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. A form of epistemic injustice...
- 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. Is that always so? I think there is always bullying in gaslighting - the perpetrator choses to maintain the victim's distress - as proof that the victim is getting upset over nothing, to create uproar and maximum distress.
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 his or my confusion and disempowerment.
- He isn't asking...so if he knows, he can ask or not...
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? It 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. My expectation of being told I should know better, naïve moralising is the perfect term - this was the cause of my silence.
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 even for the future.
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').
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 -the Magnum Opus / Enlightenment - self actualization. Basically the therapists of that time were regarded as Gurus.
Looks like he doesn't want to talk about why psychotherapy was on TV in the 60's. 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! He explains that 'people often 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. Because I don't think I believe it...
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 that they tell 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.
At a certain point he tells me that open honest game-free interaction creates connection, whilst 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’.
A little later 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! 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 begins to talk about 'self psychology' and 'transference relationships' and of course, the 'reparative relationship'. Explaining that Kohut described six fundamental, reparative experiences. Ah yes, this is Kit's question ‘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!
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