"Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose". 8th November 2021.

'Chit chat' he talks, tells me his news. 

He starts with 'is there anything that you would like to explore' 

and I reply with the same question. 'Is there something that you would like to explore?

Adding 'or I will just ramble' .

Meaning I will be Tangential....and that wont do for you!

He - There is something..."

And he talks about the clients for whom therapy is really at an end but they still arrive each week to talk about their latest expedition to the supermarket. 

Not a good sign.

Why is he doing this - he's the one doing chit-chat, not me.

He - "There is some reason that is keeping them there, yet there doesn't seem to be a subject - and it occurred to me that obviously that isn't quite your situation here because of the course - the mandatory therapy..."

OK, here we are again!

The door to the plane - he is trying to prise the door open! 

Why doesn't he speak plainly, I feel pulled into guessing the implications of his words. I'm thinking that surely this is because he perceives how I feel about him, in his heart, in his very bones. And he can't, wont talk about it?

As much as I empathize, it is horrible being on the client end of this!

So no I don't talk about light and fluffy things, I was trying to talk about memory last week...then had to change tack to something less neurobiological!

Whatever.

Isn't this all another way to say that he wants me gone?

But I would think that, because catastrophe is so much more attractive to the mind!

Right then, being as I don't know, and it isn't my role to ask the questions I'm just going to stay on the surface. He's going to have to work a lot harder on putting his feelings into words if he wants me to actually know what he thinks. I wont play guessing games.

He - "Sometimes I think the subtext is in what isn't said, in other words if somebody is paying for sessions  and they are talking about seeing their aunty and how full the shops were the other day, what are they avoiding? And they are still coming, and they are still coming. What are they avoiding? That's something that is worth asking directly I think -  'I notice that we are talking about...' and 'I get the sense that that really isn't why you are here' you know, there are all sorts of ways of addressing that"

I ask - "Does that usually work"

He - "yes <pause> yes..."

Me - "It gives them permission to talk perhaps"

He - "There is also something about the subtext, because the reason they are here <pause> may not be to do with anything you are talking about - It's back to that thing I've spoken about before, 'who am I to the client'. And what am I providing that they can't get anywhere else"?

He's said 'they are avoiding saying something' 

I certainly am!

And I've said 'they need permission to talk' 

And I certainly do!

I wish I could feel safe enough to tell him, but I really don't.

So I'm talking about an assignment, for my other course. I begin with the notion that Freud derailed his patient's entrapment in the inexplicable, by making it explicable with a powerfully shocking explanation that could never be tested, or ever talked about by the patient with anyone other than Freud!

Actually I see Freud as a great showman, rather like Charles Dickins! Freud's shocking narratives sold books, and filled lecture halls. And his words have made me laugh out loud so many times! 

An example:

Our patient gradually learns to understand that she has banished clocks and watches from her room during the night because the clock is the symbol of the female genital. The clock, which we have learned to interpret as a symbol for other things also, receives this role of the genital organ through its relation to periodic occurrences at equal intervals. The special fear of our patient, however, was that the ticking of the clock would disturb her in her sleep. The ticking of the clock may be compared to the throbbing during sexual excitement. Frequently she had actually been awakened by this painful sensation...

Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (p. 157). Kindle Edition. 

Throbbing clocks - oh my! Good to know (I'm being ironic) that Freud's patient finally gave up her positive denial and mocking doubt, and accepted his interpretation:

In the working out of the interpretations I had to hint and suggest to the girl, and was met on her part either by positive denial or mocking doubt. This first reaction of denial, however, was followed by a time when she occupied herself of her own accord with the possibilities that had been suggested, noted the associations they called out, produced reminiscences, and established connections, until through her own efforts she had reached and accepted all interpretations.

Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (p. 156). Kindle Edition. 

Why was she in therapy?

A nineteen-year old, well-developed, gifted girl, an only child, who was superior to her parents in education and intellectual activity, had been wild and mischievous in her childhood, but has become very nervous during the last years without any apparent outward cause.

Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (p. 155). Kindle Edition.

She had become nervous for no apparent reason, but it was all fine once she accepted Freud's interpretations. 

Which sets me off talking to him about the alternative, to create a space in which a client is able to explore their edge of awareness feelings. This was Gendlin's work, to enable a person to sense the resonance between words and their inner sense, their wordless thinking process. 

And right now I'm challenging Kit's view of the therapeutic interaction. 

I sure feel subversive. 

And heretical. 

And through his words I think I'm hearing that he doesn't understand edge of awareness, he imagines it to be 'lightbulb moments' those flashes of insight when a person suddenly gets why they think in the way they do, or why they did x,y or z. 

But that isn't edge of awareness.. 

Anyway I agree with him - rather than explain. Because if I said 'no, edge of awareness is closer to the process Jung used when he wrote his Black books (later to become the Red Book)' we wouldn't have got anywhere good.

I agree with him, so he agrees with me. 

And on we go talking at 'crossed purposes' and getting on really well. 

Or perhaps he is hating every second? 

I will never know.

I ask him about Wittgenstein's 'Language games'. "All language undoes itself" as a hint and commentary on our process. Latter - after a brief diversion around Logical Positivism and postmodern foolishness.. 

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. Red, red, roses are emblematic of rich, sensual love. But my red roses are poppies, the emblem of hallucinogenic - death like - painless sleep / mother of morphine. Arrows...needles. I gather my self, reconnect psyche, body, pneuma...and tell of Robbie Burns using a diamond tipped pen to engrave poems on pub windows. Granted, this may seem tangential; far from the numerous meanings enfolded in the red lips of the rose with its connection to the twenty-two paths between the sephirot, the totality of experience - the discursive paths traversed to unite the shattered worlds...

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,

Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir

And tumult of defeated dreams...

WB Yeats.  

With Yeats in my mind we end, talking about with Francesco Petrarca, not Ficino or Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and certainly not Yeats.

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?"

Neoplatonism?

No - it has not come up as a subject during my training - and yet its concepts underlie so much of what we are taught...!

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."

OK, well I've done my very best!

 WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,

Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

 

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

 

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,

Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

WB Yeats. 

1st November 2021.

He - "How are you"?

Me - "I'm fine..."

And I would say " Fine! Hey how are you"? 

But I don't. 

I've been told that I'm tangential, and if I talk it will be labyrinthine; long, coiling, discursive. 

Tangential. 

His silence, is wide open waiting. 

Even though I do this silence thing myself too, I feel obliged to fill it.

I go full tangential - I'm talking about episodic and autobiographical memory, and the work of Tulvig and I know that anything like this is considered cold, and CBT, and he will see it as tangential to the relational work of therapy. 

But I have assignments to write, and I'm chasing Evan George's statement that 'our' work is to help people create future memories. I love that idea, future memories! That we step through past, future, present - to find the better in the past, to place instances of good memories into a functional sequence, coherent and believable and possible. Using memory is such rich work! This is fundamental to how we construct 'I' 'Me', 'Us, relationship, belief and meaning. 

He doesn't join in. 

I change tack.

I'm talking about seeing the film version of Frank Herbert's Dune.

He - "So who was the character that you were likened to by your teacher"?

Me - "Jessica..."

He - "And who is she..."

Now, I'd got the impression from his initial response that he had read the book? In which case, how would you not know who Jessica is! I'm assuming that this is some kind of Kohut tomfoolery and head into comedy mode - again - as I say that I hoped my son would be the Kwisatz Haderach! 

He doesn't join in.

We join together on Marx, via the phenomenon of how people suffer exploitation via mythologies that mediate and control who has power. And then he brings it back to memory, and we are talking about how stories fill in the gaps, often creating what seems to be a cover story. And the moral dilemma when a person's cover story doesn't correspond with anything the therapist considers ethical. 

