The room is
cold.
Air filters...breathe out
glacial air.
Like being on a space ship.
He talks about
disinfecting
surfaces.
[Definitions of contrariness. deliberate and stubborn unruliness and resistance to guidance or discipline. synonyms: perverseness, perversity.]
He refers to a sheet of A 4 on his left and says: "I have a list taken from your emails:
- Symbolization.
- Emails and contracting; in the email there were things you were hearing which I wasn't meaning to say.
- And 'script analysis'. "
I say - (referring to script analysis) "That last one was a joke - but we could do that if you want?
He - "It sparked a few thoughts....Well, there is a theme here I think in terms of...
Me - (unfortunately I am still in joke mode) "That sounds like induction to me..."
He - "Well if someone has a script it means it keeps reoccurring I think, and the minute you mentioned script analysis I thought, ah yes all these things fit the theme".
Me - (still not getting how bad this really is) "All these things fit the theme? So there is this container, the edge of this small bubble that is this Monday - what's to do best with this time? It's not my whole life. So there is more to me than this".
He - "Well there is one thing you mentioned which I want to talk about directly which is emails and contracting. Have you talked about contracting in college at all?"
I am lost and bewildered. Why he is asking me this? In level 2 it often felt as if we talked about nothing else! I remember having to make myself learn contracting as a script. For the life of me now, I have no idea why it seemed so difficult. I guess training works!
He - "Yes...because there is a standard part of contracting.."
He explains the standard use of emails in a counselling contract, and I'm confused. I feel chastised, why is he mentioning it now? I've emailed him most weeks to say what might be useful to talk about. This has been right from the first weeks. And it began because he emailed me after our first sessions - and I thought...oh, that's not what we were taught...this means that he is thinking of me. And at that moment he seemed really unattractive.
What changed?
Calling me a minx...that transgression really got to me.
But here now?
The floor cracks and shifts, I'm dropped into a hell of thinking I'm going to be asked to leave.
He must know how I feel about him?
This must be the session when I'm told to stop it!
To go.
And again he says that I'd given him a task - to talk about the assignments - and that he wasn't able to do it because of the tangents.
Right now I feel crushed, and I'm scared.
I defend 'tangential'.
I tell him that exploration is the point.
Following divers paths, no fear of being lost, enjoying the journey...
And then he repeats my words from last week "Theory being used on you"
I try to explain that I don't want to talk about it.
I talk about it.
Why did I do that?
This is what I explain: That therapists have a theoretical underpinning to their work. This determines the words we echo back from the client, it alters our tone of voice, it determines the questions (if any) that are asked.
Unfortunately many therapist's forget to hear that what is happening to a person is happening in the here and now. There is an automatic assumption that the present is not working because of the past (rather than because of the present!) and extrapolate that looking at what isn't working, and its relationship with the past will free the client from repeating old patterns. I once believed this to be plausible. But the more I think about it, the less plausible it is. So I work in present - the present problem looks as if it is a replay of thoughts and feelings from the past because everything we see is seen in terms of our past. The art of my work is enabling a person to find a way to react to a present that looks like the past. First step is to name what is really happening by seeking an overview. This helps us to know what we are really dealing with. Then we name our resources, understand our resilience, and start paying attention to those moments when things are better, and then do something different...and that is it.
Healing one's past is something to do during good times. Because understanding the present without understanding the past cannot stop the present being as awful as it really is. Unfortunately many therapists categorise another person's awful present as misperception, something created and sustained by 'childhood wounds'.
When I first saw a therapist - I was studying level 3 at that point - my 'presenting issue' was my husband's personality change (he spoke to me like his dad spoke to his mom).
And that was a problem because?
His dad was a bully, his mom a victim of coercive control. I couldn't 'be her' but it was as if he wanted me to be, so he could bully me. Four years later I discovered the reason! His personality had changed...because he'd fallen for someone else. I mean of course that isn't a reason to be vile to anyone! But that is how he rolls. The interesting part is, the memory from my past that kept replaying, was of being 'shut out' because that provided a metaphor for how I was feeling in the present, it is what was actually happening. So this perception was crystal clear - but the time frame was wrong.
