Falling...

This was probably during our third or fourth session?

I was feeling shame, humiliation, loneliness, and betrayal. Talking about my husband's choices.

As the penny dropped, and Kit realised what had been happening in my life - his response, was "f*** me!" and to mime falling off his chair. 

You know what? 

It was probably supposed to be a comedy moment.

Perhaps.

It sounded like outrage...

It looked like outrage.

And I was grateful.

In retrospect this is another of those moments, similar to when he called me a minx. And both times his misaligned responses really had an effect on me. This one, Kit's explosive expletive - it felt personal. It felt as if it was about Kit, judging my husband. And I felt the sweet sensation of being validated. A part of me was saying, 'yes it really was that bad, thank you for getting it!' 

But you know?  

I don't think he did .

The Brian Thorne uproar gives the clue. 

It was all about professional boundaries.  

Had to write this blog to find that out!

And I remember talking about this, the 'falling off his chair incident, in group supervision. It was way before I'd had time to really think things through. I described to the group how Kit's flash of outrage had been the only thing in the whole two years of therapy that had come close to being therapeutic.

The supervisor, who came from a psychodynamic background looked at me said "and did you do as he asked"? That shocked us all! But this was group supervision, and on zoom - in my living room - I feigned surprise. I laughed. I said no! I put the supervisor's question down to his recent recovery from Covid, as if he'd forgotten the social conventions so necessary to prevent embarrassment and radical truth seeking. Obviously he hadn't...

During the weeks following, I reflected on this. Were my feelings really something to distance myself from, and to deny? That supervision made me start questioning all that happened during the sessions with Kit, and of course, questioning continues in this blog. I'm very aware that Factor X casts long shadows. 

Factor X.

What happened to Kit that made him react so aggressively to any hint of a professional, acting autonomously? 

Certainly my husband's choices were devastating to me, but not because he is a professional! His gaslighting had a profound and poisonous effect on me, fuelling self-attack, I could no longer trust my senses or intuition. Nothing felt real, it was like being engulfed in fog, I felt dislocated inside. Infidelity is one thing, gaslighting quite another. Gaslighting made it unforgivable. This was far, far worse than breaking professional boundaries, and to be honest I'm not so sure that they actually broke professional boundaries? When her husband sent photos to his manager, the manager was very kind to him actually, he had expected her to suspend him. He cried in her office, he demonstrated shame, and he was a valued employee, quite a few years of loyal service.

Did I ever feel that Kit understood how much that gaslighting affected me, or its impact, coming after my son's psychosis and suicide attempt? 

Not at all...

In the light of the Brian Thorne debacle...it appears that Kit was trying to pass a hot potato - in the Fanita English sense! 

I think she has nailed it to be honest.

But persons who become donors of hot potatoes typically avoid self-knowledge. However sanctimonious or "morally correct" they may appear to be, their rigid personality structure does not give them enough leeway to deal consciously with their impulses in order to regulate their behaviour. They may try to deny their impulses, but they experience nebulous guilt and anxiety about them, particularly when there is repressed envy, rage and frustration in regard to those they profess to love. They are stalked by unconscious terror of exploding, of death and retribution by un-named mysterious higher powers...

I really want to know what happened to Kit.

I think it is interesting that there was in Part 4, an imaginary discussion with Perls, based on his writing - it contains the metaphor of exploding! And I'm back to thinking that if I'm right, if the damage Kit has caused me is due to the process Fanita described, I need to discuss this with him - or I need to make the official complaint. 

But, as I explain in the post about denial - conflict isn't collaboration.