1st November 2021.
He - "How are you"?
Me - "I'm fine..."
And I would say " Fine! Hey how are you"?
But I don't.
I've been told that I'm tangential, and if I talk it will be labyrinthine; long, coiling, discursive.
Tangential.
His silence, is wide open waiting.
Even though I do this silence thing myself too, I feel obliged to fill it.
I go full tangential - I'm talking about episodic and autobiographical memory, and the work of Tulvig and I know that anything like this is considered cold, and CBT, and he will see it as tangential to the relational work of therapy.
But I have assignments to write, and I'm chasing Evan George's statement that 'our' work is to help people create future memories. I love that idea, future memories! That we step through past, future, present - to find the better in the past, to place instances of good memories into a functional sequence, coherent and believable and possible. Using memory is such rich work! This is fundamental to how we construct 'I' 'Me', 'Us, relationship, belief and meaning.
He doesn't join in.
I change tack.
I'm talking about seeing the film version of Frank Herbert's Dune.
I say that when I was at school the English teacher called me after someone in the book.
He asks me who?
Me - "Jessica..."
He - "And who is she..."
Now, I'd got the impression from his initial response that he had read the book? In which case, how would you not know who Jessica is! I'm assuming that this is some kind of Kohut tomfoolery and head into comedy mode - again - as I say that I hoped my son would be the Kwisatz Haderach!
He doesn't join in.
Eventually we are back to Kohut...
And I don't say, hey - sometimes I'm doing twinship...with you (for you!)
I don't say that!
Instead we both dissolve into laughter!
He is talking about conspiracy theories, that this is ultimately - in his view - about twinship for the conspiracy believing client - Or, I ask, could it be that as they think that they know the true state of affairs it is abhorrent for them to watch 'innocent' others suffer? There is always a chance that their perception of reality is correct and your assumptions about their assumptions are incorrect. The only question that matters is, do they intend to do something that will harm others as a consequence.
No, I don't say that.
Unfortunately new and fearful realities in the present that are too different to anything a person has previously experienced can only be understood in terms of what has come before - this is something Aby Warburg called cause projection - until a new understanding is created. This us why the present inevitably feels like replication! Kit focuses on the way that the familiar (family) understanding has an emotional force which can make the old understanding difficult to change; acting as a block that prevents new knowledge being created. There is so much more to it though! People find new families in groups who offer contact and interaction, and kinship with them focuses on a story so unique and strange and almost impossible to believe ('Dogs can't look up!). Family beliefs will have a lot of power - but they can go either way!
No, I certainly did not say any of that either!
Instead it would have been perfect to to have scheduled it and brought our evidence and references! I'm not interested in repeating cliché.
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