Well I wonder what it's going to be
Progressive, regressive,
"I'm flattered"
?
I'm sitting in the car watching people go by
Listening to Nadja.
Time to go...
[it wasn't this track - Bandcamp doesn't have the one I chose - it was a track by VNV Nation]
3rd January 2022.
His 'Hello, come in' sounds exactly the same as normal. No 'chit chat'...The sound of the spoon, of cups, things. Lots of stirring. Spoon sounds in cups sounds...
I'm talking about it being cold...He says the heating is on.
And so it begins.
He -"So when you gave me your card, and you left me saying something like - and looking very bashful - and saying something like. 'I can't believe I'm giving you this'. Because it was nearly Christmas I thought, oh this is a Christmas card and there is something in it - I thought oh, it's a chocolate bar - so when I read the card...oh, this isn't Christmas at all. So then I thought, well if I listen to it before Christmas- not knowing what was in it - then I thought, I can't guarantee that I'd remember in enough detail come January. So I listened to it in the New Year - and I didn't see that coming at all"
Me - "No, you wouldn't have, because I'm good at containing my feelings. It's an important skill."
He - "There was one bit I didn't understand"
Me -"Only one bit, well that's pretty good going"
He- "My brother?"
Me - "Well that's just one way to put it, because I'm looking at this as...<he interrupts>
He - "Literally the first time you said it I thought, oh, do you know my brother?!"
Me - "I don't know your brother"
He -"Then I quickly realized that it was some kind of metaphor"
Me - "Yes, because I was assessing - and it was at the beginning of November, a while ago now - the word brother expresses a degree of liminality. It was saying that I was assessing what was going on with me, and the term brother was a way to...<he interrupts>
He - "So I imagine this could be...well this conversation could be potentially... change a lot of things and could be quite difficult"
Me - "It could be. What needs to be done, that's the question <he interrupts>
He - "That's the big question, yes. Because I have, occasionally a client will say at the end of sessions, 'oh, we should go for a walk, or we should go for a drink?' and usually I let it pass. Occasionally I have the conversation, and the conversation is always essentially the same, which is, I can't do that because occasionally clients go away and they come back; 12, 6, 18 months later and if there's been social contact between, then it completely changes the dynamic, obviously. And, I was as far as your college is concerned - still am - your therapist. Regardless of what you said about I am no longer your therapist, that I'm your mentor and all that conversation we had, as far as your course is concerned..."
Metaphorically at this moment I drive along a mountain pass, a thousand foot drop to either side, my ability to see almost nil in the fog, sleet and rain. Who and what am I? I need to hold on to my identity - I am pragmatic, stoic and reality is contracted and constructed between people...so we can make this better, because so far all I've heard is - 'You HAVE TO BELIEVE ME I HAD NO IDEA'!
Do I believe that?
I haven't heard any awareness or kindness in his words or tone of voice regarding my valour, courage in respecting his feelings by dealing with the undertow. I haven't heard any apology for not opening and reading my letter and listening to the recording. I was waiting for three weeks. Certainly I didn't expect more than a confirmation that he'd heard. But those three weeks were a very long time. I've just heard him say 'This could be difficult' and the question is for who, and why? How difficult must it have been for me to spend over a year thinking that I couldn't possibly feel about him as I do. How difficult must it have been to be honest with him, when I couldn't even say it in the room, or show any sign, clearly the whole thing has been difficult for me!
And at this moment it feels like I have to go limp, no struggling - collaboration is the only way.
But I can't do it!
There is a dagger embedded in my heart...
A flash of anger.
Hang on, where is his honesty in return for mine?
I needed honesty, that recording was a request for real emotion, self-awareness, honesty!
Even a negative response such as 'I just don't like you, would have been the precious and necessary missing information - for then the ice would melt, the fog lift and my path would become clear. Instead, I felt that I was still seeking a way through. I felt that I was fighting for my life, pleading for clarity - to see my next step! Feeling as if there is a 1000 ft fall either side of me...And here now? No light, only darkness.
