The 3lack 3ox.

It has taken me four years to get enough distance on what happened to me, to begin to make sense of it. The importance of this is, now I know from the inside that it is unreasonable to think that victims instantly seek justice, or that they will be able to identify, name or explain what happened to them, straight away. The greater the impact of the emotional disturbance, the greater their bewilderment, shock and desire to just hide away. And making sense of it? Sometimes it takes decades. Sometimes it is never. It took me years to name the cause of the harm done to me during therapy as epistemic injustice. The inequality of power underlying the withholding of information was a real problem. The therapist and I both suffered because of it. But I was also risking my life. My need for him to see and hear me was so great. I felt threatened each time he became tight lipped. Each time he said 'this isn't working' it was as if acid had been poured over me. I imagine that he w...

Well here we are.  And I have managed to avoid this book for over a year. I bought it way back, it accompanied me when I did my training in conflict resolution, May 2024.  I tried to read it. Simply couldn't do it. A year and six months later here I am. Dinner time. Tesco sandwiches . Library. Fortunately only three cases this afternoon because yet again something I've seen, heard, read, to do with 'erotic transfer ' has filled my eyes with tears. I am angry, saddened, I think the aim of true person centred therapy is awesome actually. But, it hurts me to read... Brian Thorne describes an experience of therapy that echoes my experience of ' The man of stars '. That when both people are vitally present, vulnerable, open, there is access to an almost external dimension of healing.  I don't have much time to write. But in the final chapters Brian describes his therapeutic relationship with Emma, how he fearlessly allowed himself to be completely honest with h...

Non engagement , 'keeping one's dignity' in the face of outrageous adversity, not ' feeding the trolls ', keeping your head held high, and 'not letting the b******s grind you down, are each a time honoured strategy used to maintain one's power.  Except it turns up as a client struggling with self attack and self abandoning . Silencing oneself because it is supposed to control others, often comes from anger. A feeling of anger indicates a need to protect oneself, playing dead - avoiding/disengaging - is a serious level of autonomic (dorsal vagal) affect.  As an off the shelf answer it is avoiding your answer. Silence as a strategy to control others is a cold anger portrayed in movies as strength, yet it so often contains contempt, and it is dehumanising... I don't see strength there. I see a mouse overwhelmed by fear and paralysed, but not running away when fight flight (self protection) kicks in.  Silence, a paralysis framed as neutrality, isn't ne...

When I took this photo I was waiting for my friend, sitting with my back to a tree. Half an hour before, I'd joined the circle with a group of pagans who had fed me mead and apple cake.  I still hadn't made up my mind what to do though. So I sat by the tree waiting. My friend and I stood at the centre of the circle and as a man walked past us, I asked him ' it is a yes no question' could you answer for me? He took out of his pocket a purple disc marked with a golden, Chartres type labyrinth, 'Labyrinth means yes...' I said. And it fell. Labyrinth face upwards. I hit send... [+] I didn't feel better straight away. I felt panic,  I looked up at the grey sky, felt the rain, heard the wind rushing through the trees. Everything changes. Later the man returned to the circle and gave me the labyrinth disc. Back home, messages from the 'witches' at the Rollrights inviting me to their Samhain meeting . Messages from therapy 'sisters' of support. Curr...

I've only experienced one serious rupture with a therapist , once before.  I had said that I needed to go directly into the three states of autonomic nervous system stress ; I needed to be able to report back from dorsal vagal ' lock-down ' so that together we could get a coherent image of the landscape.   And I said that I had a way to do this experiment. My metaphor was mapping. Terror, could be redefined as  terra incognito , a land I could map and prepare to navigate. And this seemed pretty important to me! My son wasn't as ill as he was going to be, but already I was experiencing the awful, dark, bloodless and cold paralysis I associate with a dorsal vagal state .  My husband's first known infidelity had just come to light.  I was in a bad way. I said that I had three safe ways to enter each of the three vagal states , represented by the three landscapes in games I played. The Endless Forest - represents upper, human, synchronising  non-verbal, safe ...

19:29.8/9/25. Got a notification from my phone,  The moon was eclipsing . I was writing a letter. To be sent at the equinox? The basis for an article? It takes bits from my previous blog posts, this is why writing this blog has been useful... Dear 'Kit', This is a complaint, and this email is the first and the last time that my complaint is linked by your name to you. If I was a client, I would tell her, I would tell me..that when a person who is supposed to help, ends up hurting you, the damage can cut even deeper, causing deep emotional and psychological harm. I would also say that it is institutional betrayal because this isn't just someone you trusted, this therapist is someone you were told that you should trust, by a system; by their ethical body, by your college, by their qualifications. Therapists are supposed to be the safe ones; trained, receiving supervision - so if something doesn't feel right it is easy to second guess yourself; and you were grieving, you h...