"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...' And 'that I'd asked him to talk about my latest assignment - but we always get side-tracked'

Did I?

I didn't ask him about that assignment?

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 tells me that for some clients, life can feel so worthless that the only way they get though each day is because they know that they can kill themselves...

Is 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 centred 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!

And by the end of this session I will have ignored his feelings...so perhaps he is justified in criticising me.

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?

And thn he is telling me to consider that perhaps other people are different to me - which to be honest I thought that was was I meant by saying we use the client's ideas, not mine...he says that some people must talk about it to move on, whilst others really don't wish to talk about it and 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? 

This he defines as 'the same thing happening again' that we are losing focus - not talking about why we lose focus and not talk about it. He says that perhaps this is because I see myself as more person cantered and so I don't see the need for theory? 

The word he used was resistance!

Oh yes, 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 a dialogue.

But what's actually 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 sees this as an entirely different issue, surely the issue is my assignment! Or rather, talking about theory for that assignment. But clearly - 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 points out that he wasn't able to talk about the theory for my developmental assignment last week...But I have said in effect that I'm not interested and I don't need this and yet he's continuing. So I take a different path. I try to attribute the pointlessness of his endeavour (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!

But, this isn't the thing, the thing is that I keep on side-tracking him into different discussions. He asks, why we have a focus that I decided on, but we don't talk about it. I think, logically as I had asked him to talk about theory for assignments as my sensible work around, he has a point. But I find him far more interesting, I think we have subjects in common that we have approached from different directions religion, mythology at the very least. 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"

For some reason he wants me to understand that theory is important. Why doesn't he think that I consider theories fascinating - though to be honest - not always quite as important as flexibility and compassion. Ah, and then he tells me - it is impossible to do therapy without a theory.

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

And the problem is, as he points out, I've told him that SFBT doesn't have a theory. Oh dear. 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' plus a bit of social constructionism, and the attention to words) context is all. Our theory is that we create reality through words, how we talk about reality really matters...

But he argues for the importance of being able to offer clients theory; and he tells me his favourites:

True self/false self. There's the false self front (Winnicott).  Parent / Adult/ Child model, and Drama Triangle. And that simple frameworks can be life changing. And I don't have the energy to say anything except. Of course it makes sense.

Now I'm beaten he asks me if I wish to look at Rogers 19 Propositions.

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. 

I'm assuming that he has a need to be heard and to fulfil the role of teacher, 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? 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 doesn't see any juxtaposition against - but then he has a specific way of using that word. He says that the two have to go together.

Me - "For the good..."

He then tells me that the client has more autonomy than the therapist because the client can say anything about their therapy to anyone, whilst of course, the therapist can not...

"The client can go and talk to anybody they want to about anything they've said in therapy." 

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!"

I have a long history studying power dynamics, and how autonomy can be so easily compromised, but also how individual power can be balanced to create something better...

He is wondering, basically what I'm talking about here. 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... coercive power.

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 agrees with me, but described the Adult ego state as the only autonomous one. I'm not sure, I see autonomy as a function of a system, rather than how information or knowledge is processed or used.

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. All I know is, I need his intelligence to balance my mad ideas! But now he is relating my interest in autonomy with my family's experiences - that my son was sectioned and lost all autonomy. Actually my interest in autonomy came about because I was a member of Taking Children Seriously, and learnt to look at the dynamics of autonomy through the lens of compassion and humility...But yes, Kit has heard from what I have said that respect is a part of supporting autonomy, relating it to seeing the client as a separate person, respecting the client's purpose and will. Which, for me means using the client's theories, and their specific words in the specific context they use them. I don't labour that last point because we are on the same page - possibly?

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

And the next part is useful for me because he is describing how supporting as person as able to make their own choices, as opposed to giving them a disorder as an explanation, is part of Winnicott's concept of the holding environment. 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 says that  in psychodynamic terms, a) is transference.

I disagree. Worse, I'm confused. What is different in our fundamental theories that is causing this glitch? What does he know, or not know about memory?

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"

Oh, if we mix languages, Freud had the concept of repetition compulsion. Kit has expressed enough times a belief that people have a bias towards noticing, and even creating negative situations that were a threat to them, when they were growing up. I don't think that this is what Rogers meant by symbolized. I understand why Kit is seeing it this way, because in English (from the Greek meaning of symbol) it would be accurate to say that event now, has so much in common with event then it could be said to 'symbolize' the original.

But Rogers was using symbol in a more specific sense, from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce - a symbol is a memory that can be safly used, stripped of triggering hooks, it has been processed.

Charles Sanders Peirce -

A symbol is a sign 'whose special significance or fitness to represent just what it does represent lies in nothing but the very fact of there being a habit, disposition, or other effective general rule that it will be so interpreted. 

Take, for example, the word "man". 

These three letters are not in the least like a man; nor is the sound with which they are associated' (ibid., 4.447). 

He adds elsewhere that 'a symbol... fulfils its function regardless of any similarity or analogy with its object and equally regardless of any factual connection therewith' but solely because it will be interpreted as a sign (ibid., 5.73; original emphasis). [LINK]

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."

Hmm Kit doesn't see that we are using language to talk about language! Memory is represented through language, and how we talk about things reveals how processed and integrated we feel about things. Kit tells me that Rogers isn't talking about language - true - but Rogers is talking about memory, that we can ignore, deny or repress memory. Read Tulvig.

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 talks about RIGs - but Stern's RIGs are generalisations of interactions, these are a category of memory, they can be organising principles, but RIGs are not what Rogers means.

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?

Ah me, I now get a lot of developmental theory from him that sounds like it is about him, which I simmer down into...

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"

At this point Kit tries to get us to common ground, with generalities about Rogers 6 conditions sufficient and necessary for therapy. But I want proper, in depth, intellectual debate please!

Me - quoting Proposition 13:

"In some instances, behaviour 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.

Kit does not think this is right and actually I think he is now struggling. He simplifies his version of symbolised as if I couldn't have understood his original meaning. To be honest, I'm still more interested in Rogers version. I like the 19 propositions, they make a lot of sense.

OK, going to break the 4th wall. This is me writing in 2024: I hear a lot of the same thing in his examples, in almost every session, and it is relevant. And significant. At a certain point in our discussion today he said,  'you know about me....' And I did, but 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 this room.

And if I could go back?

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.

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

And I knew that this whole in love with Kit thing,  couldn't end well.