Content analysis.
What follows is a list of quotes and references from transcripts.
Plus a bit of rudimentary content analysis
The next stage?
I've no idea what that is, it feels like a cold hand on my heart.
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- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
- Undermining my interpretation of events.
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Laughing.
- Missing a potential safeguarding issue.
- Rings Around The Moon.
Me: ...he (husband) reminded me of the character of the android, the synth (Ash). The android has been programmed with the imperative to sacrifice the crew to get an alien onto the ship, the Nostromo, somehow. We were the crew - my sons and myself...the agenda created the feeling that comes from gaslighting. What is happening is harm it is harmful, and it will destroy. Somebody who does it that way - there is no need for it to be underhand"
He - "When you put it that way, it sounds like you are drawing parallels between the activity of the company and their unseeing agenda, and your husband and his unseen agenda - like there are two agendas going on that are not really connected, but both are operating simultaneously, and both undermine you and your son in a way"
Undermine? "in a way"?! You mean, being powerless to find out when my son was going to be sectioned or where he would be taken, having to put myself physically between my husband to stop him hitting his son, the times I felt bullied, and the effect of being lied to are possibly undermining?
He was prepared to do anything to get rid of us....
Kit's distancing mirrors my husband's attitude. I feel that I will never be able to talk about how I actually felt with anyone...Kit's reaction has an added force of disrespect, he was laughing. I can't let it silence me! I can't curl up and howl in pain. I can't - I will stay rational and assume I made a mistake in how I said it, that he could have understood if I'd used the right words.
Me - "No, it was my husband, he was acting like the synth - Ash - there was an agenda, and the synth actually tries to kill Ripley, the character in the film who questions him, so, you know...because she might find out. So he has to - no has to but...he has to kill her basically. He doesn't want someone getting in the way of the agenda, but meanwhile this thing is incubating in John Hurt's character, and it is going to destroy the whole ship - unless Ripley blows the damn thing out of the air-lock! The company, the name on the van, Prometheus was just synchronicity, something that takes you down to the underworld I suppose? No, Prometheus suffered for giving man, fire, so no, nothing to do with that layer of myth. But for my son, Prometheus is not good - two big burley men dressed in black, putting him in a van.."
My husband tried to physically harm me by putting my life in danger - in a way that could have appeared to have been an accident. And I can't even bring myself to write it. I remember a succession of jolts, and tears come to my eyes as I'm writing now - I still feel it and my disintegration when I got back home to safety, crawling into a ball, simply unable to stop shaking unable to breathe. When the person you believe is your partner, when every fibre of your body says, this man has just tried to kill you, but he's making out that it was just a moment of rage...of course he doesn't want you hurt...and you don't want to believe what you know...remembering the other time, a knife.
Both times he was so angry with himself...
I was the living proof of who he is...
That is how it was dangerous.
And why when I demanded the keys to the house back so he can't get into my home, I was shaking and crying.
I still have his broken knife.
To remind me.
He - "It's strikingly bizarre, isn't it. Why would a company that does that call themselves Prometheus? Can you talk about all of that now as something that happened, rather than feeling its live presence. Does it still have any live presence for you?"
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
Me: So, I was certain that assignment would fail."
He - "And it has"
I passed.
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
- Undermining my interpretation of events
He - "So if you have done all the academic stuff of the course, you haven't done the placement for the course. What's the procedure? Do you send paper work in, now and again? Without actually ever attending?"
Me - "Yeah - you can ask for tutorials, but yeah, we are satellites"
He - "So I've only ever heard of that arrangement before, when somebody ends their course and they haven't got their hours, when the hours are intended to have been done by the end of the course. I've never heard of it arranged so that you would end the course without having done the hours. That seems very strange"
A feeling on his part that I'm covering something up? Again, undermining my ability, and assuming that I've failed?
--
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Avoiding.
I'm clearly in distress:
Me - <pause - I'm breaking> "What you are seeing is...let's call it, 'agree to disagree', if I'm honest..(no I'm beaten I can hardly speak). There it goes <I gesture, indicating putting it behind me> So, I don't know what we are doing tomorrow, but the next day we are going out for a meal.
He - "OK, so it is almost going to be the equivalent of the last day of school where you play games and watch TV"
--
- Undermining my interpretation of events
- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
Me - "...The album is Fear Inoculum - about how personal madness can, I mean that's the next track. Imagining conversations you have never had"
He - "Ha, I'm reading Culling Voices and immediately I'm remembering things that you said to me, about conversations between you and your husband."
I am being subtly undermined. I spoke about conversations that were recorded, and the truth was a lot worse than I'd imagined....
--
- Questioning my ethics.
Me - "Another standard thing ... or not in my terms. You are putting me in a strange place, you are asking me, is person X justified - no, hang on you are not asking that - no, hang on. You are asking me if person X is good! I don't know that! I think this person's actions are not good, they don't serve life, and I personally stand on the side of all beings should be free from suffering"
He - "So you do have a sense of what's right when given a concrete example"
Me - "Are my values right? Again, we cannot know. I can only know my values. You cannot know!
He - "Really? But you just said that you did know. You did know that what person X is doing is wrong!"
