The Black Box.

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... Discussion one. Trauma -  28th June 2021. The background. 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

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 behaviors more u

 Only one thing left to do now. To change the publish dates of these blogged words. And leave this blog. 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 it is a therapist's responsibility to know what is going on within his or herself, and not let it 'contaminate' sessions.  But really - surely what happened here is his transference and my countertransference. If  I'd been 'the therapist' I hope that I would have noticed and understood that it was countertransference, because we would have spoken about it! But in his room -I wasn't able to ask him for his feelings or to describe what was happening to him, so I just couldn't get a clear enough picture. But this feeling of dissonance kept reoccurring. His reaction to my recording telling him of my feelings doesn't make any sense.  I hadn't 'broken' any rules when I was honest.  Nothing about his 'moralising' adds up. So - his transference and my countertransference?   I need to get clarity - I needed it then, I still need it

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. Yet. 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 no