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Showing posts from February, 2024

Trauma - 28th June 2021.

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25th June 2021 Notes: I want to get to a place  where we work together to do this mysterious, great something.  A vision - walking the Camino  to Compostela.  A pilgrimage through story. Exploring dark alleyways. Oh my words to you  I'm so bloody obvious.  And I'm breaking rules...  Aligning with truth and trust... I approached therapy with an open mind, and as if it was work. But, it was during the time of Covid lockdown and life took place on Zoom. My family were at home too. I felt restricted and stifled.  I couldn't really talk. And after about eight sessions I was done. No getting out of therapy as a student. We agreed to talk about my course work, specifically in this session, about my research project.  I would have left therapy if not for the course, but I couldn't face starting with another therapist - difficult to dig underneath my rationalizations, but I didn't want to explain even as little as an outline of what had happened to me...

Epilogue.

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Time to let go to a year's worth of work.  I began this blog to help me make sense of what had happened to me - and in October 2023 I decided to take this a whole step further - I set my intention to explore the role of Eros in therapy.  There are many reasons why clients complain about therapists, but the complaint that terrifies therapists more than any other is sexual misconduct. When there is any intimation that Eros is the third presence in the session, the sensations begin to close down rational thought and both people may feel an overwhelming need to brush feelings and energies 'under the carpet'. This is a very powerful feeling for both clients and therapists. And a therapist who starts, merrily brushing away , will probably rest easy, believing that no harm has been done. I don't know if that is how Kit feels. I think he did the best he could do, but brushing things under the carpet was his response. And this turned out to be as harmful as the behaviours more ...

Muxia.

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 Only one thing left to do now. To change the publish dates of these blogged words. And leave this blog to be found. Or  do I carry on? To stay with it, learn more, to speak up for other clients who receive well meaning lectures. Aversive, defensive in-humane... ending in Erasure. + But - there is only one choice from this moment onwards.. To live, to carry on. Because This happens to others too. + Yet in one layer of the multiverse I'm no longer here. In the other layer  I took all the sleeping pills and died  outside his door,  huddled cold on stone,  cold. My heart finally stilled. No drama, just the truth of it.  -- These words were at are the end. (semi-psychotic visions - written the evening after the final session May 2022...) [+] The reference to 'rescuing Jesus' in this poem relates to my sense that both he and I will inevitably be crucified by this experience - unless we find a way to prevent, the agony and pain born from our miscommunicatio...

21/2/24 Decision to publish.

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  21st February 2024. In the light of this reply, my criteria now for defining ethical behavior and therefore what an ethical therapist would do in a similar situation comes down simply to this; an ethical therapist shows courage enough to state his or her feelings with honesty - and compassion.  His attitude towards me at the beginning of 'therapy' was not clear - there were three occasions at least when it was possible to interpret his behaviour, as  interested . But the fact remains that if he had said that he didn't have  any interest  in me when I'd asked, instead of acting with incredulity that I could ever think such a thing of him, and on a second occasion when I sought clarity, and noticed instead his embarrassment - blushing - we could have got somewhere better than this. Fortunately this is his problem not mine. I simply have but one decision to make. To shut down all communication - as asked - and then to open the black box up  for everyone...

Correspondence.

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13th February 2024. I believe that what happened to me is too important to be ignored.  I also believe that technically speaking, this subject is too personal, and it should be confidential - and absolutely not put in a blog!  But this feeling of embarrassment, this feeling of  I shouldn't say it, is full of shame and guilt actually, but ultimately I have to ask myself, is my sense of shame and guilt, my silence doing any good?  Silence contributes to maintaining the problem - silence prevents things changing, silence - my silence - cuts off any possibility of learning how to make improvements.  Clearly I think that this information should be in the public domain, as much information as possible actually.  I wrote to Kit to open up dialogue. Recent emails. 13th February 2024. If there is emotion, something matters. I trust in the beauty and dignity in expressing need, and I see an innate value in communication. Making a request is about finding a way to me...

Denial.

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It has taken me almost two years to admit the obvious. I don't want to say that I'm a victim, but his reaction to my honesty was harmful - I was harmed. What makes this even more significant is that I was harmed by therapy.  It is a therapist's responsibility to know what is going on within his or herself, and not let it 'contaminate' sessions.  And without recordings...would I know this? Wouldn't I simply have blamed myself, called myself a fantasist, thought that there was something desperately wrong with me? I've done that before, I am bound to do it again. This is why I recorded our sessions. Without recordings there is no way on earth I could ever process this! He has no intention of ever speaking of it, and though I honestly believe that I should make an official complaint, I don't think he is in any fit state to cope with it.  Or, that's what he want's me to believe? But during our sessions, what was going on in his mind? There were times ...

Coercion.

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OK, this is hard - I need to dig deep. The pain of it is almost beyond my endurance, and yet at the same time I am above, observing, watching and recording. The pain is like wearing a dress made of nettles. And so I turn towards it, embrace it  and connect. Holding out my hand I ask into the empty air, 'what is your name? ' In the roiling blackness of the void I hear the words  'I am your intoxication'.  Gently I ask the pain, what do you need?  My hand touches something cold and rough, like shark's skin. And below me deep under an ocean of tears and a crimson gush of my heart's-blood, the words 'love and soul ' boil, radiant and poisonous as a nuclear flash. The sun turns blue, a 'vision' of Cherenkov light, 'the blue sun' I'd seen in my semi-psychotic state when I had left the therapy room for the last time. "love and soul..." Returning from inside to out, directing my vision to the keyboard, to the soft white light of th...

Requesting my notes.

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3rd February 2024. I would never have believed how difficult it is to write a request to see my therapy notes, if I hadn't tried.  And failed. I just can't find the words. It should be done - it makes sense for me to do this. What gets in the way of just asking, is the second guessing, and the rich cocktail of emotions I'm almost knocked out by; a mixture of sadness, anger and futility. OK, I know it, I know what I'm doing, I'm second guessing how he will feel to read the request, and I don't want to be the catalyst that opens up those feelings. And sure, I'm second guessing that his reply - if he replies - will be to ask me why? I do not wish to answer that question.  Not because I have any need for secrecy, or feel that he shouldn't know why. But simply because it is over stepping the mark. He isn't my therapist, I'm not asking for therapy. I just want to get a 360 degree crash report.  So, if this were me, and a client asked me for my notes a...