My answer is to work with the story - always! 

But I'm curious what his version will be. 

So I ask.

He - "The difficulty comes if you recognise that the framework in which somebody puts their experience is in itself problematic"

Me - "Could you say some more about that please, could you give me an example of a problematic framework"?

He - "Well if a client's way of life involves visiting certain websites and identifying scapegoats, and they are going to tell you that that is really helpful because now they know who to blame - then what do you do therapeutically?"

I'd just ask them what difference it makes for them to know who is to blame, and how it helps them, and then ask how else they can get those moments in more positive ways. But I'm only going to be talking about this if they say that there is really is a problem here...otherwise, I would be making a value judgement about their life. 

I don't say that.

Me - "Thank you for clarifying. Yes...what do you do therapeutically?"

He - "In my experience it doesn't come up that often, but it does come up. Then it is a dilemma when they are absolutely hell-bent on convincing you. And they don't think that the therapeutic space will work unless you are convinced - then we are into very tricky territory."

Me - "There are two things here. Their explanation of the cause of their discomfort, which you can hear in their diagnosis and their cure for the problem. And then secondly their need for someone else to confirm it. That for me is the curious part."

He - "It is what Heinz Kohut would call a twinship transference need, in other words the client needs to think that the therapist is a person like me. A person who 'gets' me because he or she is like me. Now some people don't have that belief and some people do. And if you do then if I know that its all the Xs fault, then I know its all the Xs fault as well. The reason Kohut called it a transference need is because it is about developmental deficits. So somebody as a child felt as if no one understands me, no one gets me, no one knows what it is like to be me, and nobody really made the effort to have the child feel as if they belonged, then that's going to become a chronological need for the person. And a person like that is likely to think that their therapeutic needs are going to be met by having a therapist on the same side as them - which of course we want to be anyway - but that will mean very particular things for that sort of person. 'I know what's wrong with the world and you do as well don't you - it's all the Xs fault isn't it' and then you are in very, very difficult territory".

Me - "Yes, it is very difficult...what do you do?"

Oh! I'm doing twinship...

I don't say that!

Instead we both dissolve into laughter!

He - "Well I mean there is a book in this isn't there! A very tortured book I think that ends with - well, here's a few good ideas in here but there's no good answer to it! - I mean when somebody wants to tell you that they know who is secretly running the world and they want you to agree, well it's a matter of integrity isn't it"...

Me - "Ultimately though...it is a person's explanation for what is happening to them"

He - "But I think that there is something very important emotionally going on, which is 'I feel isolated in the world and I don't want to feel isolated. I'm one of the very few people who know the secrets of how the world really works, and most people don't know. And I don't want to feel isolated. So agree with me...' I think that is what is really going on....it's a symbolised re-enactment of their childhood experience. 'I am in this family, and people are against me, and no one even notices me the way I want to be noticed'. Becomes, 'I am in the world and the world is malevolent and I'm not even noticed in the way I want to be noticed' it just transfers across, so they look for the therapist to be an ally - so that they are noticed by somebody who knows X is 'controlling everything' " 

Or do they simply feel that now they know the true state of affairs it is abhorrent for them to watch 'innocent' others suffer? And my task is to hear and reflect what they can do that will do good and not cause harm,

Me - "But in terms of interaction - I'm assuming from what you have said it would mean that you couldn't work with them"?

He - "I have worked with clients like that. It's really hard going....The work, as far as I'm concerned is exactly as I understood that you were saying before therapeutically. That is, helping the client come to the understanding that how they are symbolizing their experience is a core experience, and how that is being re-enacted in the world. I mean these are beliefs, of course. Which are reinforced by the people they choose to associate with. And you are coming in and challenging that potentially, by saying 'Well I don't think it is X' or actually you don't need to say that, just not agree with them - if that's what they are looking for. And in my experience it is possible to go as far as getting someone to recognise that was my core experience, and what I'm experiencing in the world now is replicating that"

Unless of course their perception of reality was correct and your assumptions about their assumptions were incorrect? The only question that matters is, do they intend to do something that will harm others as a consequence.