But hey, yes, the inner child work the therapist did with me? At the time I thought, wow - this person has qualified - and that seemed such an immense task, I was in awe of her! And don't get me wrong, her work with me was beautiful and kind. But it consolidated my self-blame, because it didn't confound my certainty that my messed up childhood was entirely to blame for the changes in my husband.
But think about it?
How could that actually make any sense?
Second therapy, my issue: son, drugs, sectioning psychosis violence betrayal. Perhaps 'inner child' makes more sense? No, really, don't make me laugh. The outer-child was taller than I am and swinging heavy objects at me if I said the wrong thing, or failed in totally inexplicable ways. And yes, the inner-child work was memorable and a wonderful diversion. And the therapist was so, so compassionate and kind. But the only session that I found to be helpful was when we discussed my feelings about SSRIs.
He says - "You seem really angry about that".
Directly dismissing my experience!
Me - "I'm not angry with the therapists, I am frustrated at the lack of common sense. And for people living in that situation, to make out that it's all them, and to patch something that happened to them as a child is not going to help them. At this point they need a conversation about what they are doing that helps them, and what can get them through.
He - "So that sounds like an account of what you got compared to what you wanted"
Me - "Compared with what is useful - it should be a useful interaction"
He - "And what you got wasn't useful"
Me - "Not really, no. I didn't find anything I didn't know before. And did it help? No, of course it didn't help. Help was learning that when you call the police they don't press charges and give 'service user' a criminal record! I didn't know that. A therapist isn't expected to know that. But at those points where things were too much? No help - just developmental theory! I have answers now - Wim Hof method means I have practiced panic, I understand how to use breath, and I now know that a lot of how panic feels, is due to CO2. Nothing to do with childhood. I mean you know how we think anxiety must be a mind thing, adrenaline and racing heart - I hadn't understood until I practiced Wim Hof Method. It gave me control, through practicing physiological stress"
He - "I must say I find it really refreshing to see the mask come off"
Me -"It's just my ordinary self - no mask!"
Him - "You know what I mean - to see the usual friendly, affable you that's presented"
I'm feeling hurt and betrayed by him, and this will be the truth of the future.
Me - "Well that is who I am! This one has always been here too! And it has taken me a lot to get back to here. Mainly it's been getting back to college. It isn't a mask, it's not a mask... OK, if you want to use the term 'mask' let's do Jung!"
He - "See I wonder if there is something in you that likes to be, or feels the need to be, contrary"
At this moment I am terrified, because I am not strong enough yet to cope with this. I feel as if I've been placed in a trap that no one can escape by opposing - like one of those woven finger traps, or a spider's web; struggle will make things so much worse!
He - "Let me tell you what I mean, because I think I was using the word mask in a fairly ordinary..."
I interrupt! I'm the one who has studied Jung - but why should I listen to someone who clearly isn't listening to me tell me, about me - or Jung for that matter!
Me - "No, I deny it absolutely. If you are saying that interaction between people should be genuine, authentic and totally natural all the time, that's incorrect. <Socially it would be a disaster!>"
He - "Of course it is incorrect"
Me - "Right, the alterative is a level of interaction appropriate to the situation. Do I like to be contrary? No, I like to be clear. But it is from some sense of mutual respect that I believe that you can follow me, or I can follow you when I take 'a tangent'"
He - "But there is a process whereby what was triggered in my thoughts from your recent term, script. and I thought 'oh, OK ' and then you said 'well that was a joke'..."
Me - "It was a joke, but everything is there as it is, and open to be dealt with"
He - "It set off a train of thought, fairly early on in our sessions I started off in my usual way which is to ask 'how are you' and this was a problematic question for you"
Me - "It will always be problematic because again, it relates to the level of interaction, and who am I talking to?"
He - "Yes, but it's a perfectly ordinary question"
Me - "Yes, but it's not an ordinary interaction!"
He - "What do you mean by that?"
Me - "This isn't an ordinary interaction"
Emotional honesty and open vulnerability, the prerequisites for authentic and genuine, healing dialogue are not ordinary.
He - "I'm still failing to see how this relates to the question, 'how are you'"
But on the other hand...a game of philosophy is going to be as good as it gets, I fire up the philosophy core once more.
