant. And when he said 'you know about me....' And I did, and instead of offering empathy I acted dumb because I was in the client's chair.. I couldn't bear the thought of him seeing my love, I couldn't risk him knowing that I listened, heard and felt. I simply didn't have any permission to be myself in his room.

And I wish I hadn't pretended not to know. 

I wish I'd been braver.

I should have been myself...

But I know exactly why I made it look like I didn't care enough to know.

But I am truly, truly sorry.

For me, having to be a client in this situation was a crucifixion, I couldn't move or breathe. I couldn't reach out. I knew this couldn't end well.

Learn to Swim! 20th September 2021.

I talk about what happened - I'd been on a trip to Arron. I'd got tickets to see the band that got me through my son's psychosis. They cancelled. I looked for my lost daughter in the streets of Glasgow. I couldn't find her.

He's asking me, 'what was it like?' 

One more Portal map, one more weaving straw into gold, one more challenge that appeared to be impossible. And I got through with out breaking or crumpling or giving up!.

He says - "It's still very present isn't it"

I say - "Is it? The memories are clear - present? It is unfinished. But it's me doing the best I can do..."

He says - "So why is there a problem now"?

What? If I hadn't talked about where I'd been - I'd be talking about the endless writing assignments nightmare that is college! I'm not here to process my expedition to the North. I was only sharing my adventure. In my family the recitation of disasters was a thing, the more awful the event, the more heroic is the teller of the tale! 

Regardless I stay with his 'reality'.

I say -  "I would like more, the music to play and the credits to roll. For everyone to say to me 'well done'. No one says well done!"

He says - "Who would say ' well done'?

I have already said it - no one will say 'well done'  - those were my words! My family is shattered, the people who would have said well done, are gone. So I answer with who I would like to say it, and I say how much I deserve the well done! 

He replies - "It doesn't sound quite enough"

I think it probably is!

At a certain point there is an invite to 'play philosophy' because I've referred to a 'self'. Philosophy is a game I enjoy. But I feel dejected and helpless after thinking about who wouldn't say well done! And this isn't good. 

Plus I've been told that what I say I want isn't really what I want (as it doesn't 'sound enough').

And then we are talking about institutional injustice and I feel that I'm hearing him when he says that sometimes it is the therapist's job to help a client write the letter to the solicitor, to support their choice to go to the police - or not...Now we are on the same page! And then away, and back via my assignment to where he started;  which is that in his opinion human development is all of what counselling is about.

So I say - in reply to his explanations about transactional analysis -"Seems so complicated - why don't you just ask the client what he wants?"

He says - "Because it wont work, they wont know - because all that will do is reveal the stuckness of the Child (ego state) 'well what I want is that but I can't do that because it will make me a bad person'"

I don't say - Oh, I'd ask them - 'I hear you say doing that will make you a bad person, but I'm wondering what it is about that thing you can't do or have, that would make your life better? - Instead I stay with his statement.

I reply - "I suppose I'd hope by asking that I'd get to the Adult "

He - "We can never get to the Adult - if the Child is standing in the way. The Child will scream and shout and stamp until the Child is satisfied. Or until the Child has understood that this isn't going to get me what I want. But we have to address the Child.

Me - "How do you address the Child"?

He - "I would...I want to talk to the Child in the person sat opposite to me. so I might ask something like 'Yeah, but if I stand up for myself I'll be a really bad person' and I would say something like 'who told you standing up for yourself was bad'? And usually, sometimes straight away, we get there. and we talk about the implacable Parent, about the emotionally punishing Parent, and you locate where that comes from. Once it is located where it comes from, the Child is recognized. Once the Child is recognized, the Child can start to be happy. 'Oh you can see me now, I can relax now' and then we can move into Adult. I mean this is why this is why development isn't a bit of counselling, this is all of it. Because it is all developmental in the end. And this is why I say time isn't linear because all that stuff a person experienced as a child is what is called in Gestalt Unfinished Business' and it keeps sticking around until it is finished. And it can never be finished until it is recognized, and recognizing it takes work, it usually takes a lot of work. Usually its a bit like, the body going through the windscreen of a car. You pick out all the big pieces of glass that's easy, and then for weeks and months and sometimes years later, little tiny pieces that you never noticed before that had worked their way into the skin. That's what it's like - is this making sense?"

My view remains unchanged; acknowledge that life is complicated, embrace the truth that we are making it all up as we go along. We are all attempting to navigate the inevitable crashing rocks and stormy seas of life. Follow the energy, and trust in love.

But really, learn to swim!

I placed symbols of the four directions. 30th August 2021

This is the session in which I placed symbols of the four directions, at each of the cardinal points in his room.

• A stone in the North.
• A feather in the East.
• A candle in the South and
• The sound of the sea (I played a recording) in the West.

