21/2/24 Why this blog exists.

 21st February 2024.

Finally! 

As close as we can get to resolution - and instead of a 'dual relationship' that was conscious, careful, considerate and worked out we have a 'non-dual' relationship that is supposed to hide any inconsistencies or problems under the screen of client confidentiality. And we have a non-dual non-relationship that is 'fraught with ethical problems' so, go figure. 

Clearly he doesn't see any ethical problems relating to his response! 

In the light of this, my criteria now for defining ethical behaviour and therefore what an ethical therapist would do in this situation comes down simply to this; an ethical therapist shows courage enough to state his or her feelings with honesty - and compassion. 

I'm relatively happy with his statement, I have never shown any interest in you. 

But a part of me is asking, is that statement 'for the camera'? 

His attitude towards me at the beginning of 'therapy' was not clear - there were three occasions at least when it was possible to interpret his behaviour, as interested. But the fact remains that if he had said that he didn't have any interest in me when I'd asked, instead of acting with incredulity that I could ever think such a thing of him, and on a second occasion when I sought clarity, his embarrassment - indeed blushing - we could have got somewhere better, sooner! 

So forgive me for wondering, is this outraged 'how could you ever think such a thing of me'  - a fine example of what Herr. Freud called a reaction formation? 

Fortunately this is his problem not mine. I simply have but one decision to make. To shut down all communication - as asked - and then to open the black box up for everyone, or do I not do this?

When a client has an issue with the therapist that needs to be resolved, the first rule is to make contact the therapist.

And if the therapist closes all communication down, fulminates and splutters? The next step is a complaint to the professional governing body. The question I ask is this, what is more important? Receiving an apology from him saying that he understands that he handled this very badly. Or, do I make our interaction freeware - in the hope that it might help you to see your way through a similar dilemma, if such befalls you!

I had said:

Option 4 - if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. The anonymized information stream will be archived as freeware.

Kit has been given an opportunity to seek resolution. 

Resolution failed: 

Therefore the outcome of this email dialogue between us is that all posts are scheduled to publish each Monday, and anyone who reads is at liberty to draw their own conclusions. 

Correspondence.

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 acknowledge our interdependence.

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?

Requesting session notes.
When I read your words, 'never contact me again' (16.9.22) after I'd tried to explain how I'd felt harmed 'by therapy' I felt my need for harmony most acutely. The metaphor I wished to avoid, became unavoidable - that of the plane crash. If there really is no possibility of any communication between us, then the only thing left to do is to learn from, and reflect upon what happened as a rich source of information. 

I would prefer communication with you about this as a ‘coffee fuelled discussion’ - as an investigation into navigating powerful feelings’ - I would value a correspondence about what happened in our sessions after I gave you the recording ( see transcript at the top of this page) to see if we can both understand a little better, where we were each coming from. Would you be up for that?

I see it as an ethical duty to retrieve the 'black box', and make sense of the information it contains.

With love,

---

Agenda.

Aim - Resolution.

Proposed action to achieve this

1. Consensual dialogue.
2. Or explanation and apology.

Motivation.

1. Personal.
I value you as a person, for your intellect and knowledge, I cherish the potential of a continuing dialogue. I wish to honour the harm that has occurred to both of us, through gaining information - a prerequisite for the creation of knowledge.

2. Wider context.

Awareness is core to the accuracy with which we interpret another person's motive. The imputed motive organises our perception of their behaviour. I interpret your explanation of 'erotic transfer' in the therapy room as simplistic, dismissive and avoidant. I believe that your surprise when I communicated my feelings about you (to you) indicated a lack of awareness. I had reason to raise the possibility of a similar underlying dynamic in other sessions with other clients - in the past. And unless your awareness is increased, it will happen in the future.

Number, mode and purpose of 3 future communications.

1 - 13th February 2024 - Email+ letter - a request for dialogue.
2 - 26th February 2024 - Email+letter - a request for session notes’ (Under ICO there is a legal requirement to comply within one month of receipt of the request).
3 - 21 st June 2024. Letter - all information will be sent to you..

