The 3lack 3ox.

20th July 2021. So, here it is.  The day after.  I'm never going to forget it, seeing you. You were looking up the road, looking for me.  Waving.  I waved back my most graceful wave and slowly raised a hand to shield my eyes from the powerful sun that was fizzling my world into glitter.  That walk. Oh I was slow, considered, graceful, I am beautiful - I try to believe that.  Feel, it. Know it... Trust. It took me hours to reach you. Slomo. Closer . Then I followed you, simply not seeing.  Totally gone.  I wasn't there.  Really!   I went to sit in the wrong place, therapists always sit closest to the door.  But there are two doors? And so I shifted as you said, 'sit anywhere' but I felt you move to the seat closest to the other door - my wordless interpretation is so fast! Outside of here - the hottest day.  Inside - here - your room.  Wooden floor.  We are cool inside an old house.  You asked me if I wanted ...

14th July 2021. Notes: A book on attachment theory glows under the afternoon sun,  by my left knee,  as I sit here on the sofa. The sun hot on my neck.  I'm so sleepy.  Monday is finally face to face, covid restrictions lifted - and I've got used to this safe distance, this abeyance, this kicking it into the long grass, this avoidance!  And I'm overstepping the mark in my own, quiet way . . But I'm still here, having stated very clearly that I am not your client - and I'm reading your  email - saying that you are so glad I have asked for the sessions to be more in line with what I need...  Genuinely I am in a fog.  If I was in your role I would ask 'my client' about her feelings  unless I didn't want to know!  OK. I'm cracking up!  And I've got to be rational, patient and strong.  And right now start practicing what I need to say.  OK, it goes like this.   I didn't realise that you mattered to me until I felt tha...

A conversation via Zoom. And so it began - very well! He told me how much he had enjoyed our conversation in the previous week, and how pleased he was to continue in this way, so pleased that I'd decided to change our contract, that I'm no longer a client - now a mentee, because to paraphrase ' these sessions could be so much more'. Well, my ideas had been crushed in the previous dialogue, for sure. But the emotional price I was paying was worth it; he had enjoyed talking to me so my skill in conversing with a person as if from within their world-view is validated! And I had learnt a lot about standard, counselling theory and this information would be used in writing my assignments. The cost to me, well it felt more like a challenge than actual cost. I felt as I have felt in many lectures or computer games; that I am not good enough, can't do it, I'm not clever, fast, intelligent or knowledgeable enough and should just shut up, nod my head and give in.  But I do...

December 2024. 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.  They will be published on this blog in 2065. The fascinating thing is, that as I went through the dialogues I became aware of something unknown, unseen! Call it Factor X.  Factor 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, and X - if found - it will help explain why his responses to me w...

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... 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 outline of what had happened to me...

  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...) [+]

  21st February 2024. In the light of this reply, my criteria now for defining ethical behavior and therefore what an ethical therapist would do in a similar situation comes down simply to this; an ethical therapist shows courage enough to state his or her feelings with honesty - and compassion.  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, and noticed instead his embarrassment - blushing - we could have got somewhere better than this. 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...