I was doing what I've had to do so many times.
So many times I've had to disassemble other people's fear, disgust, rage, panic.
Regardless of how unsafe I feel.
Because they wont or they can't.
And if they don't - I will get hurt by their insensitivity, their feelings, their violence.
But here and now?
After all I've said?
And he's telling me about the client-therapist relationship?
So this is just ignorance on my part?
Oh really!?
I'm ethically bound to step up, be courageous and to be honest. I had to wait until I was strong enough to take whatever outcome.
Because no, we don't have a client-therapist relationship.
I can't trust him as a therapist.
He reacts defensively from emotion.
And so far I think I've been wise not to trust!
Boron rods - reassure him.
Me - "Absolutely. Yet you need to understand how I do things, I don't do anything suddenly, and I'm an incredibly lawful person. And that's why this has been so difficult for me. And that's why I partition and assess before making any decisions. But again I want to stress, there is a degree of liminality to this"
He - "So, what I'm really saying is there is no question for me of moving outside of the therapeutic space"
Me - "Well no, of course not"
What did saying that cost me?
At the brittle, rippling edge, fear, pain, memories, loss, threat, grief.. As the words leave my mouth - metaphorically the car is slipping over the edge of the road - it is just balancing on the razor edge of a lethal fall.
I keep my head.
I don't panic.
I gently open the imaginary door and slide out...
And the car lurches sideways, now slipping rapidly and disappearing over the edge.
I'm waiting to hear...
A sickening crash.
Me - "But then that contract ends at a certain point"
He - "Well it never ends for me - as I said, for the reason that I've said, cause, you know. Clients come and go but some of them come back. and if there's been social contact in-between, there's something about knowing the therapist only in the therapeutic space, which I think for all sorts of reasons that I won't go into now because it's another subject, but it's really important. And if you see occasionally, in a supermarket or somewhere a client, then it's a jolt because it's not the therapeutic space "
Me - "yes - you are talking about you"
You aren't talking about me...
And now my feelings are being portrayed as my ignorance, and as a harmful thing.
The pain is beginning to tear into me.
Flashback!May 23rd 2020, about 6 pm.I am sitting with my back to a tree - I don't feel despair, I don't feel rage. There is simply nothing left. Psychologically I am being torn open. I know there is pain, but I can't focus on it or feel the livid edges because it is happening. It is real. Nothing can stop it. My family is being destroyed. I know this. I wont feel it. Numbness, disempowerment, loss, and damage. I think I should put myself out of my misery, because if I wake up - if I feel what is happening, no one should have to feel that much pain.. It is the end anyway. So why not take the only thing left in my control...real death. The pain of living - what makes it worth fighting for? It looks too far, too cold, too hard. I have no compass. There is no star to guide me.Why not just stop?The only reason I accepted the pain of living is that I have a vow not to kill, and as I'm now at this point just another living thing - that includes me in the vow.
So no Kit, I didn't tell you this in our first session. Because I'd seen what happened to my son when he had got 'help'. I didn't know what your reaction would be. And I'd seen what professional help could be! Therapy rules state, when there is a risk of, 'harm to self...break confidentiality' I couldn't trust you. Looks like I was right!
Resonance of then with now - lack of truth, I'm being portrayed as someone I'm not.
Back to the tree - I don't feel despair, I don't feel rage.
Back to the tree, and now, in his room. I have explained this. I have told him this.
I'd told him how my husband's refusal to be open and honest dislocated my soul.
I played him the music that had been going round in my head as I thought about how to end my life.
[it wasn't this track - Bandcamp doesn't have the one I chose - it was a track by VNV Nation]
I have told him this!
I have to have truth, raw and real.
I have to hear his truth and to speak mine!
My truth is that perhaps I do know who he is enough to know, and that I know love includes accepting that he loves someone else, is gay or finds me boring and too old.