Me - "From my point of view, yes. I don't know if it is right or wrong from another's view. I own my stuff, I know what I think and feel, and what I would do. But I don't know if it is right or wrong in the grand scheme of things. I cannot know!
He - "So what person X is doing might be OK then"?
The implication here is that I might believe that bombing cities could be OK...The truth is, I can never know if overall it prevented a worse harm. But nothing makes it 'OK'.
He - "Yes - so you do have a sense of what is right and wrong"
Me - "No, I don't have a sense of what is right and wrong. I only have theories about how it appears to me. I know what I think is right and wrong, I don't know that I'm right or wrong"
He - "What's the distinction"?
Me - "That I don't have the bigger picture. I don't have the totality, nobody does"
He - "Hmm. But you still have to act in the world"
Me - "Yes, so I act. Obviously."
--
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- He avoids emotion.
Me - "Well the surface fear starts to drag in anything that comes close, that's what happens, a contagion. a misapprehension of that secondary fear"
He - "So what does that mean for the 23rd of May"?
I will be dragged out by a force akin to a rip-tide and I can't see anyway to avoid this. I will drown. Seriously, if I heard this from a client I would get out the suicide assessment form. It is all there - 'surface drags in anything that comes too close'. And what does 'she' (me) associate with this? Oh yes, an implacable force, and people being sent off to enact the hope that ECT induced seizures are being good for the brain...coercion.
--
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- He avoids emotion.
Me - "<pause> But there are two parts. The first part is the past and then there is the next one, which is the future <spoken with pain in my voice>" because it is the last time that I shall see you <I feel the tears as hot as sparks from a bonfire, stinging my eyes> and that is a sad thing too"
Kit - "Hmm, yes. What does the colliding of those two events on the same date bring up for you?"
I've told him
Rip tides and implacable cruelty.
---
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- He avoids emotion.
He - "How do you feel about the 23rd of May"?
No! I have said it, it has all been said.
He hasn't heard and I am not going to go into it. I will be swallowed up in the black and bitter waters and never see you again. What do you think that feels like! And what would make me feel able to tell you this - only the belief that you would reply from the heart, not the head...I have asked you to be straight with me. You aren't straight, you avoid.
I have no option but to keep away, avoiding seems the only way.
Malignant therapy? I can't imagine that I'm the only person who has gone through this!
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- He avoids emotion.
Me - "I felt as if I'd been shot through the head, basically"
He - "By what exactly"?
[When I returned to college] I felt as if I'd been shot, overwhelmed by a rush of impressions and flashbacks, panic attacks and despair. Why am I having to explain this to a psychotherapist?
He doesn't ask for the texture, or quality of the experiences?
This isn't about contact...
He -"That sounds concerning that you were there all that time and were on a course and not learning. Or it could be concerning that you are on a course and you are not learning it"
It sounds concerning because I wasn't learning, that tells me exactly what he thinks of me!
--
- Questioning my ethics.
- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
- Rings Around The Moon.
Then Kit asks about my future. My future is not easy to see and I don't want to think about it. I'm keeping my head down, I'm doing the best I can with what I have. I tell it as if I'm exploiting my husband's inertia because the other story, the true story is that I'm terrified of my husband. This is something I can't face until I have enough healing and enough of a wage to live on.
He - "Because one thing you have been very keen on is telling the truth regardless of what it is. and here you are, heading in the other direction because it is financially useful - yeah - doesn't really fit well "
Me - "With your image of me?"
He - "Well it doesn't fit your own narrative"
Me - "Well it does, because that's the role he puts me in....because the alternative is I have to fight"
He - "See I was wondering more, there is a question there about how you see yourself and what sort of direction you want to head in"
Metaphorically I'm on the Nostromo...any kind of contact with my husband is out. Why doesn't he understand...
--
- Not understanding.
- Undermining my interpretation of events.
- Avoidance.
Me - "You said something about 'not being able to put things on the table'.
He - "which table are we talking about?
Me - "Ah, it is your metaphor - not mine"
He - "I don't remember saying that"
Me - "That's fine if you don't remember - but it is your metaphor - about 'not being able to put things on the table. So there is the table, to openly put things upon"
He is blushing...
Me -"As in 'it might be difficult to talk' - without you being able to 'put things on the table'"
He -"See I don't know what the table is, and I don't know what the things are - so I am still none the wiser"
...
He - "So what is it that you want to talk about"?
Me - I don't know what I want to talk about. The table is there - it means that there are no, no-go areas. I don't want to cover anything up. I could put some music on instead - because I don't know what to say, but I don't want to cover anything up"
--
- Questioning my ethics.
- ' it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for.
- He feels accused?
He - "If you are part of an organization, the ethical code that defines your practice is given. and if one wants to change them, then work from within to have a formal agreement to change them or if that is impossible leave. but those are a given"
Me - "Yes but there are human beings involved, and whatever is real is real"
He - "Yes, but I'm still not sure about this ambiguity and uncertainty. You must have known what my response was going to be"
Me - "No, of course not!"
He - "Really! but how could I behave unethically?
Me - "No, I did not think that you would behave unethically - but I had no idea what your response would be. There are more than two options. Well, there are many options within both those 'black and white' parameters!