Perhaps I should have dropped this fly-by intuition thing I was doing, perhaps I should have availed myself of his psychotherapeutic knowledge. But, he was my beloved. I had just an hour. And the terror of the Kohuts was upon me - that our laughing together, our getting on, was his deliberate construct - twin ship or some other reparative relationship maneuver.  

Not real. 

No actual connection. 

Manipulation. 

Only his illusion and my delusion. 

And in this room, well our laughter, it felt real. But that question he asks himself, the 'who am I to the client' question and how he seeks to be 'who they need me to be'. 

But I don't need him to be anyone except who he is!

My North star is vanishing. Working out the directions in his room is my grounding ritual, I am able to say: I don't know which way is up or down, and I feel as if my blood has turned to water and my legs wont work, but now I know where the sun is! Focus on that. My experience of chronic stress had taught me the importance of this. When everything is fragile and nothing makes sense, then holding on to where the sun is - is something in a world -  because at a certain point all that is solid, melts into air. The stability, solidity of North, of the Earth  is gone! And I'm telling him about how extreme stress meant that my sense of time was broken, and how it is the hippocampus that deals with time - and how the hippocampus is damaged by adrenaline and cortisol....and how, just a year ago I felt the edges of my sanity starting to break.

He doesn't think that knowing neurobiology is important. I disagree. It was my golden thread. It allowed me to find my way back to the world. It gave me sound and solid reasons why I would be destroyed by self attack and self abandonment. So I held tight to my relationship with direction, space and time - because this is how I hold tight to my place in this world. 

I tell him I had felt - and still do to some extent - as if I'd been shot through the head. And I don't hear him say, 'You suffered such a profound loss of normality, your family fractured and gone. How on earth did you get through that?' But I answer that question anyway; I tell him that I was privileged to get a ring side view, to observe in myself the process that culminates in sectioning. I tell him that because of this, I'm not concerned with the cause of people's vulnerabilities - the attachment issues or any 'basic fault' - I am very concerned with what people are doing that is helping them now. My question is never 'what do I think they need from me' it is always a question to them, 'what's helping you?'

The strategy of therapists to use a concept of attachment and wounds from the past may create a handle for some parts of the experience, but being asked to observe the wound, to concretized suffering just made it worse for me. It avoided now, it avoided my answers and strengths - But I've said this before and I will say it again!

He says - "There is a whole question there of a sense of self isn't there" 

What?

No!

I don't understand?

I've just described the effect of terror, loss and grief!

He continues - "I'm getting at any potential client who might be sitting in front of you who might not have a sense of self and might not know who they are. There are many clients I've come across who describe sensations and feelings and events and experiences, but they have no sense of self to carry them in, and therefore having a framework for self understanding is critical for somebody like that.  Because that's their chief trauma if you like, that I'm going through the world not knowing who I am, and not having a place to put anything. Particularly if somebody has disorganised attachment - because people with disorganised attachment, their chief emotion is fear - and if the background feeling is fear than they are constantly hypervigilant and there is no space for any sense of self"

The sound of the sea had stopped. And I was feeling my own hypervigilance, the feeling that at any moment he'd see into my heart and tell me to go, and I know that right now I'm not strong enough for this, not at all, and I'd just break.

But there is a serious issue here. I'd break now not because of my childhood issues, I'd break because I'm recovering; it takes time for the body to release the panic, when one has been too close to death. 

I find the concept that someone without any serious attachment issues, or a 'basic fault', could cope with what I have been through, as childish...actually. 

But hey, I get it. 

Only people who have lived through it can know. 

When I was at the inquest for my son's friend, I could not imagine why the family hadn't got help. Surely it was obvious how dangerous the situation was? So I remember how profound my ignorance of their situation turned out to be, I'm fortunate, life intervened and ripped up my idiot notions. It is a judgement, pure and simple - a process of subtle blame born from a desire to believe that the world is less random, and more fair than it truly is.

So I guess he doesn't know this. He believes in a more orderly world than I do! Well perhaps no one knows how fragile ordinary can be unless they have lived through it's shattering. Certainly that inquest and what happened to me afterwards taught me to never make judgments again! But no, I'm not going to play along in this conversation today. 

Where I've been, and where others are, is too serious. 

This self, no self thing is angels on a pin.

I said - "I'm not sure where we go next - anywhere - more time travel. The 'unconstructed space' what do we do with this space? I could ask you, what are your best hopes...

He is taken aback: 

He - "What turning the tables and making me the..."

Me - It's not turning the tables, it's a fair question....I'm in a funny position. I could feel uncomfortable about not 'doing' therapy but I don't think I've got therapy to do. But you are a therapist, so if you want to do therapy I will attempt to do therapy. I don't see myself as a client..."

He -  "Well this space is for what ever you want it to be" 

I reply honestly - "But I don't know what I want it to be, except through asking you what your best hopes might be.."

