As if I've stepped into in a spider's web.
I dare not move...
That which creates dizzying flights,
Desiring the moon...
Will bring instead my
Destruction.
As a fox.
I run!
The hounds see movement.
A flash of red.
On fallen leaves,
Darkens their teeth and matted fur
The awfulness of the last session.
Frozen, and torn.
Gives
The death-blow to
Truth.
He -"So, two weeks ago, what happened?"
Me -"My first thought is - is this a good idea going back to what happened?
He - "Why wouldn't it be a good idea?
Me -"Why wouldn't it be a good idea - so the aim of this is what?"
He -"To find out what happened"
Me -"So from my point of view, you had a list of possible things to do, you said 'symbolization' and I said yes! And you said emails and contracting, but was that really one of my questions? I know we had talked about it before in a previous session - so I replied that I didn't have any questions about that - it was your concern, not my concern. So we were talking about your concern being put over by you as if it was my concern. Basically you needed to say that you have a problem! And not go around the houses, I remember saying this to you before that I prefer things to be straight and direct."
He - "Well that's what I thought I was doing"
My misperception?
Regardless...
Me - "This is my memory of it that we are talking about. And this is my perception of it. This was the beginning of it - do you see now why I said it's not a good idea to talk about this? Better to accept that problems resolve when you go in the direction that makes most sense..."
He - "It struck me during the session particularly when I thought about it afterwards that it was important not least because some things became very clear to me, and an example of why things seem to be problematic because you were talking of...
Me -"I need to stop you there. Things were not problematic for me, they were problematic for you. This is a problem for you."
He - "They were really problematic for you during that session"
Me - "Because I was in a situation that didn't make any sense to me. Suddenly I was in a situation that was just...I was asking myself, where has this come from? I am being told that I'm X and Y...OK, what can I say about that? You can tell me I'm X and Y, but it's not going to sit easily with me".
He -"What was I trying to tell you - you were?
Has he really forgotten?
Telling me I'm 'wearing a mask'?
That I'm not really affable and friendly!
That I have 'a need to be contrary'.
His interpretation of my wish to get to clarity, rather than accept dogma!
That 'I'm tangential'.
Clearly I don't wish to talk about my assignments.
And I had explained why!
And the worst one, that 'I seem very angry' as I am fighting back tears! I was feeling bereft, lost, rejected. I was in distress, I was trying not to cry - how does that appear to be angry?
I mean the whole implied -perhaps you don't know anything about the therapeutic contract - seemed more than a little disparaging of my education (I'd been training for four years at least, by then). I was annoyed by that, but once I'd realised how awful this conversation was going to be, I felt myself losing any capacity to be OK...This was all the worse because I had thought that I'd got us into a more ethical position (in the light of my feelings for him). Because a mentor-mentee 'contract' felt less hierarchical, more flexible, to me anyway!
So I pause - because I remember very clearly what he said! - "...erm...."
He - "Because I don't remember trying to do that you see"
So what was he was trying to do? I'm assuming that in his mind each label - contrary, tangential, angry, is a rational and objective identification of my process. And specifically, this knowledge is useful for us in the here and now in some way?
Whilst in my view, I'm hearing an intellectualisation of his emotional reaction to me not agreeing with everything he says, and his confusion as he suffers a subliminal perception of my feelings for him!
And instead of accessing emotions, using imminence, he distilled into a pointless philosophical diatribe simply because of his inability to just name his own feelings. If he is aware, clearly he does not have a good way to deal with Eros in the therapy room!
Perhaps I should be grateful?
It could be worse?
Me - "OK, so you must be assuming that you are pointing out an undeniable, absolutely true reality - that I am contrary; that if you say something I have to contradict it because this is something I have to do without any thought or concept behind it, as if it is just as a reaction? That's what I thought you were saying to me. You did say it several times".
He - "That that is what keeps happening, yes."
No contradiction to my statement that I think he sees me as acting 'without any thought or concept behind it, as if I'm unconscious and unaware.