Me - "But there is also the problem that you are talking to a person who is Buddhist - here and now, still breathing."
Meaning, think!
I view reality as a construct.
How I am depends on how you are!
And if you are treating me as a client, looking for things to therapize..
He - "Well that's the point you made at the time"
I'm consistent in my tangential contrariness!
He -"And you spoke at great length about no self and all of that"
I also gave him Patrul Rinpoche's 'direct introduction to the state of mind', as he seemed to be overthinking the self and non-self thing! The fruition of the introduction depends on you...not the words. It was probably after I said this that he understood quite how mad I must be, because how could this ever be the highest and most splendid of all teachings!
"Do you see the room around you?"
"Yes."
"Do you hear the traffic in the street outside?"
"Yes."
"Do you hear what I'm saying to you?"
"Yes."
"Well, the nature of Dzogchen is this: simply this."
Me -"I did not talk at great length about no self, you keep putting that one on me"
Self and no self is basic postmodern philosophy, and the introduction takes less that 5 minuites...
He - "That's the way I would characterize - you probably didn't use the term, short hand of what you were describing"
Me - "No, is it? 'No lasting permanent self....so this moment is all of it..."
He - "See it's happening now"
Me - "Or is it that what you are seeing is me defining something, to get to clarity?"
He - "No, it's contrariness, because whatever I say you will find a problem with it"
Me - "OK, but a problem is a cause for thought, meaning there is something there needing to be found."
To paraphrase "A problem represents a conflict between theories, and it is a cause for thought, it will create new knowledge and so it can be welcomed!" In other words his concept of specific things were often, in my view, incorrect. And chasing down the other meanings is great fun!
I'm missing out that he's hurt - he doesn't want me to 'find a problem' in everything he says. But, we don't have that level of relationship because he wont talk to me about what he feels, and I certainly wont tell him that I'm in love with him! So we end up intellectualising - as the only safe place we can meet! The only way out would be for him to be himself, drop the roles, be a person!
He - "You see in a later sessions when I was, when we were ...I made reference to 'solid self' any sense of self and you said 'yes, of course there is a self' and I thought, ok so what was the problem with the question 'how are you' then."
Me - "The problem with the question 'how are you' is I will reply with 'I'm fine thank you' because I'm OK - which doesn't mean everything is OK and that I'm fine! I need an invite to talk about the not OK things - and I'm not OK at this moment."
He - "So it was up to you to answer it in what ever way you felt comfortable with - so where's the problem there"?
The problem is I have just said "I'm not OK at this moment" and I've told you that I need an invite to talk about 'not OK things'. I repeat, emotional honesty and open vulnerability are not ordinary states, I need to feel that it is OK for me to speak in that way...
I didn't say that. But I wish that I had.
Instead I am bouncing his non-engagement back.
Me - "So what did I say to the question? I probably said 'I'm OK' so that isn't a problem is it? I would laugh about it because you could have asked a different question!
He - "What question would you prefer me to have asked"
Me - "To have been more specific I suppose; for example 'how do you feel about...?' ask me about some aspect of my life."
Him - "How can I ask that at the beginning of the session when we have only just started - that was the purpose of the question, to open up - where do you want to go"
Well, how about 'the presenting issue'!
Whatever! His train of thought needs derailing!
Me - "Yes, and the answer was always behind me"
He - "What would be behind you?"
Me - "The Zoom background of Callanish, or by a lake, or any number of other places!"
He - "Yes - so I stopped asking the question....What's going on emotionally... because you seem particularly angry today"
Angry?
I'm crushed almost unable to speak.
Despair is so close.
I need, I want this relationship to be us, worked out between us as human beings. To be human. I need so much to step out of the inhumane language rules guiding this interaction.
But I'm trapped and I'm stuck.
Client and therapist - I can't be truthful - I'm not supposed to want him.
And if I said it, I am certain that he'd treat it as an artefact, fail to take it seriously. And he would tell me that it must be transference. And to be told that, offered clichés, have my feelings and intelligence insulted that way, to experience yet again someone I love dismissing my feelings and my ability to understand myself?
