The web. 29th November 2021.

After several references in our sessions to how much he enjoyed coffee fuelled discussions at 3 am.

After our discussions reminded him of all those coffee fuelled discussions he had so enjoyed at university at 3 am...

I dared take this idea further.

It was excruciatingly difficult - but carefully, gently and slowly I explained that we could do something with this idea. Something along the lines of, if we build it others will join...There would be more people, more ideas!

So why was that so difficult to say?

Because I was using 'we', making he and I into an 'us'.

And he has done this several times before in our conversations. So I shouldn't feel so uncomfortable? And each time 'us' has been in his sentences, in his meaning, I have held tight as if to a life raft. Each instant, each precious instant was rich with a subtle heat created by our verbal conjunction -  that melted my heart! I had dared to use 'we' and 'us' before, but only in a very low level way. This was my first explicit usage -  clearly stated: we could create something together... 

And I needed him to say yes. 

And I felt as if my heart was beginning to splinter.

I knew that he would say no. 

My experience of our non-meetings, is as a force-field in the room. And the only way across or through is verbal negotiation. And the boundaries are like infra-red laser lines linked to trip mines. Nothing felt safe...

Yet saying nothing about what I'd like, would be worse. I'd be letting myself down.

As I spoke, the sensation was of cold water tricking down my back. And threat. As if I'd seen a quiver in the haze surrounding the laser line; the boundary lines flare! 

He said, setting up groups never works. He knows this because it is his experience. Therapist meetings become recipe sessions - as in 'I did this and it worked for me'.  

Suddenly I realise the metaphors are all wrong, the cold water is toxin. I realise I have stepped into a web! And the spider is spinning threads around me so fast, I can hardly breathe! 

Immobilised I am watching in a fascination and horror as he starts to say:

He - "And there is another issue about the idea as well, between you and I - because it would set up what's known as a dual relationship. Dual relationships aren't utterly ruled out but they do have to be spoken about explicitly and clearly because if there was a group with you and I and other people then obviously I was your therapist and I would be something else so whether that's on the border line of a dual relationship or not. But I was something and now I'm something else so in my mind it would still be a dual relationship. So for example you couldn't be with a client in a business deal...And I suppose the thing about you and I as well  is that I know a lot about you so I'm sort of carrying that with me, the question is to whether you are comfortable about that?" 

Me - "I'm me - and I don't honestly believe I've said anything at all to you that I wouldn't say, or feel uncomfortable about saying (publicly). I'm pretty certain about that. I mean the standard answer is always 'take it to supervision' I mean if you felt uncomfortable you would take that to supervision. But me personally no, I'm not uncomfortable. No, I suppose I'm quite proud, I'm fairly OK about me, there isn't actually anything I'm uncomfortable with, having thought or done, in my life!"

He - "Because there are two other things in play here which happen, that don't happen that often but they happen regularly enough which is that a client finishes 6 month, 12 month, 18 months later. They come back. So if one had entered into a non-therapist/client relationship with that client then they can't comeback. But another thing that happens now and again, at the end of their last session they will say 'I think we really get on, it would be really nice to go for a walk together or go for a drink together. And I always hope that if a client is going to say that that they don't say it right at the end. And if they don't say it right at the end  there's a conversation to be had about how pleased I am that the person thinks that way about me, and the inappropriateness of forming a new relationship beyond the therapeutic bond because it is a very peculiar particular sort of thing and if this person ever wants more help in the future then we've already sort of muddied the water. I always find that a very difficult conversation to have."

And then occurs one of those moments when I am totally bewildered, absolutely unable to know which way something is oriented, or moving.

He - There is one therapist I know who was telling me how many women fall in love with him, or think they have, especially if they have been talking about their husband who  never listens to them, and he listens to them. Therefore they have the sense of 'oh, here is a very nice man who listens to me'. End of last session 'would you like to go out for a meal with me?' And he has to have the difficult conversation. I must say I've never experienced that <laugh> I don't know what it is about him that I haven't got, but I've never had that"

Poker face...

My life as comedy. 

But, I'm not sure that he is a very nice man, or that he has listened to me! 

He asks me: - what it would look like - the coffee fuelled discussions at 3 am? In retrospect this appears to be a trap question. Something like, the spider needs me to struggle or else it can't continue. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Is it 'running' when I answer? I explain a basic format - we could take it in turns to decide a subject, two weeks per subject to get beyond the most obvious layers of discussion. Really go deep into a theory.

I'm not 'running' because I keep my feelings out of this. And I find not talking from and within messy, real, flame blessed feelings, is so difficult. And I guess he picks that up because he starts to tell me about the kind of non-therapy-therapy that he thought was wonderful for him and his client. 

Is this is the woman who sat here for three years, the other one who might have been in love with him! 

Oh! - I do not want to think about this!

I ask him a direct question about how he is feeling in this moment - He replies with a generality, a theory based exposition about 'parts of the self' that applies to 'the person'. He wont 'do feeling' so I can't. And then he explains that he is but a reaction to me.

I don't say, that I am therefore also a reaction, and if we are in effect naught but a phenomenon of self-consciousness between mirrors at infinity, I fail to see the therapeutic benefit of this!

I say, my voice gentle but clear and strong - "I asked you for your feelings - I'm asking, do you feel that I'm pushing the therapist part of you out of the room?"

Because that is of course what I'm trying to do!

He replies - "No, there was a time I think when you first said 'I want to keep seeing you but I don't want to have therapy sessions anymore, that there were some things that came up that I thought 'I've got a foot in two camps here' because sometimes therapeutic things came up, and I was never quite sure how to respond because you said that you didn't want therapy, but you were talking about therapist things. But that's past I think ' 

I don't ask again, I simply empathize....He has not put a single feeling into his statement. And then he is saying:

He - "If we are going to do this..."

He tells me that he'd love me to really understand Transactional analysis.

So, how did this all end so badly? Read on gentle reader - we have a long way to go!