The impossibility of truth. 25th October. 2021.

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 asks me - 'Two weeks ago. What happened? 

Me -"My first thought is - is this a good idea going back to what happened?

He is puzzled

Me -"Why wouldn't it be a good idea - so the aim of this is what?"

He says then we would find out what happened. I really, really do not think that this is a good idea! But he is going to do it! He begins to tell me why things were problematic for me!

Me -"I need to stop you there. Things were not problematic for me, they were problematic for you. This is a problem for you. 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 sounds confused, he asks, he doesn't remember?

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 undermined, 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! I pause -  because I remember very clearly what he said! 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?

But 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! His reply his from his unease is generally a philosophical diatribe simply because of his inability to just name his own feelings. 

And, if he is aware of my feelings, 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".

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? I mean I know that this 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.

Oh! He is talking about 'my problem' with my previous therapy...

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 denies that he is telling me 'what I do' and asks if it isn't true that I was talking about my previous therapy with great passion (odd word to use?)

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 tells me that when he begins to say something and he is never allowed to finish, he is continually interrupted. Which is something I feel is happening to me too...

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 asks me, 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.

Two weeks ago I was talking - with or without passion matters not -  about therapists missing out the reality of my situation and focusing instead on a theoretical 'cause of distress'. 

This is what he is doing. 

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 exactly 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'? Erasing the human experience... 

OK...

Well, I can speak a process-language too! I speak from the objective 'Adult' as that seems to be the right version for him!

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.....I fundamentally disagree with your view of me"!

Once again he says that I don't know his view because 'he's not allowed to say it'!

As I'm so tangential, contrary and wearing a mask! And yet I don't see how that is stopping him from speaking?

Stepping out of this for a minute - gosh what he said is so interesting! I'd have given my eye teeth to know what he can't say! 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 talks about his triple question question that was suppose to transmit companionship, being on the same side.

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!

He has had enough and he is on the point of showing me the door.

At the time I felt that he'd purposefully trapped me with that triple its not a question question, 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 ever again! Gaslighting, inadvertent, accidental even - but oh yes, this is a process I'm familiar with. 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. 

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. 

He asks me what communication is about...

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 tries to be conciliatory by blaming this on differing modalities but 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 asks me what these sessions should be, to be more useful.

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 . To say this would be to spread the cloth of heaven under his feet and watch him trample it into the mud... '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.

He asks me, what happened? 

He doesn't know why it now feels normal.

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...

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.

Then he tells me that he doesn't know what happened, but about half way through the session, I really shifted gear and the second half of the session felt lovely!

As I said - I capitulated.

I don't say that.

Good old submission.

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. And I gave up...

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:

Session 25th October 2021. Transcript.