The 3lack 3ox.

Revisiting...15th November 2021. This discussion between kit and myself crystallised my unease about attachment theory, and the reparative relationship. It made me question the shape, limits and function of psychotherapy. Specifically it made me feel uneasy about Kit. In the dialogue on that day, kit tells me about a client as an example of Richard Erskine's juxtaposition . Kit describes juxtaposition as resisting that which we most want and need. I listened to our dialogue again as he spoke about this, last night. I was struck by his tone of voice, the pauses in the transmission. I felt as if he wanted me to feel the impact through his narrative, so I would feel as he had felt. He wanted me to believe? Well there is a bit more to it, what I heard and saw was that as he spoke he embodied the respectful awe that his chosen process evokes in him.  And that he understood his experience as compelling evidence, for his beliefs. Ha, don't we all! What stands out to me though, is abs...

 "Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light..." The river of stars, Eridanus, flows fast and true. Once the Sacred river of Eridu, it ran through the marshy lands of that Great city, sacred to Enki, God of the Great Abyss, of the life-sustaining fresh waters, the Absu.  In Greek mythology, the river Eridanus marks the terrible path of the Sun, burnt into the Earth below. For the sun once rolled out of control, scorching and freezing the Earth, bringing death and disaster. Phaethon had taken the chariot that carries the sun, from his father Helios, and had not the power or experience to control it. And so Zeus destroyed him with lighting. His charred and smouldering body falling, falling down into the waters of Eridanus. His sisters become black poplar trees, who weep amber tears for their lost brother. Virgil writes that Phaethon's lover, Cygnus mourned for ...

The actual metaphor should be, on turning flame - wobbly, hot, all over the place - into a welding arc.  Pure poetry! Not!! Except an arc uses electricity, not deconstructing, catabolic oxidation.  Oxidation - yes! On turning oxy-acetylene into a welding flame   fail! A friend posted an article to me.  I felt as if I was reading a post from The 3lack 3ox rewritten by Barbara Cartland.  A romantic fantasy. So, GG MBACP. An integrative therapist and couples therapist working in private practice. My apologies for what my hotter than the arc light laser, deceptively incandescent, words may bring you. Because, in my opinion the one thing we don't need more of when talking about erotic transfer, or therapy at all, is soupy nonsense.  Not sorry, said it.  A romance. So, flaccid fantasy then? Yes indeed. But portrayed as a possibility, as a true account. Well sure. I've seen people believe things that genuinely have not happened and watched that belief become ...

"Absence of the normal, presence of the abnormal" -  are my senses telling me that something  is not happening which would normally be occurring, is there anything that is happening which wouldn't normally happen in this given moment? The point of finding the 3lack 3ox is to understand why the plane flew into the mountain. The plane may have developed a fault, and the pilot was fully aware of the peril. He tried so, so hard...but the mountain was too high and the plane too low. Everyone was fighting and struggling, praying together, to keep the plane flying. Or, perhaps the pilot chose to commit suicide, and to murder the 144 passengers and six crew (two pilots and four cabin crew members)? What could make a person do that?  To enable this awful and terrifying deed he had to provide enough compelling explanations to hide Factor X. And these compelling explanations , so loud in his head have now brought him to the place where no one can stop him.  Afterwards - the di...

As you may know from reading this blog, I have often felt that what happened to me in therapy has a lot in common with spiritual abuse. And recently I got involved in a case that falls into that domain. It starts with a religious expert and a wounded seeker, and I'm sorry to say that's all I can reveal. I'm not working as a therapist, only as an advisor, but the underlying confidentiality is the same. Anyway, I need to get clear in my thinking, so I'm going to revisit my theories now, because it is really important  that I understand what might be going on. So, when a religious expert, or a therapist has: 1. an all encompassing mono-theory (a mono-theory is a rigid framework which the expert uses to explain and describe problems, cause and remedy)  2. and they have a desire to nurture - at the moment I think this *desire to nurture* might be a critical factor? This situation isn't necessarily going to lead to an abusive relationship. But there may well be, or perhap...

Power and hypnosis belong together .  Hypnosis is so often described as a trance state, or as something that happens to someone else. It has a comedic and uncanny aspect. Meanwhile hypnosis seeps like a fog over the boundaries of normal, allowing the realms of shaman and manipulator, to merge and submerge everyday reality. Is it true to say that power works through hypnosis? Is it true that for hypnosis to occur, power must be given away?  Subspace was certainly a hypnotic state, and it required nothing except the surrender of self... So, how true is it to say that power is at the heart of hypnosis, and that power works through hypnosis? And in terms of therapy?  We use or abuse, or ignore power at our peril!  Because a person with power has the ability to seriously elevate or destroy your day, your life, your ability to ever be powerful in your own right; to be heard... What part does this phenomenon called hypnosis, play within power dynamics? I'm thinking that hyp...