No, I don't say that.

Me - "So it would be a focus on emotional tone, texture."

He - "Absolutely, you can do that much. Taking the next step to say ' and therefore there is a question mark over whether all this conspiracy stuff is actually true'...that's the hard bit. Because that's getting them to recognise that they are replicating, but going the next step to say 'does it feel true because I'm replicating  something that was true, or is the replicating replicating something that was real, but now isn't real'? - that's the hard work"

Unfortunately new and fearful realities in the present that are too different to anything a person has previously experienced can only be understood by them in terms of what has come before - this is something Aby Warburg called cause projection -  until a new understanding is created the present inevitably feels like replication! And there may have been much more going on in the original scene too...

No, I certainly did not say any of that!

The impossibility of truth. 25th October. 2021.

As if I've stepped into in a spider's web.

I dare not move...

That which creates dizzying flights, 

Desiring the moon...

Will bring instead my

Destruction.

As a fox.

I run!

The hounds see movement.

A flash of red.

On fallen leaves,

Darkens their teeth and matted fur 

The awfulness of the last session.

Frozen, and torn.

Gives

The death-blow to 

Truth.

He -"So, two weeks ago, what happened?" 

Me -"My first thought is - is this a good idea going back to what happened?

He - "Why wouldn't it be a good idea?

Me -"Why wouldn't it be a good idea - so the aim of this is what?"

He -"To find out what happened"

Me -"So from my point of view, you had a list of possible things to do, you said 'symbolization' and I said yes! And you said emails and contracting, but was that really one of my questions? I know we had talked about it before in a previous session - so I replied that I didn't have any questions about that -  it was your concern, not my concern. So we were talking about your concern being put over by you as if it was my concern. Basically you needed to say that you have a problem! And not go around the houses, I remember saying this to you before that I prefer things to be straight and direct."

He - "Well that's what I thought I was doing"

My misperception?

Regardless...

Me - "This is my memory of it that we are talking about. And this is my perception of it. This was the beginning of it - do you see now why I said it's not a good idea to talk about this? Better to accept that problems resolve when you go in the direction that makes most sense..." 

He - "It struck me during the session particularly when I thought about it afterwards that it was important not least because some things became very clear to me, and an example of why things seem to be problematic because you were talking of...

Me -"I need to stop you there. Things were not problematic for me, they were problematic for you. This is a problem for you."

He - "They 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? 

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'.

His interpretation of my wish to get to clarity, rather than accept dogma! 

That 'I'm tangential'.

Clearly I don't wish to talk about my assignments.

And 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 - how does that appear to be angry?

I mean the whole implied -perhaps you don't know anything about the therapeutic contract - seemed more than a little disparaging of my education (I'd been training for four years at least, by then). I was annoyed by that, but once I'd realised how awful this conversation was going to be, I felt myself losing any capacity to be OK...This was all the worse because I had thought that I'd got us into a more ethical position (in the light of my feelings for him). Because a mentor-mentee 'contract' felt less hierarchical, more flexible, to me anyway!

So I pause -  because I remember very clearly what he said! - "...erm...."

He - "Because I don't remember trying to do that you see"

So what was he was trying to do? I'm assuming that in his mind each label - contrary, tangential, angry, is a rational and objective identification of my process. And specifically, this knowledge is useful for us in the here and now in some way?

Whilst in my view, I'm hearing an intellectualisation of his emotional reaction to me not agreeing with everything he says, and his confusion as he suffers a subliminal perception of my feelings for him!

And instead of accessing emotions, using imminence, he distilled into a pointless philosophical diatribe simply because of his inability to just name his own feelings. If he is aware, clearly he does not have a good way to deal with Eros in the therapy room! 

Perhaps I should be grateful?

It could be worse?

