The Corona Borealis.

Plato believed that Eros would take us into a Higher truth and mystery, and Jung agreed. But Freud grabbed the scissors snipping cruelly at Eros until there was nothing but blood and feathers falling around him like rubies and snow.  I am certain that many of psychotherapy's best theories and explanations are a continuation of much older concepts and ideas - repackaged so as to appear new. So when Kit talked about fantasy 'with a PH '' I was trying to recall Ioan P Couliano's book:  Eros and Magic in the Renaissance.  Couliano explains that Eros was understood as the aspiration to transcendental Beauty. Plato places Eros as the link between physical existence and spiritual essence, we fly with Eros. In opposition to this - and Freud is regarded as  the father of advertising  -  Eros becomes chthonic, wingless, primal desire (libido) demanding in an inarticulate way, that the outside world satisfies our desire. To avoid prison the energy of Eros is blocked and redi

When I began processing my therapy sessions last year (2023) my aim was to understand how my feelings for Kit came about, and  why it ended so badly.  And the end really was bad. I don't honestly know how I had the strength to walk out of his room, I felt so defeated, so crushed. To understand and answer these questions I re-entered the dialogues, my thoughts and feelings, and over the year 2023, I documented the therapy sessions 2021-2022. Most of them, not all. Some are too boring, or I accidently missed one out. And they are now being published every Monday - as the contents of  this blog. 2024 is the process part of the blog. The fascinating thing is, that as I went through the dialogues I became aware of a factor X! And isn't X what a black box is really all about? In this case, X is the something, underlying Kit's entrenched beliefs. I can see the effect of X in the dialogues, in the way that it is as if Kit was unable to hear or consider the validity of my theories,

 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...) [+]

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 meet needs. To ask is to ac

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. And it is a therapist's responsibility to know what is going on within his or herself, and not let it 'contaminate' sessions.  There were times when he may have hinted that he guessed? But somehow he could never actually say it or ask me...? How or why is that possible! It doesn't automatically indicate denial though - A supervisor once told me that 'the best therapist never needs to ask a question!' That didn't work out well in our sessions! I believe on the contrary  that asking a straight question demonstrates trust in oneself and the client!  But really - isn't this all  his transference and my countertransference? I pick up his feelings and feel them as if they are my feelings....And I couldn't get clarity because I'm not the therapist!  In his room I felt so blocked, so confined,

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

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

And so I find myself marooned - to stay with the plane crash metaphor. I've just watched Society of the Snow . And as in the film, as in the awful reality of those real events, action must be taken. There will be no rescue otherwise, no getting out.  So what action do I want to happen? In counselling, and between counsellors, what counts as resolution is usually an apology of about a thousand words. Those words need to convey to the injured other, a real understanding of the harm done, and a heartfelt regret. And how I manage to convey to Kit that this demonstration of awareness is appropriate and needed. How to do this? I don't know.  Yet. Do I make a formal complaint? The first option is to get in contact with the therapist and explain that there is a problem, and ask for some kind of resolution to be worked out. If that isn't forthcoming, if the therapist doesn't acknowledge that there has been and still is a problem, then a complaint is justified. A therapist who h

26th January 2024. It is difficult to explain how powerless I still feel about this situation. I can't think for the life of me what empowered could mean. Again I'm struck by the uselessness of understanding . I understand the reasons for the crash. Worse, I also understand what I could have done right - that is a hard thing to deal with! I also understand the truth of the idea - that what I'm not changing I'm choosing. But empowered?  I can't get to an understanding of that at all! I simply don't have a clue. Right now I'm working on The Black-Box.   As close a thing to a real black box as I can imagine, putting the pages I wrote last year together to be stored here as this blog. Does doing this make me feel empowered?  No.  As Huberman said, "Anxiety makes children of us all" . Kit would explain to me how he would recognise and speak to the Child in his clients; and this was something I always found hard to take. Not least because his responses