He - "Well the response which is in line with professional ethics, and there is the response that is defiant of the professional ethics. You must have known that I was never going to do the second one"
Defiant?
Feeling as I do about him is an act of defiance?
--
- Questioning my ethics.
Me - I think you asked a few questions, you said something like normally you would use your skills to bring the hidden things a bit more into the open"
He - "Yes, I was aware of two things very keenly that day; one, that you had put yourself in a very vulnerable position and I wanted to respect that by not treading on places that might have been too painful there. The other thing I was very aware of recalling, was that you were closing the way to a very particular type of exploration. Because you brought up the idea that your feelings might be transference in order to then dismiss the idea"
I bring things up to dismiss them?
--
- Questioning my ethics.
- 'it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for'
- Avoidance.
He - "You don't know anything about me, except for what you know from these sessions, You don't know if I'm heterosexual', or even single"
Me - " I know nothing, I agree!
He - "So that was a real risk, wasn't it"
Me - "A real risk?
On the contrary! A simple I'm gay, married, whatever would have released me from imagining that he could want me too! I assume he is choosing to believe that I fell for his 'therapeutic kindness' - unable to see the real man. But I keep requesting to talk to the real man because the therapist is probably doing the manipulative Kohut thing!
There is nothing therapeutic about avoidance.
He - "I mean not only personally you don't know those things about me, but also ethically. In terms of being on a course training to be a counsellor, and inviting me to break the ethical code if I respond in a particular sort of way"
Me - "It is up to you how you respond. Absolutely up to you. As it is absolutely up to me how I respond"
He - Hmm but what I'm getting at, the invitation was there, you could have chosen not to give me the invitation."
Invitation?
--
- 'it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for '
- He needs to be seen as good?
- He avoids emotion? Defence?
He - "But it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for when you sent the recording, or you wouldn't have sent it"
This theme keeps repeating. 'wasn't something you wanted/hoped for'.
I reply with the truth.
Me - "Ah no, the recording is about truth and honesty. Of course I wanted a different answer, why would I not!
He - "I could give you a list of reasons"
Me - "You could give me a list of reasons why I would not! Why I would not want a different answer?"
He - "Yes"
Me - "That's an interesting one...you could give me a list of reasons why I would not want?
He - "Yes - so foremost in my mind is the possibility, if my answer was different, you being a trainee counsellor on a course already with a track record of having broken the professional ethical code with a therapist in your wake"
Wake is a strange word to use, as if I'd leave him behind and move on to the next...so, he has to throw me over the cliff. And how dare I offer love!
Me - "There are ways to negotiate and navigate, always. To do the right thing within reality, within the truth and within the rules - and that does not mean bending rules. It means working with what is, and that means being clear in one's own heart about what is...because nowhere does it say in the ethical framework people can't fall in love! OK, how long am I going to be a trainee therapist for, I am not a trainee therapist for the rest of my life, and nor am I a naïve sixteen year old in need of protection from predation because I don't know what I'm doing!"
He - "I never suggested that!"
Me - "No, but it feels like that"
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
He: "OK, if you have never had a client for six sessions, if you have never had a client for six months"
Me: "Well I only started seeing people in October last year (3 months ago)"
He: "Yes, yes! If you've never had a client for six months or eighteen months or two years, or whatever it might be. Then how would you know what's possible?"
Me: "I don't know"
He: "When they go beyond six sessions"
Me: "I agree with you absolutely, I don't know"
He: "But you are telling me its of no use"
Oh my, did I say that? I didn't say that? I said I'd needed to find out about crisis counselling, and knowing how to make six sessions effective!
--
- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- Laughing.
I'm talking about deciding to die...
Me: "No tears, no sympathy...Yes, to be in that state I'd reached the point of , sure 'don't turn away' but all sympathy for myself had gone... And that is where I was that night - self abandoning - like putting your self, like an animal, down. And normally I couldn't put an animal down without emotion - so to reach that point; I understand killing from computer games, out of fear or anger, but this was cold. I didn't care. I felt it, sat by the tree; I actually don't care...But the next morning, once I knew the truth - 24 hours later - I felt immensely better. The sky was the sky, the earth was the earth again. Truth matters"
Truth matters.
He <after a long silence> "Did it help that your husband had been hit with a saucepan?"
Making light of my statement...please do not do this.
Me: "I don't know, I'm pulled in different directions about that. But I thanked her husband, genuinely, for calling it out, and he was full of shame.
He: "Well there is something comedic about being hit with a saucepan. But there is also something about taking action, rather than saying 'Oh this is terrible, my world is falling apart. 'You did this! BANG!"
He wants me to think of this as a comedy....
--
- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
- Undermining my interpretation of events
- Not understanding.
He asks - "When you reached the point of overload and handed over to your husband what was that like for you"
I explain to him -"If no one else could do it I would just have had to.
He - "Yes <pause> I know you have spoken often about times when your husband fell short, but I wonder in this situation.
Could it be that Kit is saying; couldn't you be grateful!?
--
- Questioning my ethics.
The first session after he'd listened to the mp3 telling him how I felt about him.
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.
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'm asking to be respected for being responsible and honest.
--
- 'it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for '
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- He needs to be seen as good.
- He feels accused.
- Defence
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"?