And I don't see this ending.
But my truth has been excised from the room - it doesn't fit the monomyth of liberation through understanding childhood trauma.
Slowly lights go out.
Another star falls.
Into the abyss.
One after another - one by one - sinking into the same drowning void, carried away by a rip tide of numbness, disempowerment and loss again.
Part of me wants to die.
He - "It was obvious from the recording that you've been holding this for a while"
Me - "A year"
He - "And I wonder what it was, that you decided to voice it"?
Me - "You want to know why? Because integrity and honesty matter - and always trying to work out what the best path is. Did I answer the question - what was the question? Because I had completed my work of my other Diploma, and was being assessed, because I'd written my account to be assessed to see if I could enter the Ovate grade - so there was a lot of 'this is what I've done, this is me' and this is a levelling, reducing the sharp divides and no-go areas to one plain, balanced, surface. Time for the unspoken things to be said. It was Samhain, the perfect time for feeling the ghosts, feeling the edges, assessing experience and converting it into words "
He - "So there were a lot of thresholds being crossed there by the sound of it"
His interpretation..it says a lot about how he sees me.
Transgressive toad-queen.
Where does his term - threshold come from?
Me - "No, thresholds are not being crossed. It is volitional. I either step up to the mark and acknowledge the thresholds or I ignore. I don't ignore things"
I have not broken any rule at all, nor have I crossed any boundaries - it was time to name the ghosts, assess, convert to words. So a sense of ghosts? Is this countertransference? Am I reacting unconsciously to something running in him? Ghosts are 'not-self', they are 'out there'. They 'don't make sense'. Countertransference is often an uncomfortable and a pretty trippy experience! The term 'ghost' feels right to describe it.
He -"Which raises a really fundamental question for you and I because, having said that as far as I'm concerned the boundary cannot ever be crossed. That partly, that part of it is me...but I suppose the question for you is, is it viable to continue seeing me with that boundary in place or is that going to be too painful for you - or how is that going to be for you"?
To agree that this is too painful for me? How dare you. You want me to end this problem for you! The person who refused to let the narrative of the psychiatric team condemn her son to a lifetime of Risperidone, to being spoken to as service user. The person who kept going with her counselling course despite the violence and fearing for her life. No, this is psychically induced pain created through meanings. And his negligent (in my professional opinion) use of language is certainly creating a serious problem.
Me - "This makes me laugh because I deal in futures. I am therefore massively cautious in how I use language when I talk about the future with other people. You have just given me an uncontained 'how's it going to be'. Yes I am deferring, maybe I'm deferring while my mind comes up with an answer. Let me think. Rephrase it: what would I prefer is a better question- in a way I feel that I'm being judged, and I want to know what you think. That's why I can't just answer. How would it be for me? I am quite capable of coming here with the way I feel and managing it. I've been doing it for a year.
He - "It doesn't mean that you can do another one"
The gauntlet again.
He wants me gone.
He doesn't pick up on how I'm feeling judged, he certainly isn't going to let me know what he thinks or feels - thus perpetuating the 'ghosts'.
I'm not having it, I'm not going to be told that going 'is for your own good' when it clearly isn't!
Me - "Does it not!"
He - "Well you've done a year with me not knowing. But now I know and that might change things"
Of all the things he said, right from the start of 'therapy' this is the most curious and impossible to understand: 'But now I know and that might change things'?
I don't have permission to explore, I have no invite to ask questions and hold silences and give the eye contact I'd give otherwise. So we won't go there. I will never know what that meant. Instead I'm disempowered, on the verge of safe-mode.
Me - "Yes, so that's the main thing. I know I can"
He -"OK"
Me - "It's really hard, how can I tell you that I'm a trustworthy person"
At this point - as the lights are going out - it seemed to be all about trust - I felt that he didn't trust me? Being told that I was crossing thresholds when what I actually did was to tell him how I felt? So something isn't right here.