4 - 21st September 2024 - if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. the anonymised information stream will be archived as freeware.

No other actions are required. // I do not see any purpose in further action // I expect this situation to be resolved by the options outlined in this email + letter.

Wishing you well,

---------------------------

His reply.

Fri, 16 Feb, 10:25

Hello,

I received your hand-written letter and email yesterday. I am unclear about the meaning of some of the contents and need clarification so I know how to engage.

You would like “consensual dialogue” when you know already from my previous emails since the end of sessions that it would not be consensual, so I am puzzled as to what this could mean.

You would like an “explanation and apology” but you don’t state who is explaining what to who, or who is apologising for what and to who. I have already explained myself many times. To explain again would be to repeat myself.

You request further contact, with a schedule I am expected to adhere to, with what reads like a threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.

“21st June 2024 – letter – all information will be sent to you”. You do not state what information this is, why you are holding it, or why it is significant.

“21st September 2024 – if resolution fails then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed. The anonymised information stream will be archived as freewave.” I will take this in parts.

“if resolution fails” What do you mean by resolution? It appears to mean if you don’t get your own way, i.e. if I do not respond as required to your implied threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”. 

“then I rescind my promise that all information relating to our interactions is closed” What promise and when? What does “all information” mean? What does “closed” mean? This appears to be cryptic and threatening language.

“The anonymised information stream will be archived as freewave.” What does this mean? What is an “anonymised information stream”? What does “archived as freewave” mean? Freewave is a data company. Does this mean you have been keeping recorded or typed records of our sessions on Freewave? Does putting it on Freewave mean it is no longer anonymised? All of this needs explaining, as I am having to guess what it means.

“No other actions are required”. Requiring anything of me is not “consensual dialogue” but giving me orders.

Please clarify.

Kit

--------------------------

17th February 2024.

OK...so that did not go well! I thought my emotionally rich language could be a bit much, though it is clear and honest, and it says exactly what I wanted to say. 

But then I gave him 'the agenda' because this is serious..

And he sees it as 'giving him orders'.

I see it as enabling an informed choice.

I replied.

------------------------------------

Mon, 19 Feb, 16:19

Hi Kit,

You wrote:

<<You request further contact, with a schedule I am expected to adhere to, with what reads like a threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.>>

Consensus, leading to consensual dialogue, does not exist between us. If it is to exist, it requires at the very least, dialogue.

You wrote:

<<“21st June 2024 – letter – all information will be sent to you”. You do not state what information this is, why you are holding it, or why it is significant.>>

Information is significant because there is a problem regarding the way that you responded to my honesty, my experience was of coercion.

You wrote:  

<<"if resolution fails” What do you mean by resolution? It appears to mean if you don’t get your own way, i.e. if I do not respond as required to your implied threat. This is not “consensual dialogue”.>>

My preference is resolution via dialogue with the intent of understanding; with the aim of doing things better in the future. This mode of communication includes joy and growth, curiosity and change. 

If dialogue with you remains impossible, there can be no growth or change. I will instead be performing an autopsy - on 'dead' information. Suffering and frustration are not worth anything, they harm, not help. 

Remember recommending Jstor to me?

Aron Swartz?

Freeware derives from hacker ethic - the belief that information is a form of wealth that no one should be deprived of. 

I'm not the only person to have fallen in love with their therapist - Eros, has the potential to kill. This makes it a legitimate subject to share in a way stripped of personal identifiers.

You wrote:  

<<“No other actions are required”. Requiring anything of me is not “consensual dialogue” but giving me orders.>>

My apologies, Kit, for using words in a way that causes you to feel threatened, and ordered - and indeed coerced. But nor do I believe that life is a zero-sum game, in which for me to win, you have to lose, or for you to win, I have to lose. Preferences are not fixed, our wants can and do change.

With love,

+

The definition of coercion.