Me - "... in a way I feel that I'm being judged, and I want to know what you think... 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"
Me - "Does it not!"
He - "Well you've done a year with me not knowing. But now I know and that might change things"
I don't understand!
How will it change him? 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 thoroughly disempowered, on the verge of a mental equivalent to safe-mode.
Me - "Yes, so that's the main thing. I know I can"
He -"OK"...
Me - " 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"?
This question felt impossible to answer directly and honestly without causing a defensive reply...
--
- He needs to be seen as good.
- Avoidance.
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"
--
- 'it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for '
- Undermining my interpretation of events
On asking how he'd go about teaching someone a specific therapeutic modality. He makes it about me.
He - "Yeah, couldn't think of a single reason why I would. Because that seems like one of those mythical, impossible tasks to try and impart information to somebody who has already decided that it's no use to them. That's...that's an impossible task. And I think well - I may be many things but Hercules is not one of them. and being in the position which is doing something that is nearly impossible - no - I can't see why I'd do that It's about therapeutic principle isn't it. You are only able to give people what they need when they are ready for it. If they are not ready for it. No point, and some things people are never ready for - at least while they are in therapy. And some people become ready in front of your eyes over a period of time. But, that's up to the client, it's not up to the therapist. Certainly not up to me. So no..."
I kind of crack at this point - "Alright!"
We both laugh. I'm clearly being seen as 'not ready, and may never be'...And this is too bizarre for words. I'm not requesting TA as a client. I was asking how he would teach a student.
So, what is here and now?
I feel that there is a sub-text I can't read.
He is telling me that I don't want what I say I want.
Him - "So no I really wouldn't want to try and convince you of something you don't want to be convinced of. That looks like it wasn't the answer you were looking for"
--
- Mixed messages!
- Benevolence
And then he says - "And we have run over, because I just didn't want to stop - so interesting, and I'm so grateful for what you said about language because I really wouldn't have known hadn't you told me."
--
- Mixed messages!
- Benevolence
I say (about Berne's theory) - "It's a kind of dreaming isn't it. A way to divide up reality."
And he says - "It is, because reality always has to be in some sort of receptacle, it's the only way it makes sense"
And here we are, I stand at the radiant heart of it.
This is why I've fallen in love with him.
Not the kind words, not the nice person.
What he possesses is rare.
I think that he may have looked over the edge...it is a different edge to Gendlin's. But, oh my God, I have no immunity. I burn! I repeat his statement reality always has to be in some sort of receptacle, it's the only way it makes sense.
I like the feel of it.
The words are like smooth pebbles rolling around in my mouth, salty somehow.
Sea washed.
I hadn't thought of this before, words as cups, enabling transmission; and the statement is beginning to feel accurate.
And there it is, in my voice. Finally! I ask him to tell me more, that this is a wonderful notion - my sensations of warmth and fascination shaping each syllable I speak, they glow and radiate - transmission - of my real feelings, finally!
And in response he laughs, embarrassment-joy rippling in the air, riding the waves of my admiration
He continues - "You and I standing at the beach, watching the birds swimming! No, flying around. We would probably both recognize the seagulls. But, what are the other birds? If you don't know anything about birds they are just birds. Once you have the concept of language, then you recognize, 'oh a heron' or whatever it might be, there's the receptacle there, a category of thinking. Without that category, it is just another bird"...
--
- Benevolence
He - "If we are going to do this..."
He tells me that he'd love me to really understand Transactional analysis.
--
- Benevolence
He - "Goodness me, it's been really interesting today"
--
- Mixed messages!
He tells me that she sat where I am sitting.
He interpreted her body language as saying '
"I'm not going to accept any love from anyone at all least of all you".
And then he says - 'after three years she reached a point where she 'completely transformed.'
How would you interpret what I've just heard?
He - "And again there's that juxtaposition, I'm coming here for stuff that I want. But don't you dare give it to me. Because it is fear, that developmental fear 'I'm not allowed to be loved, I'm not allowed to be accepted' but I desperately want it. And there's - it's what my supervisor called 'the client's dilemma' which I think is a wonderful phrase, because everybody has their dilemma that they bring to therapy. In other words the internal contradiction that is keeping them stuck - and very often the answer is, 'I want you to help me to heal by giving me what I didn't have - but don't you dare give it to me. Is all this adding up?"
I can never know exactly what she went through. But I can imagine and the word ordeal comes to mind! Three years is a long time and a lot of money to sit here and feel what?
As I feel perhaps?
Was the 'completely transformed' moment when she realized that whatever is going on here in this therapy thing, it is just too messed up and plain too weird to fight against? At which point I like to believe her sanity intervened, flipped the switch and she left! Saying to herself, 'it is time to leave, but do it gracefully and do not under any circumstances let him know what's happening! That is after all, the safest ways out of the client-in-love-with-the-therapist dilemma.
--
- Mixed messages!
- Give with one hand, take back with the other.
- Coffee fueled conversations until 3 am
He says - "But there is something beautiful about language isn't there..."
We are speaking via Zoom.
He says..."I can't quite see but it looks as if there are red roses behind you... who was it...Scottish poet, I can see his face - died young - had lots of babies all over the place, wrote lots of poetry about women but didn't really respect them, clearly - Um, there's a day named after him!"