He - "Yes, I wasn't really posing the question about whether you are trustworthy, it's more I was thinking about your emotional state".
Yeah? So telling me to think of never seeing you again because perhaps I can't take it, is helping my emotional state? Grief is a cold hand on my heart, I'm feeling bloodless, empty, cold. And yet, I keep my voice steady...it feels as if I have to...
Me - "Well I've got grief to deal with. I mean that was part of my assessment for over the year - so how long does it take before my grief wound (from husband, son, daughter...my family being shattered) how long before I can take another dose. And to go back to your question 'why now' well because the scabs, pretty well, the scabs pretty well..well, there's not so much of it left perhaps"
He - "This is the grief of the end of your marriage?
Me -"That grief, yes"
He - "And are you suggesting that me holding the boundary is another grief"?
And are you suggesting ...As I answer I am aware that I must not suggest that his holding the boundary 'is another grief''! His tone of voice made it clear that the only acceptable answer is 'no'! But a part of me can't help wondering....
The word I used in the Samhain recording is love, and I do not use that word lightly.
And I made the choice to deal with the twisted energies so that we could get to honesty.
The worst that could happen, I had thought, would be finding out that he didn't like me!
I was wrong.
This is worse, much, much worse.
Instead of any negotiating I am being told to accept this indeterminate state - or to go! And this is presented as being for my benefit! '
I was truthful, this has happened.
No option now...I must play the game by his rules.
It doesn't mean that you can do another year'...."And are you suggesting?"
I reply in psychodynamic language, I describe what will happen as the task of accepting reality and letting go of potential futures - and mourning those futures.
If in his world the right answer comes from what TA practitioners call Adult. I need to speak 'Adult'. I do this by removing my opinions (Parent) and my emotions (Child) from the answer, to communicate my responsibility for all of this. And so I am providing reassurance in response to his need for reassurance. Giving the message that he has nothing to do with any of this! The tone of voice he used was so clear, too clear for me to risk getting it wrong! He wants a message from me that says, you have not harmed me, you have no need to fear disappointing me. This is nothing to do with the real you, or how you do therapy. I take total and full responsibility.
So I give an empirically accurate and correct answer and so I'm lying. Or rather who am I, what am I without opinion and emotion!
How or why would I mourn a future!
This is grief, I am mourning him - a person, the living, breathing, uniqueness.
The word is love!
But how will I be able to mourn?
If there can be no honesty, no reality?
My feelings will remain frozen, stuck.
There will be no resolution.
My answer?
I switch on opinion, I switch on feeling, I refuse to be untruthful - and so I write this, here and now!
When he asked that question "And are you suggesting that me holding the boundary is another grief"? I believe that we have a need as people to be as open and vulnerable as we really are, because personal integrity is vital. But integrity can also be broken by the responses of others, especially when they perceive us as a threat. No actually - it can be a damn sight worse than that! As a child I learnt from my mother and grandmother, from television and from experience that it is best for everyone if girls just accept that terrible things happen to them, and so we agree to smile. Because what would outrage or despair communicate? How dare we suggest that anyone except ourselves can ever be out of order! Best for everyone means - keep quiet because no matter what has happened to you; rape, abuse, violence it will be portrayed as your fault; being in the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes and 'asking for it'.
And having 'asked for it' if we then get upset and don't like it that too has to be our mistake, obviously we didn't know what we were asking for - is the best defence (agree with your abuser until you can escape!) No doubt the rapist could say with accuracy, 'It doesn't look like that's the type of sex you wanted'.
I watched how that went down with friends, and myself too.
Watched the internalised messages parade through my mind, and when I was younger I agreed with the perpetrator and jury that some unknown part of me chose this, and said yes - I did it all to myself!
So I must change myself - because it must be me?
So many people come to therapy believing that everything bad that happens to them is because of them...The alternative is then to blame the parents for not giving them enough of whatever it is supposed to be that makes people safe. Truth is, the world gives you lessons and you can learn them or not.