"Being forced to enact even a true theory, against one's will, is psychologically indistinguishable from - and therefore exactly as harmful as - being forced to enact a false theory". Sara Fitz-Claridge.

----------------

Tue, 20 Feb, 10:03

From Kit:

You have now sent me 2 emails that do not answer my question.

Your letter read like a threat: do as I say or else ... Or else what? You have still not stated what, only more cryptic messaging. This is deliberate vagueness, of course. You state only that you are akin to a hacker and: you will share information - what information? where will it be shared? how will it be shared? with who? as freeware - I have no idea what that means: you will create a programme that spreads information from our sessions, breaking therapist-client confidentiality? 

Do not apologise for "using words in a way that causes [me] to feel threatened, and ordered - and indeed coerced" when that is exactly what you are attempting to do.

---

20th February 2024.

I honestly don't know what to make of his reply. All I can be sure of is that he clearly has no wish to understand what might have been harmful in his approach, therefore he has no intention of asking himself what he could do to improve. 

I'm fortunate to have had this experience, and rest assured I would not treat any client as he treated me. But also, if someone wanted me as a therapist to help us (because therapy isn't one person) to resolve a crash, I'd be negligent not to step up and do my best.

I'm saying that his conduct breaks our ethical code.

Now I don't know which of us is right - there are many FUBAR theories in psychotherapy. But you gentle reader can read my account of the sessions and decide what you think. I am sorry that we don't have the whole thing, it would be better to have his point of view too. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do.

So, I was rattled by his tone, actually....here is my reply,

------

20 Feb 2024, 13:26 

I will attempt plain English.

"

"

"

"

"

Right.

Breathe...

I am not a hacker, this idea is almost flattering but...I have a compelling image of myself now being led to the dunking stool and if I 'drown' I'm proved to be innocent.

- My ability to code is confined to writing webpages using xhtml, and using Quake engine console codes, as I used to write 'walkthroughs' for 'Quake engine games' 

- hence I needed to:

• a. use console codes.
• b. write xhtml.

-  Using code  isn't the same as designing and evolving code. I have no idea how you can reassure yourself that I know as much as a fruit fly about writing code.

- The concept of 'freeware' derives from 'hacker ethic'.

- 'Hacker ethic' was described in a book by Pekka Himanen.

- When I use the term, I mean the belief that 'information is  analogous to wealth, and that no one should be deprived of it.

We are now on the subject of who owns information, and how information is shared.

Back to Mr Swartz, and Creative Commons copyright.

The term - 'Share information'.

Information 

- in this specific area information means, but may not be confined to:

My point of view, my knowledge, my thoughts, opinions, insights, I am 'the creative' so to speak, and unless I ask for money, the information I share is 'freeware'. 

Share.

- allow to be in the public domain.

- format undecided.

breaking therapist-client confidentiality.

?

Please explain.

-------------------------------

(I asked him to define confidentiality because our sessions were conducted with a standard therapy agreement. This requires him to protect my confidentiality it is not a reciprocal agreement. A client can say anything at all about a therapist. 

His contract says nothing about my limitations. It is well understood that people receiving therapy are at liberty to share any or all of it, whatever they wish, and how ever they wish. And this is important - because there is a power dynamic in favour of the therapist regardless of how much the therapist pretends otherwise).

I had promised him 'confidentiality' but I now see it as desperation and panic on my part. It absolutely should be blown to bits.

14th February 2022.

Me -  "And it was hard. But it's OK, hard and difficult are OK. So what's the best way to manage something, I have to be truthful, otherwise...but you talk about the ethical code! To not have told you, by my own standards, then I'd be breaking the ethical code. So what's the alternative? Find another therapist, well I can't particularly because what do you think would be uppermost in my mind? Dealing with this! I can't talk about this with another therapist, I know we all have confidentiality 'vows' but this is between I and you. But coming back as a client, how could I come back as a client! I couldn't "

------------------------------------------

Wed, 21 Feb, 20:10

From Kit:

After my email of 16.9.2022 telling you not to contact me again, I did not reply to your following card, email, letter, email, and another email. I only replied to your letter/email of 15.2.2024 to understand the meaning of your threat. 