Me -"And this is a problem from your point of view"
He -"A problem in communication, surely.
Me - "Not normally - I mean I know that sounds like it is contrary, but is contradicting people a problem in my life? No, it's not."
I don't usually play the gender card, but quite a few men have told me - that men don't like being contradicted by women. They tell me this as if it is a revelation. But, having been a woman all my life I have seen how women are taught to keep any thoughts and opinions, that may bring conflict, to themselves.
So never speak up, or else.
We have to teach ourselves how to break the rule.
I learnt it in the NHS, consultants may be loud or quiet, and they may also be plain wrong sometimes. Speaking up really is difficult to do, but when a mistake, a prejudice or a disregard for the warning signs will impact the wellbeing of someone, it really matters! So I'm not inclined to sit by and let things go, and this includes arguing my own case.
He - "Well this is what I was trying to get at with what was happening with our session, because you were talking with great passion about two previous therapists"
There is a standard view therapists have about clients who say, ' my previous therapy wasn't helpful'. that such clients exist to vex therapists. And he seems vexed by me - or am I misreading him as badly as he misreads me?
Me - "I was talking about how useless developmental theory is when someone is facing nightmare levels of stress and violence - And you are doing it again, you are telling me what I was doing"
He - "That is not what I'm doing at all - is that not what happened last session? You were talking with great passion about two previous therapists."
Me -"I was not talking about them with great passion, I was talking about the process - about what happens in therapy, which is their assumption that they know the pathway to go, and my experience of that is that they have missed the point. And of course that makes me annoyed, but I am not angry at them, they did the best they could do"
He - "But you see what's happening now ..."
Me -"Is that you are missing me out."
The pain of this is unbearable.
He - "That I begin to say something and I'm never allowed to finish, I'm continually interrupted."
Me - "But can you not see that this is actually taking me to pieces at the moment. This isn't a good thing to do, it isn't fair."
He - "What isn't a good thing to do, what isn't fair?
I have just said - this is actually taking me to pieces at the moment. This isn't a good thing to do, it isn't fair - and he wants me to explain why?
No!
He doesn't speak emotion.
I thought that in around the third session!
I dismissed it, emotional literacy is integral to therapy as I understand it, but perhaps not in TA?
I was talking about therapists missing out the reality of my situation and focusing instead on a theoretical 'cause of distress'. This is what he is doing. The present wears the clothes of the past! I've noticed before that he deletes any tone or texture of emotion from my language, translating metaphor, image, sensation into a language of process.
Interesting - isn't this is how diagnosis (reification) operates? Words with the power to transmit via image and sensation such as; crushing, sinking, evil, burning, ceaseless terror, and horror - are safely packaged into one word: 'psychosis'?
This completely misses out the human being!
OK...
So, he is talking process-language, all righty then - me too.
Me - "You are commenting on my behaviour, and playing back to me your view of it"
He - "I'm trying to come to a resolution"
That statement may well be why I am now a 'qualified' mediator. And in my professional opinion (!) mediation requires the emotions to be invited in and included - a Gestalt process. To stop the adrenaline overdose we need to talk about them using a 'safe' language (SFBT).
And if I wasn't flooded with panic at this point, but I really am!
I can't think....
Me - "OK, so what is there to be resolved. What is the problem on your side? Because there isn't a problem on my side. Have I come saying 'I don't know what's happening in my life, I don't get on with anybody and I can't do anything, I'm X,Y and Z. No, strangely enough my experience seems to be the opposite. So despite being a really contradictory person I seem to get on quite well with people! So this doesn't seem to be my problem, it seems to be your problem - with me...so."
He - "Well again, I'm starting to express something and I haven't got there yet"
Me - "Because I fundamentally disagree with your view of me"!
He - "You don't know what my view is, because I'm not allowed to say it"
Tangential, contrary and wearing a mask!
Stepping out of that for a minute - gosh that is so interesting! I'd have given my eye teeth to know what his view really is! But he has told me very clearly that I am 'tangential,' and 'contrary,' and he has mistaken my body language when I'm on the verge of breaking down in total abject misery.