How many years did it take me to feel the truth - to know that no matter what hopes or fears I've ever had, no matter what I thought, or what I wanted, no matter how good or bad my parents - the action of sexual assault and rape is violation. It is one person physically violating another; it is someone's choice to brutalise, or erase another person - when I finally understood that I wasn't responsible for raping myself (!) I tracked down the rapist and demanded an apology.
But I haven't had the strength to find the witnesses who just watched me stop fighting, fall into despair and then enter a shut-down so bad it took me nine years to crawl out of it.
I got it - his apology.
I didn't feel any authenticity. But at least he showed enough respect to reply. From then on I knew that I was a person who wouldn't accept blame for other people's actions - I'd ripped off the cultural 'protective film' of unreality that disconnects and isolates the memory.
Consequently - when I get to safety I always speak out...
Therefore I publish this blog.
He - "It poses all sorts of questions doesn't it, which, I think, given what you have just said may not be worth considering in the sense of they are questions about what if, and maybes' in terms of where do we go from here. And maybe the best thing to do would be to go one step at the time at present"
I remember thinking that I'd got it right, I'd said the right thing.
A psychodynamic mission statement had passed the test, disarming his horror of hurting anyone.
But meanwhile, under the surface, within the tone of my voice, he'd heard the truth; he had heard me say what I didn't say out loud; I will be in grief if I lose you.
By framing the process of grief as acceptance of reality I shifted any sense of responsibility for the situation away from him, and onto me.
In those words I disarmed his anxiety.
Truth is I've no idea how accurate my view is - I only know my side of this. But the situation was a mess. And I'm trying to understand - accessing the black box!
He was refusing to say - this is how I feel about you - to someone who has explained how much they require honesty. He was as good as playing Russian roulette with my life.
Self disclosure is a difficult thing to get right. But in this case, self disclosure was absolutely necessary. As therapists we can't have it both ways - there is no justification for imagining that what we say or do doesn't alter the outcome! The recording, things I've said in many other sessions all concur - I pick up how people feel and I need to know what is happening inside them if I'm getting one message but hearing another! I'd go so far as to say that relationship is the only part of therapy that is therapeutic, the modality is no more than a way to structure language - to prevent us talking about films and holidays or giving our opinion!
So for me to feel as I do about him, there have been mixed messages. But without his honesty the different layers of reality are impossible to disentangle, and regarding this feeling - I can't take any more dissonance...not after being made to feel that I was so out of order for wanting the truth from my husband.
I think Kit is being negligent in not understanding this.
Sure, I get it. Sure, I've probably missed so many important things with my clients. But, I know I've told him enough for it to be really obvious. I have asked directly for his self-disclosure. The absence is poison. To take my life would be my responsibility, but the cause would be the pain his choice is causing. I'd expected reason and compassion - instead I find myself drowning in his emotional turmoil. Even the worst truth, the worst thing I had imagined when preparing for this is better than what I'm now feeling - which is erasure - experiencing the gap where honesty should be as I hear my request for a straight answer deflected again and again.
At this point I felt as if he'd found me at the edge of the road. No shoes, lost, cold and bleeding. It wasn't better to be found, just not so bad. As if I'd been rescued, but not given any warm clothes, or kind words. But I was no longer at the fragile edge at the borders of death, I was following him back to 'the therapy room'.
He -"I'm finding it ever so difficult to know whether to ask the questions which are in my mind because I'm aware that normally in a situation like, in this space it would be absolutely the right thing to do because we'd be talking about your processes, which are things that are happening out there. But I'm aware that we are talking about something that is happening in here.
Me - "Well, what is actually happening here? It is two people drinking coffee, having a conversation"
'And all sounds are the sound of the mantra' - the fragile skill of elective detachment - a benefit of 30 years of Buddhist practice.
He - "Yes, but having a conversation where I'm saying - no - essentially. No to the question whether this can be anything more than what has already taken place in this room"
Me - "Yes, you have already said that"
Why say the thing that will hurt me the most, again?