It would destroy me.
This session today is bad enough - he has told me that I wear a mask. That when I contradict, I'm being contrary. That when I change a subject I'm being tangential. That when I'm in almost more pain than I can take - apparently I'm angry.
A direct insult would be at least straight!
But, I want to know what is going on with him.
Me - "Because this whole session seems to be about your frustration actually. So I'm not sure what we are doing. I'm not angry in particular, and I don't think I have a problem expressing anger, I just don't feel angry. It feels like being stuck in mud, cold, thick mud - unable to move"
I am not going to say this is despair, I'm not going to let him know, I dare not!
He - "So how do we get out of the mud"
Avoidance - Accommodation - Compromise - Competition?
Can't we collaborate?
I chose accommodate.
Me - I am beaten: "To go back to the beginning, clarity. So emails. What do you want?"
He explains that he doesn't want emails that are emotionally charged. The curious thing is, I had emailed him before - ages ago with 'emotionally charged' phrases such as ' we are sacred mirrors, opposites reflecting each other' to allow him to glimpse my feelings.
So that was OK?
My recent emails had been about theory, and I had addressed his diagnosis of me as tangential, and this seems to be 'it', the 'real issue'.
I explain - "I felt that my attempts to build knowledge were dismissed as 'tangential' so I sent you a mind map to show how the ideas fit together. and I wrote to you about debating theory, I like that idea, I think it has life in it! I asked for continuity. Lack of continuity may be an artefact of person centred counselling, I wouldn't ask a person if they wanted to continue with a subject the following week, and I'm not too sure why. And right now I feel as if I've been put on 'the naughty stool' "
Him - "And that's not something I've intended to do either"
So I'm wrong then, I can stop feeling this way because it isn't your intention?
What!
Me - "Regardless of intention, it's the way it's come over. I'm not saying that you have done it on purpose, I'm not saying anything other than this is how I feel"
Rather than talking about how I feel, he returns to the game of philosophy.
He - "You see and this is where we get really slippery in terms of our roles here. It's a really interesting therapeutic question isn't it, about what's intended and given compared with what's received."
Me - "No, no it's not"
I have no wish or ability to play. I'm broken. My reply 'no, no.' was said in despair, it is my response to the game. But foolishly I'm like someone with a broken leg trying to walk, if this is as close as we can be, I will try. I metaphorically manage to get up and try to engage on the intellectual level, but my emotions are fractured, and unable to support me.
He - "Why is it not"
Me - "Because what people intend is related to their values, belief systems and knowledge.. A person goes into a therapy room, says to the therapist I have this problem...therapist thinks, I've no idea but this theory may help. The therapist's motivation is good and pure, but the thing they offer doesn't help! Motivation is an aspect but not the whole thing - but there is no way to predict how another person sees things"
Curiously, my ability to play philosophy when my guts are in ribbons seems to shift us closer to the truth of what happened.
He - "Because in the email you used the word 'accused'"
The smoking gun - at last! This is why this session has been this way. The word accused has created all this! I'm suffering from his reaction to that word, this has caused the underlying energy of this awful session - really? This is madness!
Me - "Yes! But I thought you knew that I like to use emotive language! It wasn't like 'oh no you have accused me' it was 'Ah ha!!!! you have accused me :-)"
He - "See this is one of the problems with email"
I hear relief in his voice.
Me - "I thought you would realize that there is no reason for me to use the word accused in a bad way - about you! Why on earth would I feel that way!? But if you want me to sit here and accept everything you say, that isn't going to happen...it's like you imagine a linear path through a subject. But you don't know the destination! And it seems to me, looking at this from a third person perspective, that you have mistaken my emotional content as tangential. But it isn't 'going off at a tangent' it is part of the whole thing - what things spark is part of it!
He - "It depends on what we think it is, going back to a session where you asked me about games....then if I'm defining 'it' as having a clear understanding of what a game is and we go on a whole big journey that started off in one place and ended up somewhere else - then we have two different 'its'.
Me - "Do we need 'it' - what is 'it', so Xerpa can answer 4 or 5 questions 'correctly'? The subject is games, if the subject opens up...I'm trying not to use the word tangent! But I'm not meant to ask you...(I ask) what is your problem when 'it' is not what you thought it was?".