He - "Well not for anything you might want it to be, but within the bounds of...I was thinking actually before you came , I was thinking in my experience going back to training what are the biggest holes in training. The things you ought to cover and don't. And I know what my thoughts are on that, so if we are going to go down that road, and thinking well we ought to cover X and they haven't.."

'Not for anything you might want it to be' ? 

Each syllable a dagger into my heart.

So he knows?

Of course he knows!

Then why has he not said anything!

There is no room for this kind of thinking, it will drag me into anger or despair. I need to stay on firm ground. OK - so I know that I don't want more pedagogy, so I try to explain that in talking about anything I hear how he does therapy - as that is so often a part of what we talk about. I tell him that I hear the heart-essence, his attitude, his tone of voice. I ramble on about theory too, and that what I've got from him is really useful. Some part of me is pleading silently; please cross the river, please let go so we can start again as equals, as people. 

I disconnect from that part, I hold the calm part of me steady...

And he says - "Just press the pause button there for a second! I'm intrigued by what you have said, because I'm wondering now  - of course implicitly revealing something or telling something without doing it explicitly happens all the time of course. But I get the sense from what you have just said that you have got things from me that I haven't directly said - and I wonder what those things are...?"

I respond - "Yes, of course! Your attitude and your responses, a learning through doing or rather I learn your attitude by experiencing it. Learning isn't only following instruction. I learn through observing and feeling...But regarding college - I don't know what we don't know - I've learnt a lot from my other Diploma course!" 

And then he says - "They rarely tell you for instance, how to deal with a client who suddenly says that he is suicidal"

I tell him truthfully that actually they have done their best to teach us to feel confident in such a situation. 

He tells me 'we should ask about suicide, and ask in the first session'. 

He had asked me in our first session and, I lied. I didn't feel safe enough to be honest. Recently I've been asking the suicide question of our clients because it is 'our policy' and done as part of an assessment, but I don't know how useful it is. The people I've spoken to for whom suicide is a possibility have just told me their situation as we spoke. And even before it is said directly, I hear it in the tone of their voice and see in their body language, I feel the future has vanished, a closing down, a shutting off, preparing to go - no future beyond the wall of fear, fury, and rage. I say what I see. I tell them that I need to have the suicide conversation, and I explain that this is about my fear, but I hope it will be useful for them. I don't leave the unsayable unsaid...

And as he speaks I remember the moments clearly; when he asked me about my suicidal feelings it felt like what it was, an assessment question - it didn't even feel like it had come from him!

I say - "It is quite difficult in the first session to be asked that. I found it quite difficult"

Again I experience a nothing, his reply is: "hmm"

I echo it: "hmm"

He says - "Because very often - I know this from others -  someone who is genuinely suicidal can be very, very good at hiding it and therefore it's something we need to get into the open"

And right now, what is happening here, why hasn't he heard me?  I had just said that I'd found it difficult in my initial assessment dialogue with him to be truthful about self harm and suicide. Then he had replied with 'some people are good at hiding it'. So has he heard? Is he talking about me in this moment? 

So he knew - at the time?

He didn't 'get it into the open'....so what is he talking about!

I ask a really oblique question to find out.

I say - "I would be going by instinct, by feel - that I'm listening for the 'ring of truth' as they answer the assessment questions. Would you say that that is how it is for you, it didn't feel right (their tone of voice, body language)?"

He replies - "I don't recall that that has ever happened (so that answers my question - unless he is extremely skilled in sidestepping truth?) I've never had clients who've been dishonest about that, but if I did sense - oh this person isn't really telling me - in the first session, I wouldn't push it. I would come back to it. It could be a case of they need to get their feet under the table, they need to feel safe before they can tell me. But I've never been in that position. I've always had honesty. There is one thing that some supervisors suggest which I only did once, under duress and it was a disaster, and I would highly recommend that you never go down this road. The 'no suicide contract' ...I've heard people describe it as a physical thing which you both sign, and I've heard clients describe it as you both shake hands on it - and - I only did it once, but it turned out to be a valuable lesson actually because it is irrelevant. If we really believe in autonomy, then a part of autonomy is that if they want to take their own life then no contract is going to make any difference...But the thing I discovered about this particular client, and there have been other clients since was the great paradox for this person is, that having suicidal thoughts is what kept them alive. The function of suicidal thoughts like that is as an escape hatch that enables them to live - and so not only is a no suicide contract useless, it is potentially taking away their escape hatch! Partly it is this real tension that is always present in a therapy session, I think in the background between all this theory and this knowledge and all this experience of other clients, all of whom are completely unique which I need to understand, which is primary - theory might be useful - but you are primary...but again, sometimes I mean I've had self harming clients and I've said 'what's it all about for you'? And they can't tell me they go blank. Partly it's because they've never talked about it, never expressed it. Partly there is the flavour of shame about it so they become mute, so in circumstances like that I would say  'well in my experience a person usually self harms for one of three reasons - does any of that sound like you?'  And when they say 'yes, sounds like the second one, maybe the third one' you can see the response - ' Oh my god somebody (the therapist) gets it'. Again what you are doing you're just deepening the therapeutic alliance by having a conversation like that. The big picture is, there should be no, no-go areas in what you can talk about..."