My fragile detachment shatters!
He - "And my immediate question is wondering what that experience is like for you? And then I think that's the usual sort of question, absolutely the right sort of question"
I am exasperated! If ever I needed proof about how cruel therapy can be, well here it is. If I accessed the pain of this moment how would it be? The pain is a splintering, agony. And if I showed it? I would be described as dysregulated, regressing - angry, or any number of 'unable to cope with the pain of it' behaviours a psychotherapist has labels for, and he would like to help me get through it! Like someone kicking you and then buying you a cup of coffee and a cake. Then they tell their friends how they bought coffee and cake for someone they found in distress.
Core to most modalities is the idea that a person is in psychological distress because their idea of how life should be is disproved by the truth; their life isn't how they think it should be. The remedy is compassion and acceptance of one's self. Kindness because things may be truly awful, and compassion for oneself, to access hope and faith in oneself. The therapist's task is to enable a person to discern the names or depth of their feelings, so that they can feel the feelings, and then take care of themselves.
Certainly that's part of it. But always ask people what has happened to them...because 9 x out of 10 there is an abuse of power creating their pain which is often disempowerment. The power dynamic here isn't good - He has the power to tell me to go. And I'm in pain because he hasn't answered my question. He's proved it to me. My words have no meaning, I'm powerless
The only power I have is to hold fast to what I know about me, that I have no reason to believe his words until they feel true. Being able to hear truth is a skill. An important one! Really get's you into trouble when someone is gaslighting you! But hold fast to it. Nor does he factor in that I have lived with ordained monks and nuns. I understand vows of celibacy actually - I understand that intention doesn't disconnect a person from human feelings. Ultimately it comes down to this - if he'd answered 'I don't feel about you that way, you just aren't my type' if it has a ring of truth to it, I'd be fine. What I'm getting instead I'd paraphrase as - how dare you think that of me and you know nothing about how to be a therapist, and you have zero respect!
OK, the best we can do now is find a way to talk that avoids crucifying me. I tell him what he should say to me!
Me - "What is it that you know about yourself that means that you can cope with this situation? And how is it that you had the courage to put that out" and those would be the questions. So a question like 'what does it feel like' would drag me into a hurt part of myself and I really don't need to go there. I am perfectly capable of going into it in my own time and understanding myself, and taking care of me. But if you want to go there"
But if you want to go there - the nuclear option!
Or my invitation for him to play the game of, you tell me how hurt you are and I'll be a nice parent....as opposed to my 'game' of bring the light, find the truth and then recast the narrative.
But if you want to go there?
Is my challenge to both of us.
And now I notice that he has perfected the pseudo-therapeutic yes. It sounds wise and considered, compassionate even. I hear it when he doesn't know what to say in reply to me. It sounds like he's heard me, and understood.
Actually I think this specific yes is used instead of saying 'I disagree with you'.
So I step out of the loops again and back to truth. As Silvia Plath put it: 'This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary'. The light of the mind casts weird contours and shadows that can't be seen using the bright light of reason, they are the felt-things, the intuitions at the edge of awareness. The mind speaks in symbol and metaphor - so - Gendlin.
Me -"It would need to be in a Gendlin form of metaphor and image, and sensation"
He - "See that's what I see as a potential sticking point. In the sense that normally in this space, nothing is off the table really"
Me -"Ah...so that's not 'off the table' focusing is more truthful...than words"
He - "Yes"
That meaningless, empty yes again.
Me - " I think the raw impression of sensation brought to awareness through symbol/ sensation/ felt-sense is far truer, than any already conscious understanding, symbolized in iconic or, indexical words. But then, that's just my observation...
He - "Sorry, you lost me there"
He - "See that's what I see as a potential sticking point. In the sense that normally in this space, nothing is off the table really"
Remember this phrase, because in February it will return - when I make one more attempt to get to the truth of all this.
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