He - "Because you asked me a question and then we never get to the answer"
Me - "And this is significant because?"
He - "Because you asked me to be a mentor and then when the subject is X but X is never really discussed, well what's this mentoring about then?"
That would require an essay...but my answer expresses my crazy, unasked for, deep and for me, a drowning love for him.
Me -"That you have experience that I don't, and I gain it from you. Not from what you tell me, but from your attitude"
I've just said I love you. It is implicit in my tone of voice and in the meaning of the words. It is not explicit - because I'm supposed to be a client. But love has been implicit in all our communications, regardless of who or what I'm supposed to be!
He - "OK Well there's an interesting question, about the implicit and the explicit in...I suppose, communication generally and the whole question of therapy. Is therapy actually about the words, or is it the atmosphere and two people in a room and how they are communicating? You would only know a fraction of it if you saw it written down, because it is happening in the room between them - that's a fundamental question isn't it."
I am completely at sea now. Unable to say can't you see what's happening in this room between us? I answer his question instead. But I have no idea why he has asked it! I've heard the word question - so there must have been a question here? I don't understand...
Me - "No, how honestly is that a question? One implication is that all a person needs to do is to sit in front of a computer, a program that runs Rogerian dialogue (Eliza) and answer the questions and we know that probably isn't true. The whole thing about therapy is the people, it is the room and the atmosphere, it is all of it..."
He - "See this is what I mean about being contrary. You took me to mean the word question in a way that I didn't mean it in order that you could then question the word question."
Milton Erikson would be proud!
Me - "Well? Not necessarily?"
He - Well that's what I just saw happen. I said 'It's a fundamental question' meaning a matter, a subject, a thing. It doesn't mean something you sit at the computer and answer, that clearly wasn't what I meant"
Me - (still very confused - he had used the word question three times - I feel accused of saying that therapy could be done through a computer program!) - "But no, it is the importance of the people, the room the atmosphere versus is therapy the words the therapist uses. To quote you, 'is it the words that matter or the therapy as a whole'. Why are you asking that?
He - "I wasn't asking that. I'm just reflecting back to you the importance of something you said, that's all I was doing"
Me - "I haven't said that, I haven't talked about that?"
He - "No you just said to me what you pick up from me isn't the subjects I talk about...
Me - "It's the way you do it"
He - "Exactly - and I just fed that back to you"
I replied - "Yes, but I know that because I told you! So why do I need that fed back to me?"
He - "What are we doing?"
Me - "We are having an argument"
He - "I don't know why. It seems like today nothing I can say will be the right thing"
I don't say - Because I used the word accused in an email and you panicked!
Me - "I am sorry that you feel like that"
He - "And I wonder what's going on for you, that we are in this position?"
That you wont engage with me as someone who likes to explore ideas; that you have called me tangential and contrary. That something about the word *accused* has really got to you!
Me - "That I asked you for continuity - in an email - and I've not got it"
He - "What does continuity mean in this context?"
Me - "So - within that email I explained what the in-continuity was"
He - "Tell me..tell me here."
I get my phone to search for the document.
He - almost wails... "No not on your phone, communicate with me!"
Wow, a lot of emotion in that!
And if I had?
If I'd said that I needed and yearned for us to really communicate - to get out of this one-sided therapy prison' how would that have gone down?
And I needed so much for us to have the promise of a continuity 'on the other side' years away from this. And if I had said it? I think he would have turned red in embarrassment, and blocked me further, shut me down more, used more and more words to prove how right he was and how wrong I am.
And then yes - I would have thought of suicide.
Not because of how he reacted, but because I would have no hope...
This was my life and death - my feelings red raw, and still bleeding.
I needed to get much stronger before I could face this
The severed lines of thought, the fractured lines of love, the red hot and tangled lines of meaning; all my reasons to remain alive, so newly mending, so fragile, were so nearly ruptured by this afternoon's session. So yes, I did well to get through without breaking down, and yes it was important not to trust him, important not to let him know yet that my heart and soul were already his - for so long as he didn't know, he couldn't accidentally kill me..
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