Me - "Oh Robbie Burns?!
He - "Yes! My love is like a red, red rose - which of course is nonsense in terms of logical positivism, but we all know what it means, it is still meaningful - it is conveying something about somebody's beauty"
Oh no...arrows.
Those words straight and true, fly direct into my loving heart.
He says- "I'm wondering you know - because we've been all sorts of places today - I find this so interesting. On the course do you ever get the chance to have conversations like this?"
Me - "No"
He - "When I was a student we had lots of coffee fueled conversations until 3 am which were very exciting when you are in your early twenties. It was great, and I loved it. and it's a great sadness to me that I've never ever been able to capture it since."
--
- Undermining my interpretation of events
Referring to the previous week's session.
He - "They (things) were really problematic for you during that session"
Me - "Because I was in a situation that didn't make any sense to me. Suddenly I was in a situation that was just...I was asking myself, where has this come from? I am being told that I'm X and Y...OK, what can I say about that? You can tell me I'm X and Y, but it's not going to sit easily with me".
He -"What was I trying to tell you - you were?
So I pause - because I remember very clearly what he said! - "...erm...."
He - "Because I don't remember trying to do that you see"
But I do have the recording.
Has he really forgotten? Telling me I'm 'wearing a mask'? That I'm not really affable and friendly!
That I have 'a need to be contrary'. Basically how he feels about my choice to get to clarity, rather than accept dogma! That 'I'm tangential'. Clearly I don't wish to talk about my assignments. I had explained why! And the worst one, that 'I seem very angry' as I am fighting back tears! I was feeling bereft, lost, rejected. I was in distress, I was trying not to cry.
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
- Not tasking into account the emotional tone of the words I use.
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
He - "Well this is what I was trying to get at with what was happening with our session, because you were talking with great passion about two previous therapists"
Me - "I was talking about how useless developmental theory is when someone is facing nightmare levels of stress and violence - And you are doing it again, you are telling me what I was doing"
He - "That is not what I'm doing at all - is that not what happened last session? You were talking with great passion about two previous therapists."
Me -"I was not talking about them with great passion, I was talking about the process - about what happens in therapy, which is their assumption that they know the pathway to go, and my experience of that is that they have missed the point. And of course that makes me annoyed, but I am not angry at them, they did the best they could do"
He - "But you see what's happening now ..."
Me -"Is that you are missing me out."
The pain of this is unbearable.
He - "That I begin to say something and I'm never allowed to finish, I'm continually interrupted."
Me - "But can you not see that this is actually taking me to pieces at the moment. This isn't a good thing to do, it isn't fair."
He - "What isn't a good thing to do, what isn't fair?
I have just said how I actually feel- this is actually taking me to pieces at the moment. This isn't a good thing to do, it isn't fair - and he wants me to explain why it hurts me?
--
- Give with one hand, take back with the other.
- 'it clearly wasn't the answer you were hoping for '
He -"... It wasn't me doing the contradictions last session, I was constantly trying to get back on track, that's what I was doing in the whole session and everything I said was the wrong thing <pause> now I have an idea about why that might be. But my sense is, if I say it I may be accused of the very thing you just talked of".
I say, 'please say it'
And?
And he doesn't.
--
- Mixed messages!
He - "Just to be absolutely clear - it wasn't we can't work together, it was can we work together and I think the answer is yes"
Truth is, during this session I felt as I was on a plane with a madman who was trying to force open the door with the aim of pushing me out! I felt battered and bruised, as I left the room.
--
- Minimising the emotional impact of what happened to my family.
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
- Undermining my interpretation of events
- Minimising the distress I'm in.
He - "I must say I find it really refreshing to see the mask come off"
Me -"It's just my ordinary self - no mask!"
Him - "You know what I mean - to see the usual friendly, affable you that's presented"
I'm feeling hurt and betrayed by him, and this will be the truth of the future.
Me - "Well that is who I am! This one has always been here too! And it has taken me a lot to get back to here. Mainly it's been getting back to college. It isn't a mask, it's not a mask... OK, if you want to use the term 'mask' let's do Jung!"
He - "See I wonder if there is something in you that likes to be, or feels the need to be, contrary"
--
- Undermining my interpretation of events
He - "See it's happening now"
Me - "Or is it that what you are seeing is me defining something, to get to clarity?"
He - "No, it's contrariness, because whatever I say you will find a problem with it"
Me - "OK, but a problem is a cause for thought, meaning there is something there needing to be found."
--
- Contaminated process...
- Defence.
- He feels accused
He - "Because in the email you used the word 'accused'"
The smoking gun - at last! This is why this session has been this way. The word accused has created all this! I'm suffering from his reaction to that word, this has caused the underlying energy of this awful session - really? This is madness!
Me - "Yes! But I thought you knew that I like to use emotive language! It wasn't like 'oh no you have accused me' it was 'Ah ha!!!! you have accused me :-)"
He - "See this is one of the problems with email"
I hear relief in his voice.