 'There should be no, no go areas'!  At at the end of 2021 I tried so hard to cross the divide, to talk about 'us' as two people in the same room. It was impossible for me to disconnect from him without getting the full picture. So now, 2023 my feelings remain exactly as they were.

And as this conversation about suicide went further, the ground became as loose and as wobbly as jelly, and I wanted to be held - I needed it so much... 

I left his room understanding how devastating a non-response can be.

A diagnosis is made only of words. 23rd August 2021.

NOTES:

I sit at his feet gazing upwards. 

the tiny jewel

 in my nose keeps 

catching the light...

I leave feeling empty, hollow.

I'm his client no matter what I say.

I'm not his trusted companion

it bloody hurts.

He is the therapist.

I'm being baby sat...

The hall of mirrors bends the light.

His colours change.

A divine chameleon.

And I sit.

At his feet.

Last week the sudden, 

burning thrill 

as our little fingers touched.

A sensation like hunger 

and going over the crest of a hill 

too fast.

The session.

Into the void...

No plans, I didn't email him before the session to say what the subjects may be. But he follows up a link I'd sent to him some time before; an interview with a psychiatrist who stated boldly that a diagnosis of a mental health condition such as schizophrenia, is made entirely out of words.

He is staggered; how is it ethical to carry out medical interventions, prescribe brain altering substances based entirely on a person's words! And we are together. Both fighting metaphorically, for all and every 'non-compliant service user'.

But we are not equal. I cannot know - or even ask - why he feels this way about psychiatry. He, on the other hand knows exactly why I feel this way. This imbalance in our language, in our knowledge of each other is integral to therapy. Our language as therapists creates a gap, this void, this empty space for our clients to fill.

So, here's a problem - I'm not a client - And this way of talking, in which I'm open whilst he is closed - just disempowers me.

In this session I found myself talking about Mesopotamian stories, of the sacredness of blood, and he's telling me about Leviticus, and how stories are used to bolster ego and maintain insider-outsider groups. We are in dialogue, it feels good, much laughter, and I have the giddy, blissful sense of our souls touching.

Yet, in my notes I write how I feel:

Hollowed out, empty.

As if I'd dreamt that I was at a feast, 

but no matter how much I ate and drank, 

no sense of satisfaction, 

no sense of this is enough.

As if I'd walked into the Fairy hill, 

 A thousand years sped by

 in the whirl of a single dance.

Everything I thought I'd known slips

into dust,

and I'm alone.

The ship of fools. 12th August 2021.

NOTES 12th August 2021. 

At the very centre of our dialogue

The word phantasy ripples through the air

(with a ph)

Idea condensing now into form, 

Professor Couliano slumped, 

a single shot 

through the head.

Metaphor, within a metaphor within a...

bullet.

That extinguished once and for all 

the flame of his life.

Lots of bullet songs in my life right now: 

Filter - 'Hey man, nice shot'.

Covenant - 'Time is like a Bullet'.

Puscifer - Bullet train to Iowa... "Going to be a while before we hit the ground" 

And this connection that I'm imagining,

 or longing for,

 or creating,

 or destroying?

When the waves come

 I am in bliss. 

---

The session.

There is a picture on his wall. I go over and take a good look. 

It is Mediaeval, 

A fayre or market, a festival day?

And in the picture there is a big, stripy box 

Full of people! 

Are they trapped? 

There is a ladder inside this rather large box, 

Has someone placed it there so they can escape? 

No, that interpretation doesn’t seem right.

I’m confused. 

I ask:

What’s happening?

Why are they inside the box…

He tells me it is 'his test for undiagnosed autism'. 

I pause, much taken aback. 

I see no connection at all between people trapped in a big box and autism; does he mean this as a metaphor? But he said it is a test. I 'bracket' the thought that is getting louder -  'I don't understand the picture, so does he now think that I'm autistic?  

I say again, 'no seriously - why are those people in the box'?

The box was actually a travelling theatre! 

What a delight I never knew such things existed! Were they like ice-cream vans? Just turning up any where - seems an amazing idea, it should happen! He told me more, I was awash in joy and hilarity.

He told me that the bag pipes in the picture symbolized male genitalia, and when I said that I honestly didn't understand - meaning, why are they by the bishop and the procession carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary!? It was even funnier as he explained, with his face completely straight, no hint of laughter that - 'it's the shape'. 

Well obviously it's the shape, that is not difficult to see! 

Once I'd stopped laughing, we were somehow talking about The ship of Fools; a visual metaphor representing setting out on the wide sea without preparation, least of all a map. Nobody on the ship of fools has any idea why they are there or where they are off to! 

