The 3lack 3ox.

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 an all encompassing mono-theory (a mono-theory is one that provides a rigid framework to explain and describe problems and their causes) 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 perhaps there m...

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...

The 23rd of May has been an an overly significant date, too many times! Without doubt memory is the key to trauma and I'm really grateful for the EMDR I received over a year ago now. The trigger memory for treatment was the sound of the gate and my husband standing there. Waves of disapproval rolling off him, telling me I should not be burning things in the garden...who later that night would be tricked into going round to her house.  Where her husband was waiting... His car was a write off afterwards.  The photo reminds me of how much better I felt. Gaslighting ended. The earth was the earth once more, the sky only sky... Truth, even the worst truth is so much better than lies. But the 23rd. Between the garden gate and the car, there is the tree. The memory joins and flows into the feeling of walking out of Kit's room for the last time on the 23rd. The end, Muxia...too close. No smashed car moment, no sense of finally getting the truth. As I sat by the tree, as I walked away ...

 "I am the slaughter at your altar. That's where my need for you begins..." M. Gira. The Beggar. I could not understand for the life of me why Kit thought I'd ever return as a client?  "I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about my principles, my ethical rule, that once a client always a client because you never know what the future is going to bring, and people do come back" But then... he wasn't 'talking about me '.  Whilst at the same moment, talking to me  This erasure, this double bind, this? Well what on earth is it when a person uses the term 'you' and then makes clear that they don't mean you? Anyway! This led to me feeling so utterly rejected, disliked even. I'd dismiss it as utter ignorance on the part of the speaker...but, he is a therapist. and he doesn't think there is any need for apology. or reparation, so? So I blog. It was such a corrosive poison that it has taken - I was about to say, it has taken th...