Me - "I thought you would realize that there is no reason for me to use the word accused in a bad way - about you! Why on earth would I feel that way!? But if you want me to sit here and accept everything you say, that isn't going to happen...it's like you imagine a linear path through a subject. But you don't know the destination! And it seems to me, looking at this from a third person perspective, that you have mistaken my emotional content as tangential. But it isn't 'going off at a tangent' it is part of the whole thing - what things spark is part of it!
--
- Give with one hand, take back with the other.
- Coffee fueled conversations until 3 am
- Mixed messages!
And then he offers me The Holy Grail, he talks about 'coffee fueled discussions going on to 3am in the morning' and how much he loved that, and how he has never had it since, and how he really misses it....'
And I'm saying 'let's have it because this would be perfect'!
And he is saying 'if this would be useful to you...'
And then he is talking about how he tried to create this before with other therapists, and it didn't work'.
WHAT!
So what is the name of this raising of expectations in order to disappoint. In this room it will replay sometime future, made more explicit with the additional statement (not a question) "That's not what you were hoping for."
And then.
He asks me - "What do you want to use this time for"?
I've just said Yes! let's have coffee fuelled discussions!
How is that difficult to understand?
Lets talk about it!
What happened? I've just had something I really wanted offered and then taken away!
No, surely not, am I right in thinking that this is - a a Game?
I feel as if I've been thrown over a cliff holding tight to nothing except the bloody invite.
What am I being sacrificed to, or for!
Why 'throw me off the cliff'?
--
- Undermining my interpretation of events
- Rings Around The Moon.
I talk about what happened - I'd been on a trip to Arron. I'd got tickets to see the band that got me through my son's psychosis. They cancelled. I looked for my lost daughter in the streets of Glasgow. I couldn't find her.
He's asking me, 'what was it like?'
One more Portal map, one more weaving straw into gold, one more challenge that appeared to be impossible. And I got through with out breaking or crumpling or giving up!.
He says - "It's still very present isn't it"
I say - "Is it? The memories are clear - present? It is unfinished. But it's me doing the best I can do..."
He says - "So why is there a problem now"?
What? In my family the recitation of disasters was a thing, the more awful the event, the more heroic is the teller of the tale! Regardless I stay with his 'reality'.
I say - "I would like more, the music to play and the credits to roll. For everyone to say to me 'well done'. No one says well done!"
He says - "Who would say ' well done'?
I have already said it - no one will say 'well done' - those were my words! And if I name them? I will break. My family is shattered, the people who would have said well done, are gone. So I answer with who else I would like to say it, and I say how much I deserve the well done!
He replies - "It doesn't sound quite enough"
I think it probably is!
--
- Avoidance.
- He avoids emotion.
I said - "I'm not sure where we go next - anywhere - more time travel. The 'unconstructed space' what do we do with this space? I could ask you, what are your best hopes...
He is taken aback:
He - "What turning the tables and making me the..."
Me - It's not turning the tables, it's a fair question....I'm in a funny position. I could feel uncomfortable about not 'doing' therapy but I don't think I've got therapy to do. But you are a therapist, so if you want to do therapy I will attempt to do therapy. I don't see myself as a client..."
He - "Well this space is for what ever you want it to be"
I reply honestly - "But I don't know what I want it to be, except through asking you what your best hopes might be.."
He - "Well not for anything you might want it to be, but within the bounds of...I was thinking actually before you came , I was thinking in my experience going back to training what are the biggest holes in training. The things you ought to cover and don't. And I know what my thoughts are on that, so if we are going to go down that road, and thinking well we ought to cover X and they haven't.."
'Not for anything you might want it to be' ?
Each syllable a dagger into my heart.
So he knows?
Of course he knows!
Then why has he not said anything!
--
- Not understanding.
- Avoidance?
And as he speaks I remember the moments clearly; when he asked me about my suicidal feelings it felt like what it was, an assessment question - it didn't even feel like it had come from him!
I say - "It is quite difficult in the first session to be asked that. I found it quite difficult"
Again I experience a nothing, his reply is: "hmm"
I echo it: "hmm"
He says - "Because very often - I know this from others - someone who is genuinely suicidal can be very, very good at hiding it and therefore it's something we need to get into the open"
And right now, what is happening here, why hasn't he heard me? I had just said that I'd found it difficult in my initial assessment dialogue with him to be truthful about self harm and suicide. Then he had replied with 'some people are good at hiding it'. So has he heard? Is he talking about me in this moment?
So he knew - at the time?
I ask an oblique question to find out.
I say - "I would be going by instinct, by feel - that I'm listening for the 'ring of truth' as they answer the assessment questions. Would you say that that is how it is for you, it didn't feel right (their tone of voice, body language)?"
He replies - "I don't recall that that has ever happened (so that answers my question - unless he is extremely skilled in sidestepping truth?) I've never had clients who've been dishonest about that...
--
- Minimising my ability as a therapist and student.
He says - "I'm not sure everybody gets to post traumatic growth...."
I say - 'that's why this research is interesting"'
Even if it was only one person ever - that would make it even more interesting!
He - "Or would even couch it in those terms, of learning a lesson from it"
Clearly he is annoyed. I've not agreed with him, and I am persisting in spouting theories that he seems to believe are rubbish. What is behind this, what is behind this despair? That is something I would love to know!