An apt description.. 

Discussing diverse things is exactly what I enjoy most. As we talk I hear his concepts; his ideas and his expertise. But just after he conflates Dionysus with Jesus, in his next breath he changes the subject back to the notes. 

The notes he made about my assignments. 

Surely by now it's obvious that I would much rather talk about how Dionysus led the dead, dancing their way beyond the Eleusinian Mysteries, ever onwards to the flowery Summerland meadows of the Underworld. I want to talk about the things that give depth and flavour to human experience..

'Back to the notes' -  I felt as if I was hearing 'it is a waste of time to talk with you'.

But I'd just learnt about traveling theaters and bagpipes! 

I wanted more..

He tells me that - "What the client will want from you as a therapist is something that they missed developmentally, in other words, so the sort of transference which is about having a disagreement and that will be ok - because in their experience having disagreement ends in uproar - or having a transference which is called twin ship 'you are like me therefore you get me, the person didn't have that developmentally...so they need the therapist to be that person, so that's why they were called transference relationships "

And I divert this because Kohut gives me the creeps! 

But inexorably, despite my best efforts the talk reverts back to developmental stages.

He continues - "Now the thing about idealisation - this is a really important process for the child. Now what will happen when a child can't go through that, if the child feels 'my parents don't look after me' there is no where that the parents can fall from, what very often happens is the person ends up having really unrealistic relationships with people because they end up idealising all kinds of other people who of course, can't bear it. They can't bear it in literally two ways, it can be 'get away from me, who are you turning me into?'  a full rejection. Or they bear it in a more abstract way, but nobody can be idealised for two long. We are all fallible people therefore what tends to happen is they have not gone through this important developmental process  then there is this boom and bust of idealising people as perfect, and then feeling completely crestfallen and 'god, the world is this rubbish' so they go and idealise somebody else. And so the idea is that they can go through that process with the therapist - the therapist will inevitably have a fall and they are in an environment where they can talk about it in a much more healthy way in which they can understand and therefore break the cycle. Does all that make sense?"

And I'm off again, scattering this sensible, coherent image as if it is mercury. An explanation is only that. There are many. They need to be criticized, or rather they need to be taken to bits and checked out.  But Kohut's theory and the common sense explanations deriving from developmental theory are, I think, an integral part of Kit's identity. So I don't say to him that I've been idealized, it made me feel safe. It is strange to be a muse, and it can be frustrating. It can also be incredibly powerful! And it makes sense to idealize someone when you need to. And sure, it hurts when they aren't the one, it hurts more when they decide that you are no longer the one! Or you could find perfect love with your twin-flame, if there really are twin-flames. And they die in a car crash, or waste away slowly with some horrible disease. Or, more likely they were never the one. But it was lovely when they were! Or you could negotiate and navigate with a good friend into something that remains blissful and exciting for years. I was actually 'swept off my feet by a tall, dark and handsome man' (my husband looked like Frank Zappa!) despite my rejection of all inner and outer Princess stereotypes! And I think my husband really did his best to be loyal to me, and it was wonderful while he idealized me!  But I'm also sure that he enjoyed finding others to idealize - and I'm beginning to wonder how many times he had done this - it was no doubt very exciting and a lot of fun for him. 

But being idealised didn't cause me to want to push him away. I didn't worry about failing to meet his expectations. 

Go figure!

I've seen the most unlikely of relationships work beautifully. 

I don't have a concept of perfect love. 

Love is, itself, perfect.

But me...do I idealize?

I wish I could say that Kit was 'just another one' of many people I've idealized. But no, I love in a very deep and consistent way, I know that I don't undo love easily, I don't just move on. I honestly do not see Kit as perfect...he's just energetic and intelligent, god damn it!

But anyway yes, I get your message Kit! 

He says - "I think the bottom line is not saying, which of these six categories' does this person fit into - a bit of danger in that - but just really focusing on, I'm listening for the clues, what does this person need from me, what's missing that they now need me to fulfil. And some of that you can do, and some of it you are just not a person who can do that. Some of it can't be done in therapy anyway, and they need to identify it for themselves and do it outside of therapy. But all of that is important to identify I think"

I am not going to talk about Kohut! 

But is all this him telling me that he thinks that I idealize him?

The picture of the people in the box, the travelling theatre is still in my mind and I am horrified that he would diagnose someone from how they responded to a picture. Not going to go there! I stay with the time-frame suggested by the painting, I am telling him that I see so much of psychotherapy as a rewrite of mediaeval concepts, Neoplatonism -  the idea of pneuma and soul. And people have and always will beleive so many different things - and so we get then into epistemology, and as I'm Popperian - seeking refutations to move us forward - he sees this as being contrary. 

So ~I switch subject, I'm explaining my research again and my view that it is important to consider the narratives people create to explain what has happened - and how tragic stories transform with alternative narratives - and my question, where does this fit in with how post traumatic growth takes place. 