Now that I see you either:

(i) don’t have a completely clear idea of what you are threatening me with or 

(ii) are not willing to tell me, and that you have confused matters by not understanding the meaning of freeware, this conversation has served its purpose.

Ethical psychotherapists and clients or ex-clients do not have a non-therapeutic relationship of any kind – friendship, financial, professional, or romantic. That would be a dual relationship, and fraught with ethical problems. I draw a clear line and do not make exceptions, nor should any good therapist. You should have known this as a principle from your course. You certainly knew it from me, as I repeatedly told you. I have never shown any interest in you, other than the appropriate interest of a therapist to a client. To tell the story any other way is a fantasy, a fantasy that is clearly making you very unhappy. Let it go. 

Do not contact me again.

Denial.

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, so unable to ask him for his feelings or to describe what was happening to him, so I just couldn't get a clear enough picture.

The awful feeling of dissonance kept reoccurring.

And when I couldn't stand any more of it and was clear about my feelings, his reaction was to explain over and over that he hadn't known, and how could I ever imagine that he could feel that way about me!

Reaction formation.

I need to get clarity - I needed it then, I still need it!

So I have just written to him:

I value you as a person, for your intellect and knowledge, I cherish the potential of a continuing dialogue. I wish to honour the harm that has occurred to both of us, through gaining information - a prerequisite for the creation of knowledge. 

But.

Awareness is core to the accuracy with which we interpret another person's motives. The imputed motive organises our perception of their behaviour. I interpret your interpretation/explanation of my feelings as 'transgressive' as simplistic, dismissive; and your refusal to talk honestly, as avoidant. 

I believe that your surprise when I communicated my feelings about you (to you) indicated a lack of awareness. I have reason to raise the possibility of a similar underlying dynamic in other sessions with other clients - in the past - and unless your awareness is increased, it will occur again in the future.  

Can't say that I like my tone of voice, but what if I am correct?

Coercion.

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 the screen. And I know, with certainty that I'm once again connected to the layer of  ultra-strange I experienced before, way back when this all began. That I am gifted once more with the precious third vision, when songs condense half glimpsed impressions, sensations and knowledge. Telling me more than I wish to know - visions intrude, describing in metaphor something unknown, in a twilight language of image and movement, and overwhelming sensation.

I am returned to a time of warnings.

No longer can I attribute this to stress. I no longer feel as if my mind is cracked into a thousand, fragmenting mirror shards now almost two years away from the last episode in the breaking up and breaking apart of my life. [+]

And the song that has coalesced and condensed, is not a good omen, as I hear it flavouring and echoing what I dimly perceive to be underneath, this is the reality I believe myself to be within - as a consequence of beginning a process of requesting my therapy notes. 

I'd sent Kit (the therapist) an email to say that I was thinking of doing this, two weeks ago.

And - no reply.

I sent a hand written letter that arrived on Thursday explaining that I will send a formal request next week - that I seek resolution.

I received a reply. 

Behind the apparently calm language he uses I hear far, far more, and this song - MTT 420 RR - grabbed me by both shoulders, turned me around, away from the sky, away from the earth to look directly into the storm ahead.

A long, long time ago I was taught this definition of coercion:

Being forced to enact even a true theory, against one's will, is psychologically indistinguishable from - and therefore exactly as harmful as - being forced to enact a false theory.

This is the measure I used when my son was threatened with sectioning by the mental health team if he didn't take his SSRIs and it is the explanation of what is happening when one is suffering gaslighting. 

Coercion occurs when one has to enact a reality that makes no sense - 'or else' something undefined but awful will happen. 

The mental health team could not respect my son's justified fears, and threatened him with sectioning for 'non-compliance'. My husband could not bear to see the effect of his lies on me, and so he made out that my pain was impossible to understand. 