And it is sad that he doesn't seem to hear that I don't think his ideas are wrong, only that they don't go far enough! And if I had permission to talk with him about how he feels in this moment I would say, 'something about the way you speak, gives me the impression that the depth and power of trauma you have experienced is being missed out in how I speak about trauma?
I don't say that.
Talking about his emotions isn't allowed in this room.
--
- Undermining my interpretation of events
Referring to my husband lying to me.
He says - "Isn't that denial of information, which was your experience, information in itself?...But you weren't being given it - what I'm trying to say is, wasn't that information in itself, that you were being denied what you needed. That's information about his behavior""
So welcome to the head f**ck that is psychotherapy. And if you know how to determine when someone who needs you to believe that he is telling the truth, is actually lying, let me know! And this statement from Kit so echoes my current dilemma - if Kit intuitively knows how I feel about him, he isn't giving me the information I need! I'm still recovering from being lied to, I can't take more deception.
--
- Mixed messages!
He says - “In ‘self-psychology' there are ‘transference relationships’ . To know how to address a client you need to know who you are to the client, they came up with the ‘reparative relationship’ to enable them to repair what went wrong for the client…and there is one relationship where someone desperately needs you to disagree with them and for it to be OK…and they need that from the therapist. And ‘twinship transference’ they need to have an experience of you being like them, because ‘if you are like me, you get me’ . There were six of them. What really matters is, know the client and know why they are asking, and know what they are asking of you, and this will help you to know what questions need to be explored”.
Ah yes, ‘who am I to the client’? Implying that the therapist is in effect in role-play, so the basis of the client-therapist relationship is not what it appears, and is in fact warped, deceptive, false. And here now there is nothing that I can do or say to answer this most horrible of questions; is our talking, our laughing together nothing but him earning his money by giving me what he thinks I need - 'reparative relationship'?
I don't know, and I wont know until I'm strong enough to find the answer.
--
- Mixed messages!
He really wanted me to have this cartoon!
He -”There is a wonderful cartoon I meant to print out - it shows ‘the switch’ in the Game beautifully, it’s a beautiful illustration of it. A couple who clearly have just moved house and they are getting stuff out of boxes into the kitchen. And the first panel ‘Darling would you come into the kitchen and help me unpack’ and the second panel, he’s getting something out and he’s putting it somewhere and ‘No! Not there!’ And the third panel, ‘No! Not there darling’ and the next panel ‘No!!! Not there!’ you know in increasingly big letters and so on. Of course, in the end what she does is explode on him ‘Don’t you know anything! Don’t you know where anything is supposed to go!?’ while he’s got a picture out that he is ripping apart…and there's the original invitation ‘Darling come into the kitchen and help me unpack’.
Me - ‘‘So I can discharge my frustration on to you and shout at you"
He - “It has nothing to do with the present tense, it is clearly a game. He was invited in with the ulterior motive. That’s how it always starts. There's a cover story that somebody always tells themself. I mean in the cartoon this is a new kitchen, there is no right or wrong place. There can’t possibly be a right place”
Me - “But why isn’t he saying, ‘where would you like it to be’?
He - “Oh, I thought they were a couple, her being in charge and him being the servant!”
Me - “So if he said, ‘where would you like it to be then he would be a servant’
He - “Well it’s their kitchen isn’t it, surely they are a couple"
Me - “Ah, but she is clearly emotionally invested in the position of this object - clearly she must have somewhere in mind to perceive that it is being placed wrongly. Or he could say, ‘No, I really like it here’ and then they could have an argument. ”
He - “The point is there will be a story here, it’s part of her script, it’s replaying - probably - a parental relationship”.
Me - “But is he not also stuck in a parental relationship…”
He - “No, he just thinks it is an innocent request. But his gimmick is…
Me - “I’m a kind and loving man…”
He - “Of course, of course.
Me - ‘‘So I can discharge my frustration on to you and shout at you"
He - “It has nothing to do with the present tense, it is clearly a game. He was invited in with the ulterior motive. That’s how it always starts. There's a cover story that somebody always tells themself. I mean in the cartoon this is a new kitchen, there is no right or wrong place. There can’t possibly be a right place”
Me - “But why isn’t he saying, ‘where would you like it to be’?
He - “Oh, I thought they were a couple, her being in charge and him being the servant!”
Me - “So if he said, ‘where would you like it to be then he would be a servant’
He - “Well it’s their kitchen isn’t it, surely they are a couple"
Me - “Ah, but she is clearly emotionally invested in the position of this object - clearly she must have somewhere in mind to perceive that it is being placed wrongly. Or he could say, ‘No, I really like it here’ and then they could have an argument. ”
He - “The point is there will be a story here, it’s part of her script, it’s replaying - probably - a parental relationship”.
Me - “But is he not also stuck in a parental relationship…”
He - “No, he just thinks it is an innocent request. But his gimmick is…
Me - “I’m a kind and loving man…”
He - “Of course, of course.
--
- Mixed messages!
He - "There's all sorts of important things in there I think. Not everything that is therapeutic happens in therapy, I mean it can't because the therapist is who we are, and not every therapist can offer everything - and some things are just not doable in the therapy room."