 He says - "I'm not sure everybody gets to post traumatic growth...."

 I say -  'that's why this research is interesting"'

Even if  it was only one person ever - that would make it even more intresting!

 He - "Or would even couch it in those terms, of learning a lesson from it"

Clearly he is annoyed. I've not agreed with him, and I am persisting in spouting theories that he seems to believe are rubbish. What is behind this, what is behind his despair? That is something I would love to know!

And it is sad that he doesn't seem to hear that I reject all monomyths - I don't think his ideas are wrong, only that they don't go far enough! And if I had permission to talk with him about how he feels in this moment I would say, 'something about the way you speak, gives me the impression that the depth and power of trauma you have experienced is being missed out in how I speak about trauma? 

I don't say that. 

Talking about his emotions isn't allowed in this room.

I say instead - "These are things people do say about overwhelming experience, but people do find a way out and they look back and say that the experience has connected them with the rest of humanity rather than isolating them" 

He replies - "Ah well there's a key thing with grief, you mentioned before the re-organisation of our internal furniture, if you will. And that's really what grief is. The world was like this and I knew how it worked, something has been taken away from me , or I've lost my job, or I've split up from my partner ...somethings end and we are glad, but it would be hard to imagine someone saying 'I'm glad I don't have my left leg anymore even if the amputation saved their life, they would still wish they had got their leg, so it's reconstitution..."

And he's telling me about Kubler Ross. Completely missing the point - because my research is about that period of heightened awareness, times when the writing really appears on the wall. And how experiences such as those, catalyse something new.

I talk about when he asked me if I recognized my denial.

Underneath this subject is my aim - I want him to understand my view that hearing what people say, and meshing with their belief system is fundamental to their healing...it isn't about us, it isn't about 'truth' it is about their process! 

And to do this a therapist has learnt how to let go of all and every theory - nothing matters more at any moment than my ability to respect and to honour someone else's truth. Regardless of the TRUTH, the place to start is where they are...then traditional pathologizing concepts dissolve. I see those concepts (and diagnosis) as cruel theories that perpetuate the absurd notion that distress, and emotions are diseases! If you really take on board what I've just said then you will understand how shocked I'd felt when I realised that he was diagnosing denial; dismissing my actual thoughts, words, feelings. 

He had not heard me explain, even though I had told him, why I wasn't going to give up on my marriage until I knew that it was the right time to do so. 

I had said that I couldn't make a decision without knowing what was actually happening. I said that I don't judge people until I'm certain about the facts, but as my husband didn't answer my questions truthfully I was stuck. 

I didn't know if my husband was metaphorically stumbling around, knocking things over, breaking things, because he'd experienced seeing his son attempt suicide and if this fear and rage he enacted was similar to my son's psychosis? In which case, like my son - he would eventually come to face the whole of it, and get through, and then return to love. 

Or was my husband now purposefully smashing my home up, because he wanted us gone, because he had no intention of facing anything!

Is there a test for this - other than asking?

He says - "Isn't that denial of information, which was your experience, information in itself?...But you weren't being given it - what I'm trying to say is, wasn't that information in itself, that you were being denied what you needed. That's information about his behavior""

So welcome to the head f**ck that is psychotherapy. And if you know how to determine when someone who needs you to believe that he is telling the truth, is actually lying, let me know! And this statement from Kit so echoes my current dilemma - if Kit intuitively knows how I feel about him, he isn't giving me the information I need! 

I'm still recovering from being lied to, I can't take more deception.

He - "See I remember for thinking for quite a few sessions that I was looking at denial".

That was obvious.

He - "There were all the memories of what you had been and could still be.."

And I say - "But we weren't a cartoon couple. We got on and were friends, we had a code of conduct and it didn't make sense to destroy everything. Therefore I needed to think very carefully. That his code of conduct 'went out of the window' was different. He'd already framed it once as a massive mistake...But I was waiting for the 'gone too far' to be proved - once it was proved, I hit destruct"

And then we are back together talking about psychiatry and the vagal nerve, and he's talking about how faith cures can stop people getting appropriate treatment...and we are together and apart. And then many diverse topics as we get closer again.

The hour ends.

And he says - "My that went very quickly"

Both of us laughing, sounding like the very best of friends.

The first Kohut. 9th of August 2021.

NOTE: 9th August 2021.

Calm acquiescence.

Really?

As I sit here in a car too hot for dogs,

radio on, 

belly full of fluttering butterflies.

I watched an old documentary about Eric Berne this morning.

1960s looked modern.

Shock to see people smoking.

Once so normal...

And 

People expected answers, 

psychotherapy//Enlightenment!

But mostly...

I'm terrified why?

Undertow

Kit gives me back everything I give him

He doesn't reply to my emails anymore..

What has happened?

I feel his warmth, but I'm what?

Stupid I guess.