Because I thought that he was an intelligent man I tried to explain it...but he didn't seem to understand.

So I'd explain it in different words

Which gave him permission to tell me that I was treating him like a child, and that I was imagining things. And how there was something wrong with me because I kept explaining things that didn't make sense, to him, 'over and over' as if he didn't understand.

Coercion will happen when there is a power dynamic one can't easily walk away from...a sense of being trapped by bonds of loyalty, of love, or by threat. It creates dislocation, a tearing of self rupturing from self. 

And then erasure - which is probably a safety override...

And it feels like that now, again...

It cannot be impossible for a therapist to understand that I want to get to clarity, to seek resolution. And as he imagines me reading his email I imagine him saying, 'that's not the answer you were hoping for' 

And telling me that I'm not listening.

But I think I did, and I think I really am...

Who knows!

The way out of a conflict between incompatible theories requires both people to truly want something better for them both and to really want each other to be happy; to talk, to play and then find a different way for both of them to proceed, one that feels good and works. 

The last session felt like he was glad to be getting rid of me. As I left I'd had enough of seeing exactly how powerless I am and I 'kept my dignity' but I left the room feeling psychologically beaten, and bereft of strength and courage. I knew that no one would hear, or catch me if I fell - I left that room hallucinating, almost unable to walk...because I had complied, I did what I had to do - I appeared to have kept my head.

I think overall, there is quite a lot to be said for embracing a full ANS meltdown (autonomic nervous system - fight, flight, panic, fawn, freeze...) when grief and loss really are too much. The pain is real, it deserves to be honoured - to contain it, to have to act as if it isn't happening is again a safety interlock. It is like putting the experience into cryo, for revival only when things are safe enough to process what happened.

It preserves the pain. 

It's stuck, frozen, intractable.

It had to be that way because to demonstrate that the pain is a result of how a 'health professional' has behaved - will not end well. I want this to be understood - I left 'with dignity' only because there was a threat of worse.

And when ever I've been forced to keep silent, I don't.

As a therapist I will never agree to believe that pain should be treated as if it is inevitably stuck, frozen, intractable.

If he choses to behave as if there is nothing: nothing happened, nothing to happen, nothing can happen...what do I do?

Requesting my notes.

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 about them - I have no problem with offering the truth. My answer is, 'the sheet of A 4 I wrote things down on during the session has been destroyed. I will copy and paste the notes I keep for my records to you, and I hope that you get in touch with me if there is anything in there that doesn't make sense or I've got wrong. If there is I am happy to change it'. 

I'm not going to suggest that we sit down together and go through the notes. But I might ask if they would like to do that. 

My inspiration for how to practice is a supervisor who wrote something I felt could be detrimental when I was in placement. I requested that she changed her wording, and she simply apologized and changed the wording. 

No drama - gold standard! 

5th February 2024.

Email:

Dear Kit,

This email isn't a formal request.

This is a notification, to let you know that I'm thinking of requesting my session notes from you. 

I will let you know my decision at the end of February.

What next?

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 hasn't received a request for resolution from a client and is aware that there may well be a problem, is unlikely to get in touch with the client. The jury is out on whether a therapist has a duty to get in touch when there has been, what Gestalt practitioners call a rupture. A lot of therapists believe that once therapy is over then staying well away is the best option;  it is framed as maintaining boundaries, and preventing further upset.

But therapists who have experienced the unresolved rupture as clients themselves, tend to feel as I do. That if a therapist ignores the situation, the client is left - high the Andes - contemplating very uncomfortable choices, not as awful or as difficult as those made by the passengers of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 - but for me, it is almost that abhorrent to complain.

This year blew in with the energy of The Avenging Angel - Nemesis. It is a paradox that I spend quite a lot of time exploring a client's anger and sense of injustice, with them; but I know I'm failing to do it for myself. 

I really don't want this feeling or energy.

The Black Box.

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 to my emotional content, were usually intellectual. 

But also because this thing about the Child, has an emotional content and history of its own that I'm really not comfortable with.