Stepping through the mirror - the anatomy of denial.
Every so often I think that writing this blog is cowardly! Then I think I should make a complaint to his ethical body. That I should step forward and see how the judgment goes. But then I remember exactly why it is I'm not doing that, and why it can't happen.
And then I start to ask, what needs to happen instead? And it is simple really, I would like to receive an apology.
I certainly deserve one.
When I feel that I am being cowardly, I read his published articles. They don't provide any definitive way to identify the factor X, that led to his robust denial process but there are enough of his statements (things he said to me), expressed through his fictional case study characters, to remind me of the underlying misogyny.
Denial has become one of my favourite subjects as a result of my experiences with Kit - so let's have a brief run through of how denial is used.
Person A tells person B that when B does x,y and z, there is a serious problem.
Person B feels accused...and responds with denial.
If I said, 'Kit, when I left the last session I was practically hallucinating and I wanted to die' his thoughts would most likely be - 'She is accusing me of making her feel suicidal!' I would be, in his opinion, playing the victim so that he 'has to' rescue me. Or, the persecutor, trying to harm him, trying to make him feel guilty, to turn him into a victim.
This pop-psychology- I'm not a fan of the 'drama triangle - has turned up in my therapy room several times, and it is heart-breaking to see the lack of compassion it can engender when people view the distress of others as purely manipulative. The alternative is to regard whatever behaviour, words, tone of voice, as communication. Focus on it being simply an open-channel, and go to the needs and feelings buried under habitual reactions and thinking, to disarm any threat and restore humanity.
I don't think that I used those words hallucinating and I wanted to die in any communication with Kit? I don't think that I ever told him how bad it was! I certainly made every attempt not to show it. Perhaps I should have? He seemed pretty invested in the drama triangle though...even after I'd explained that when we think back on any traumatic incident, we are all three (4!) roles; victim, perpetrator, rescuer, bystander, It is a really hard path to walk, to see intrusive memory as a wake up call; to either go to the police, launch the campaign, and to celebrate and validate one's own courage in getting through...but also to understand self-abandoning, and the addictive nature of pain.
I will copy and paste my letter to him, further down this page.
Anyway, back to the denial process.
Person A says to person B, 'I understand that it was a confusing time, but when you did x,y and z there was this catastrophic outcome of a,b and c and I wish to know that you are aware, and wont do it again...
Person B instantly goes into defence.
First answer: There is no evidence of causality.
- 'Only discredited people would try to make me feel like a victim!
- Prove it!
- Let's talk about why you are accusing me, you have a hidden agenda!
- What's this really about.' ???
Second answer: It wasn't my intention to cause harm.
- I didn't expect that to happen!
- I wouldn't have wanted that to happen!
- I didn't set out to make that happen!
- Intention isn't enough. Someone who uses this argument is denying the truth to themselves as well as you.
- Harm occurs regardless of intention it is called neglect.
- We are all capable of harming others, we are not the ones able to say what someone else finds to be harmful.
- But nor are we bad people if we inadvertently harm others, until we fail to acknowledge and do our best to make amends.
Third answer: It isn't my responsibility.
- I'm not responsible for anything because you could have expected it!
- Clichés such as, psychotherapy stirs things up.
- "Emotions are not illnesses, perhaps you are caught in the drama triangle, trying to resolve a childhood conflict?" See argument one!.
- A game of Precious Vase - 'that's not the answer you wanted'? Meaning, 'You were only hurt because you didn't get what you wanted, and you hadn't engaged with any therapy or else you would have been in a better mental state.
- You should have known that this would happen!
After receiving any of the three categories of answer - do not bring facts into the conflict. This is unfortunately a conflictual process, there is zero collaboration occurring. You have been dumped on, if you can find a way to make things better - do so...but I'm not optimistic.
If the dialogue can be changed into collaboration, both parties need to find their way to recognise the underlying emotions and disarm any sense of threat...by agreeing that they both prefer things to be better.
Dissolving threat is the most important thing...and enough to seriously improve the situation for both parties.