Getting to the point where I tell the truth.

Just say it

I'm in love with you...

And you must know this, feel it, see it?

This session is almost too painful to recall and write. There was so much 'us' in it. It didn’t feel as if there was an agenda. We talked as if we are friends and equals. But returning to this session and thinking about it - I feel my heart break - because what if this sense of equality was nothing but a result of his technique, and therefore I've been deceived, in which case - I truly am an idiot. 

But I also need to think seriously about my conduct at this point.

Am I gaslighting him?

I don't see how he can't feel the undertow...why doesn't he ask me?

In gaslighting one person's power to make informed choices is restricted by the other's choice to withhold information, or to lie, or to dismiss the victim's concern. 

• I am trying to prevent him making choices that could be too painful for me.
• I don't trust him..

Gaslighting becomes coercion when the victim requests the truth, and truth is denied. I also think there is bullying in gaslighting -  the perpetrator choses to maintain the victim's distress - as proof that the victim is getting upset over nothing. 

But this dynamic ends when the victim gets a clear picture of what is actually happening. Instantly their power to make an informed choice is restored. 

• I hate the fact that this could be affecting him negatively - I just don't see any safe alternative. 
• I do not want or value confusion and disempowerment. 
• He isn't asking...so if he knows, he must be OK with this?

I am assuming that he is aware of it, the undertow? 

So why isn't he asking me about it? I take this to mean that he would ask if he was aware - would he? And if he isn't aware, then perhaps I'm really good at hiding my feelings. But am I? How realistic is this? I felt like I was hanging over a cliff, holding onto nothing but blades of grass, constantly waiting for him to give me a push! It was my fragility, not Eros that stopped me speaking openly. His moralizing was the cause of this problem.

But during this session thoughts like these were a very long way away. I had every reason to believe that he likes me - as a person; that this isn’t work, and certainly it isn't therapy. Most of our dialogue was playful and easy, and it was about ourselves. The real stuff which I shall not write here.

He says - "I think that is such an important therapeutic process, to revisit and resolve stuff, and say it the way they want to say it and be heard, and it changes things".  

But after I had described in the previous session some of what happened to me, I hadn't felt heard. I still wanted him to hear me because I believed that he could understand. Now this Russian roulette of daring to be more myself, of wanting to be wanted, was my dopamine and serotonin. I believed that we both enjoy exploring underlying patterns and ‘speaking lost languages' and true edge-of-awareness work requires trust and daring. 

But both people have to be equally open.

 Now, here we are. Face to face and this isn’t going anywhere. I blame it on my use of images, metaphors. I expect him to use them with me too. He doesn’t. The hope that we could explore real edge-of-awareness things together once we were face to face had once sustained me. Now, the only reason that talking about what had happened to me doesn't lead to a crash is because I’d fallen in love with him, or rather - I'd fallen in love with the other one, the person interested in diverse and complex other things ('the brother'). 

He says - "Do you want to return to what we were doing two weeks ago"?

And I talk about watching that 1960s documentary in which Eric Berne is portrayed as ‘The Great Man’. It was a film made during the time when psychotherapists were all Great Men, evoking the eerie and weird, and the promise of self actualization. Basically they were regarded as Gurus, offering enlightenment.

Looks like he doesn't want to talk about why psychotherapy was on TV in the 60's...

Certainly in my reply I have answered with a 'no' I clearly don't want to talk about games.  So, as an attempt to create a common preference I explain that I was looking at trauma and can’t remember for the life of me how games fit in! 

And he says - "Games and trauma are intimately connected because very often people play games to reinforce their trauma, unconsciously…."

I reframe this concept, expressing my belief that people make the same mistake until they find a better way to resolve the issue. Sometimes people retell a story over and over as if they have never told it before. But the story always points to an unresolved feeling, which points to an unmet need. The story illustrates and populates the scene with characters, summing up a feeling in 360 degrees. Finding the need and naming it is a first step, recognizing its presence through absence, owning it, is the second step...then taking considered and sensible action.

He says - “Well trauma feels like home, people try to get - what people are doing in games is they are trying to get back to home…”

I say - "I have some problems with Eric Berne’s theory…"

He is explaining that it is a game because - "A game has a particular set of rules, and an inevitable outcome.."

I say -  but Berne gives the impression that people should know better, and I don’t think that they do until they learn better eventually. Then they have, in effect, upgraded their theories. People do things because they believe they will work, and when the outcome of not working is ambiguous - a person thinks 'perhaps I did it wrong? Try again!' and 100 and 1 reasons, or ways to approach it must exist. Accepting FAIL isn’t easy for anyone.. 

And he says - “I think what Berne was doing was saying, here’s the code, here’s the key - and when it is decoded we can behave in a more healthy way”

A tool, by using the TA process, something else changes? Dividing responses into 'ego-states' externalizes them, allows them to be contained and handled; it imports a sense of control, and thus empowers the client. 