Ah, a dagger has just struck deep into my heart! He is right, what I need from him is negotiation, navigation and probably a separation of three years. At the time of this meeting I was a trainee, I hadn't even begun my 100 hours placement. Now, as a qualified therapist myself, I see this moment very differently. I've felt some clients stepping over the edge of love or limerence with me and I feel at those times the echoes of how I felt this day. I trust my experience of this pain, this day, to make me kinder and wiser.
--
- Mixed messages!
Is he talking about the here and now - me!?
At this point the dark waters go over my head. We most certainly are talking at cross purposes! I speak from where I am.
Me - "I don't see myself as a client, and this is a fizzy grey area, I feel I'm acting illegally. I don't see myself as a client, I think what is most useful for me is to learn from you...so, how do I see you? I don't see you as my dad, do I come over as a child, do I appear childish"?
He - "No - I think there's been a bit of a cross here...."
For me - the heat outside, the darkness in the room, the strangeness of water and cider vinegar - which I didn't accept - and I'm trying to talk about my feelings, because actually, I prefer to talk about how I feel, but I've got it all wrong - and this is my overwhelming feeling - all is wrong. Metaphorically, my brain starts oozing out of my ears, I'm lost, befuddled, can't be honest.
Me - "Wordless experiences are also possible to write about, and they are just as important"...I tried...
He - "And the key thing about that in therapy is that for most people most of the time they will be unaware of the problematic experience as old stuff, and it is experienced that way (experienced as a new thing in the present) because it is fitting something that is pre-conceived and the original conception was conceived long before it became problematic. Again, that's what the article was intended to convey. And so it is important for - and again I want to be more explicit - for you and I to be aware of what our stuff is."
--
1st February 2021 from my written journal:
I was describing to Kit the moment when I first met the cold disdain my husband specialized in. And this is a really painful memory. My husband and I were in a hotel room.
We were hiding.
He had just told his previous partner that it was all over. His family were in uproar. He couldn't face her bewilderment, pain and confusion.
He'd been lying to her for how long? I'd thought that their relationship was over long before! That is what he had told me! She lived in another city, he never talked about her. I was busy, I had other things to do at the weekends, I only saw him during the week.
I was deluding myself?
Or basically he is very good at deception!
As I talked about this to Kit, I was feeling how numb and dumb I'd let myself be. The man I was going to marry was a liar and I'd been duped - who wishes to acknowledge that! And in my mind I was back there in the hotel room. We were watching Total Recall - and what I did, it wasn't even a sexual thing...I touched my husband and for no reason that made any sense to me, he turned away in anger. My shock at his response was absolute. I was powerless, bereft! The feeling he gave out was a cold, implacable, unspeakable rage. Nothing I could say could made it change. No forgiveness. There was no way to undo it, nothing I could do to make it right. I was shocked, bewildered. What had I triggered in him, why couldn't he speak?
I felt as if I was to blame for some literally unspeakable thing that had happened to him....as if someone had poured sewage over me.
As I told this to Kit, the feeling of that evening was seeping in to my present reality like cold, dirty water. I felt ashamed of myself...and as if no one could forgive me. I was feeling as my husband had felt? And how he had made me feel...Intellectually I knew I was years away from there. But psychically, I was there watching this happen to me again. As I described this I needed to be with a 'trusted companion'. Someone who I trusted to be on my side. I was starting to untangle a pattern that would repeat over and over for twenty-five years as I tried different ways to avoid or talk to, or to appease my husband's cold rage..
Talking to Kit I closed my eyes to focus on the sensation, to recognize, to know. And then I looked up!
[From my written journal]
I looked up, Kit's head was to one side, he said "The way you raised your one eyebrow as you described that, I thought..."and a smile widened across his face "minx.". When he called me a minx, his smile, his tone of voice hit me like a bolt of lightning. Waves of shock and pleasure took me momentarily - I was on fire. ."
This bolt of complex feelings can lead to subspace. This is what happened to me. The body responds faster than the mind. Psychologically the power of this can be catastrophic if we do not understand it, the problem is that we are taught that only love or desire can make us respond sexually.
Eros has a subterranean, chthonic aspect, disconnected from love called subspace, characterized by a loss of personal boundaries, the loss of self.
Subspace can be a pure bliss of unity, or a dismembering void. I believe it to be a survival protocol, hard wired into our autonomic nervous system.
But, calling a client a minx?
minx in British English(mɪŋks ) noun. a bold, flirtatious, or scheming woman. Collins English Dictionary.
I imagine that as Kit listened he thought that he was seeing my true intention in just that split second before my husband turned so cold; he probably thought that he was reflecting the real, playful me just before the first clue that my husband when ever I moved or breathed in the (unpredictable) wrong way would shut off, go cold.
Kit probably expected that his 'positive reframing' (?) would help me recast myself as flirtatious in that memory. Instead I experienced shock, misalignment, mis-attunement. He was smiling at me, saying in effect 'you are bold and flirtatious' in response to me in the present.
But for me it was as if he'd been there, and we are now here..and my body responded to him now. I felt that he would have laughed and loved me, enjoying what I did - I would have been safe with him.
And that need to feel safe was so overwhelming. I wanted this man! I wanted the trusted companion who dared go to this place with me, the one who would laugh, call me a minx and not turn away, not be so cruel and empty...
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