Summery:
The denial process runs thus:
- The person who feels compelled to use denial will create an altered reality.
- It will be made of an interlocking web of denial statements and narratives.
- They will import reasonable arguments to support their unreason.
- They will use deception.
- They will re-frame using kindly terms for cruel words or actions.
- And they will tell you again and again how nice and reasonable they are being...
Now bear in mind all interactions are made of interlocking behaviours, ideas and beliefs. Jung would have described Factor X as a complex, a tangle of unresolved, almost impossible to identify feelings and beliefs, that show up as behaviour that doesn't seem to make any sense.
So of course, my investigations will continue...it is fascinating.
Just to remind myself, here is the 'inflammatory and threatening' letter I sent to Kit.
13th February 2024.
Dear Kit,
When I left your room for the final time. I felt bereft, I needed harmony, mutual recognition, to be seen and heard and respected. Especially to feel trusted - I felt unsafe for feeling as I do about you. I needed it to be put into a safe form. And for all sorts of reasons , that simply hadn't happened .
Most of all, I needed to know what I could do to make it possible for you to suggest a way for ‘coffee fuelled discussions’ - ongoing communication and joy, to continue; because I think I am someone with whom such discussion is often fun, and dare I say, enlightening. I enjoy taking ideas, theories and concepts apart, and of course I always want to go deeper into the discussion. I valued your intelligence and energy, and especially your clarity. I wanted to continue to learn with you and from you.
Ultimately though, this had to be in a way that would be OK for you. I can imagine how you feel about maintaining the boundaries between therapist and client and the queasy sense of unease around this subject. But in truth, I felt disempowered and gagged by those boundaries.
A much needed re-contracting, didn't happen.
When I heard you asking, during several sessions, if coffee fuelled discussions would suit me too? I felt inspired, hope, trust, mutuality. But I couldn’t pay you for this; the benefit of such talk needed to be mutual.
I prize and need equality.
Then when I heard you explain how such discussions ‘never work’ I felt hopeless, powerless actually. When you asked me how such a thing could work I needed to know how you imagined it. It required our cooperation. I needed you to say what would be right for you.
And so to honour my need for challenge and exploration I am suggesting that we return to what we did best; to examine the underlying history and concepts that underpin the work we do. I will be ‘contrary’ because I don’t accept dogma, I chose to ask if ideas hold water for me and if not, why not, as an investigation into properties. I will take tangents, because meaning is implied via relationship, rather than as an intrinsic property. And I suggest such discussion should be by email; perfect for including links, a slow form of communication providing time to think through and refine arguments. I see no reason to shut down, close off, reject or abandon the best of what was.
If you cannot see a way towards this, what would you need to know, or what could I do, to make it possible for you to say yes?
--
As I got no reply to that, I requested my notes.
No reply.
So I said that unless we attempted to find resolution the story of this would be freeware (wrong term! but there you go, I am not the l33t hacker Kit imagined me to be)
Anyway, you are reading it!
His replies of fulmination, rage and accusations, then silence were continuations of the most harmful aspects of four thousand pounds worth of therapy.
His replies didn't bode well for collaboration, or for any useful outcome from a formal complaint.
I think ultimately - as a psychotherapist - he knew that he didn't have any solid basis for his inability to talk with me about the underlying emotions, needs, feelings, and he may have thought that I'd go back on my word not to complain. So he shifted from the professional body he'd been signed up to during our sessions and moved to the one he'd rubbished. This meant that if I'd made a complaint, it would be invalidated, because professional bodies don't share complaints about therapists (to be honest I don't know that...)
But you can only be sanctioned by the one you were under when working with a specific client.
This blog is my response - but hopefully it sheds some light on therapy, what it is and, and what it should be...I hope so.
The answers I'm left with are that I need to practice NVC more (not less) and that I need to get over my loathing of Transactional Analysis. It seems one of the most victim blaming of all the therapeutic stances?
But I've not encountered all of them...
What else?
Well I need to sort myself out!
The only way Kit and I could have got to resolution would be through mediation...But for my own peace of mind, I think that complaints have to be made, and this story made more public.
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