I don't feel heard, safe, or that I'm with someone who is congruent.
Me - Because you have told me 'who I am' and what you've seen, and it is overstepping the mark. I haven't asked for that. It's as if you don't have permission for that".
He -"Is that why last session everything I said is wrong? Because that was what was happening. At one point I reinforced, because I thought it was important to do, something you said..
Me -"Ah ha, was that when you used the word question three times - I thought it was a question..."!
Considering my state of mind at the time, I did well to understand that much!
But that ah ha! from me was too much for him.
At the time I felt that he'd purposefully trapped me and my ah ha! Was my triumphant, 'oh yes, I certainly remember!' My ah ha! was to stop him telling me that I'd imagined the word question! Gaslighting, inadvertent, accidental even - but oh yes, this is a process I'm familiar with.
He -"I think we need to make a decision as to whether this is a good thing, because we are getting to the point where everything I say is jumped upon, and that's how it steamrollered last time"
Things got considerably worse from here on!
He told me several times that I shouldn't attend any more sessions because they are not good for either of us.
So how did I stop him flying this plane into a mountain? It requires practice and self-discipline to use words as they are. I ignore the sensation or intimation or feeling that there is more that must be understood. Curiously it is the opposite process to being either tangential or contrary.
And I think the turning point in our conversation occurred only because of my refusal to go below the surface.
He has told me to go.
I'm not going to appear to him to be as fragile, or as close to absolute despair as I am. So he doesn't know that I'm fighting for my life, or that what he is saying could lead to me following my son's friend onto the tracks.
People don't say that they are suicidal - when it is real.
The shell I hide behind at this point is protecting a tiny flame, my love for him is so important for me. He is my soul, I can't live for myself yet because of the battle I've been through - no one had faith in me when I fought for my youngest son. Certainly the mental health home visit team would have agreed with Kit that I am contrary, as I told them that my son had a right not to take medication. They would certainly have noticed how tangential I can be, when I intervened, to stop the bullying dialogue (the psychiatrist didn't mean to be, but he sure was a bully. Especially when threatening my son with sectioning for 'non-compliance') and oh, I certainly wore a mask when I realised that dialogue was impossible with them, and so I would have to lie...that didn't come easily to me. Perhaps if I am contrary, this is the very thing in me that meant I didn't lose faith in my son? I don't know. But I can't risk the damage that occurs when Kit misreads my feelings and emotions, and he has done this before.
I will not let myself fall into detachment or dissociation - unless I use them strategically.
But my flame is very close to going out.
He is saying - "...in any communication surely it's about bringing out what ever that is, with greater clarity and greater understanding. Otherwise I don't understand what it's about <pause> what's your understanding of what it's about"?
His communication is devoid of his emotions, there have been too many mixed messages. I can't communicate without emotions as a legitimate part of communication. We are trapped in a 'therapy' relationship, and I'm being broken under the constraints of the rules. I'm made nauseous by the deception. I'm in survival mode. Lights are fading, flickering out, one by one.
Me - "That in this moment of time, to do the best that can be done with it. The best thing to do is to use this time in the best way possible. Examining what's gone wrong, it feels like this is you maintaining a view that there is a process of contradiction, as opposed to looking for some other way around this, and some other version we can do"
He -"I wonder if this is connected to something you said a while ago about SFBT versus integrative, that interaction can be solution based or problem based, and I wonder if that's what's happening here? You see there is something about understanding what goes on that is problematic, which in the way I work is fundamental or we keep repeating the same thing over and over again, you can't get to where you want to get to if the thing that's tripping you up isn't removed. You need to examine it. It wasn't me doing the contradictions last session, I was constantly trying to get back on track, that's what I was doing in the whole session and everything I said was the wrong thing <pause> now I have an idea about why that might be. But my sense is, if I say it I may be accused of the very thing you just talked of".
"...now I have an idea about why that might be....'I'm not allowed to say it'
I say, 'please say it'
And?
And he doesn't.