And then he is talking about open honest game-free connection.

And how games rupture any chance of intimacy.

And here right now this is serious and too real. I need to say “I long for us to create something together, and I need us to let go of words and dive into the blue-black void of bliss - because I think you can understand, and I think you know the things I don’t know, and I want to know you and I really want you to know all of me” And I dare not come anywhere close to saying this; if he should report me to my college- it has power over me. If he should tell me I have to leave..

And then he tells me about how he works with people, and we talk about ideas and I think this is as close to intimacy as we have ever been. Yet in truth we are stuck. Both of us. I see him each week, I give him money for his time. He signs a bit of paper to say ‘she has attended therapy’. 

And he says - “I’m well aware we are quite a long way away from grief theory”.

Then I make the mistake. I talk about how I work - And we are still laughing together. But suddenly and absolutely we are now on different pages!

He: “If someone sees themselves as a worthless worm, what will you do then?” // “It’s beginning to sound a lot like Ellis to me”...

Kit's language - closes dialogue, instead of opening it up. Regardless, I turn it around. And then more laughing and talking about matching ego states, and then there is the cat looking into the room - and he is talking about not letting the cat come in, the cat who wonders into his garden and gazes longingly through the window…and I know exactly how that cat feels!

He says - “In ‘self-psychology' there are ‘transference relationships’ . To know how to address a client you need to know  who you are to the client, they came up with the ‘reparative relationship’ to enable them to repair what went wrong for the client…and there is one relationship where someone desperately needs you to disagree with them and for it to be OK…and they need that from the therapist. And ‘twinship transference’ they need to have an experience of you being like them, because ‘if you are like me, you get me’ . There were six of them. What really matters is, know the client and know why they are asking, and know what they are asking of you, and this will help you to know what questions need to be explored”.

Ah yes, ‘who am I to the client’? Implying that the therapist is in effect in role-play, so the basis of the client-therapist relationship is not what it appears, and is in fact warped, deceptive, false. And here now there is nothing that I can do or say to answer this most horrible of questions; is our talking, our laughing together nothing but him earning his money by giving me what he thinks I need -  'reparative relationship'?  

I don't know, and I wont know until I'm strong enough to find the answer.

But always, always I'm going to be troubled by this concept of the reparative relationship, and especially realizing as he is telling me about 'the Kohuts' that this is probably what he is doing in this conversation. I felt stupid and used - I felt manipulated actually. And this is supposed to be 'good for clients'...So much for Carl Rogers!

 

I had believed in Kit as a fellow explorer, a trusted companion. Nevertheless, nothing at this moment is clear - and the emotional contact I've had with him, or rather with the person I perceive as real - not the therapist - certainly has had an effect on me, and it sure isn't reparative...it is like flint and metal!

Blurred lines. 2nd August 2021.

 

After a passionate plea.

Sent as a voice recording. 

I said it was about the past.

I had needed to tell him how I felt. 

How I felt about my son, my husband, the fear..

But it was in the time of Covid, 

Zoom, 

I was in the house. 

Impossible to speak freely.

Now

I need to tell him how I felt. 

An hour isn't enough time! 

I want him to know who I am.

I sit in the car about to go.. 

This is not therapy!

I had sent him a voice message full of blurred lines, and five months later the blurred lines had sunk into the mud as trenches surmounted with razor wire...in a minefield. 

I had no way to know this as I hit send.

As I prepared myself to knock on the door and start this session I believed in him as a trusted companion. I wanted the enormity of my journey, the weight of it, the devastation, all of it to be witnessed and acknowledged. I was trusting him to see. And I needed an emotional, whole, a real interaction. 

There had been a blurring of the lines. There was a difference between his replies to me as he spoke as a therapist, contrasted with his responses when he spoke as a person.

The replies from the person seemed to come from someone else, in my mind this version of him is names as the brother.

The brother is the emotional, whole person, including therapist. All of him, and everything, good and bad. The brother is the missing energy, form and substance. I hear him sometimes; I hear him when he slips through the therapy filter and when Kit speaks his personal truth. The brother is the underlying and unsaid. He is real, and I loved that realness. 

But this session - 2nd August 2021, I'm about to talk with the therapist, the man of cloud (the 'cloud-wolf' if you have played The Path). Insubstantial, there is no solidity. Fire and light, steam, heat, nothing to hold onto if I was to dare cross the tightrope of memory, and so I needed to keep tight control least I fall.

It began well enough. 

I'd wondered how he would react to the voice recording? 

He said that he was so pleased. 

So I went through my collections of files and songs and artefacts, I narrated and illustrated my journey through the past. And I left him holding my notes. And as I left I didn't feel that I'd been heard. He had listened, but too much was missing. No reaction, he wasn’t there with me.

NOTE -Next day. 3rd August 2021.

I need therapy for my therapy. 

I've got to let go of fear and simply love.