This has nothing to do with modes of therapy, everything to do with how he takes emotions and confines them in neat, labelled boxes.
We then take another dispiriting trawl through the wasteland which make me feel that I'm wasting his time simply by breathing. Time in which I explain once more that no one can help any of us with those assignments! I end lamely, expressing yet again that therapy is mandatory on my course - so, using this time wisely is a sensible thing to do.
He - "And what would that be - what would be a sensible and good way look like?"
I don't say 'when we are talking about things we both find interesting!
Me - "Well that's a problem for me, I can't answer that"
I can't answer. I'm beaten. I don't know what he thinks or feels, to tell him how much I love talking with him - when I'm not being told what my process is - how much I value feeling close - when we both talk about ideas, and it is fun - would be to spread the cloth of heaven under his feet and watch him trample mud into my dreams...
He - "So it's no wonder that we are stuck!"
Me - "So I'm asking you directly please, to suggest something"
He doesn't, so I offer one of my latest insights about therapy, and it becomes a dialogue between us, and he agrees with me on the point I'm making.
And we are back.
Back to normal.
What happened?
I felt utterly defeated when I said 'I can't answer that'.
And it is my feeling that that reply was significant.
Capitulation...
And I'm talking about therapy as ceremony, and then talking about myself in third person, wary always of being tangential. I access all my faith and trust in myself, to restore his trust and confidence in me.
I tell him again, everything is useful. And finally he asks me, what have I got from him. And this moment is the key.
He examines and understands his process.
Through my words...
He - "There are some things I say sometimes, it's only occurring to me now - if sometimes I think I see you bristle, it's occurring to me why that might be. That sometimes you will say something about being with a client, and I'll say something and you will say 'yeah but that's integrative and I'm much more solution focused and I think this is better' and I find myself essentially saying, this will work in these circumstances, it wont work in those circumstances. And I think I remember you saying something when you suggested the move over from therapist-client to mentor-mentee, that I have things you don't have, and there's me trying to give you those experiences. But then I think, maybe that's the sort of thing that somebody needs to find out for themselves. Telling somebody that something is the case, that they haven't yet experienced, can't give them that experience. There are sometimes with some clients when no theory works, even the lightest of stuff like you have described - solution focused... "
And I ask him questions, I give him the Tibetan terms, Nyntik and Menga - heart essence and wisdom key, which show that I've understood exactly what he has been telling me.
Heart essence is direct understanding, and wisdom key is an experience - an empowerment - that allows meaning to be unlocked.
Both these terms relate to the prime importance of devotion and trust in one's precious teacher. He doesn't know that, so again he doesn't hear love.
He says - "I don't know what happened - about half way through the session, but you really shifted gear and the second half of the session felt lovely"
I didn't 'shift gear - I 'stayed on the surface'. This is how I work with extremely emotional clients, where their trauma is a whirlpool of chaos and loss. He was speaking to me in a way that would not end well. I describe the process.
Me - "Yes, because most of our sessions have always felt lovely. So it felt un-sensible, or crazy to focus on the eddy currents and whirlpools that will drag things down. They don't mean that this is reality, they are just a potential. Concentration on what is underneath is a dodgy process - calling back those feelings - and so I didn't wish to go there or stay..."
I'm not going to put into words for him, what has happened. Which is that I refused to panic. I refused to give in to despair - whilst being in despair.
He - "Just to be absolutely clear - it wasn't we can't work together, it was can we work together and I think the answer is yes"
Truth is, during this session I felt as I was on a plane with a madman who was trying to force open the door with the aim of pushing me out! I felt battered and bruised, as I left the room.
And so I go - off to Waitrose for a bottle of Perry and a Charlie Bingham's curry for one.
This is my 'self care' - I need time to decompress and recover. More than this, I go to the Waitrose where my son's friend worked before his death; I return to remember my resolve, my promise to never give up, I absolutely have to hold tight to that vow.
No matter how hard this path, I will walk it to the 100th placement hour and beyond.
--
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W B Yeats:
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