Me - "OK, so you must be assuming that you are pointing out an undeniable, absolutely true reality - that I am contrary; that if you say something I have to contradict it because this is something I have to do without any thought or concept behind it, as if it is just as a reaction? That's what I thought you were saying to me. You did say it several times".

He - "That that is what keeps happening, yes."

No contradiction to my statement that I think he sees me as acting 'without any thought or concept behind it, as if I'm unconscious and unaware.

Me -"And this is a problem from your point of view"

He -"A problem in communication, surely.

Me - "Not normally - I mean I know that sounds like it is contrary, but is contradicting people a problem in my life? No, it's not."

I don't usually play the gender card, but quite a few men have told me - that men don't like being contradicted by women. They tell me this as if it is a revelation. But, having been a woman all my life I have seen how women are taught to keep any thoughts and opinions, that may bring conflict,  to themselves. 

So never speak up, or else. 

We have to teach ourselves how to break the rule. 

I learnt it in the NHS, consultants may be loud or quiet, and they may also be plain wrong sometimes. Speaking up really is difficult to do, but when a mistake, a prejudice or a disregard for the warning signs will impact the wellbeing of someone, it really matters! So I'm not inclined to sit by and let things go, and this includes arguing my own case.

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"

There is a standard view therapists have about clients who say, ' my previous therapy wasn't helpful'.  that such clients exist to vex therapists. And he seems vexed by me - or am I misreading him as badly as he misreads me?

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 -  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?

No!

He doesn't speak emotion.

I thought that in around the third session!

I dismissed it, emotional literacy is integral to therapy as I understand it, but perhaps not in TA?

I was talking about therapists missing out the reality of my situation and focusing instead on a theoretical 'cause of distress'. This is what he is doing. The present wears the clothes of the past! I've noticed before that he deletes any tone or texture of emotion from my language, translating metaphor, image, sensation into a language of process. 

Interesting - isn't this is how diagnosis (reification) operates? Words with the power to transmit via image and sensation such as; crushing, sinking, evil, burning, ceaseless terror, and horror - are safely packaged into one word: 'psychosis'? 

This completely misses out the human being!

OK...

So, he is talking process-language, all righty then - me too.

Me - "You are commenting on my behaviour, and playing back to me your view of it"

 He - "I'm trying to come to a resolution"

That statement may well be why I am now a 'qualified' mediator. And in my professional opinion (!) mediation requires the emotions to be invited in and included -  a Gestalt process. To stop the adrenaline overdose we need to talk about them using a 'safe' language (SFBT).

And if I wasn't flooded with panic at this point, but I really am! 

I can't think....

Me - "OK, so what is there to be resolved. What is the problem on your side? Because there isn't a problem on my side. Have I come saying 'I don't know what's happening in my life, I don't get on with anybody and I can't do anything, I'm X,Y and Z. No, strangely enough my experience seems to be the opposite. So despite being a really contradictory person I seem to get on quite well with people! So this doesn't seem to be my problem, it seems to be your problem - with me...so."

 

He - "Well again, I'm starting to express something and I haven't got there yet"

Me - "Because I fundamentally disagree with your view of me"!

He - "You don't know what my view is, because I'm not allowed to say it"

Tangential, contrary and wearing a mask!

Stepping out of that for a minute - gosh that is so interesting! I'd have given my eye teeth to know what his view really is! But he has told me very clearly that I am 'tangential,' and 'contrary,' and he has mistaken my body language when I'm on the verge of breaking down in total abject misery. 

I don't feel heard, safe, or that I'm with someone who is congruent.

Me - Because you have told me 'who I am' and what you've seen, and it is overstepping the mark. I haven't asked for that. It's as if you don't have permission for that".

He -"Is that why last session everything I said is wrong? Because that was what was happening. At one point I reinforced, because I thought it was important to do, something you said..

Me -"Ah ha, was that when you used the word question three times - I thought it was a question..."!

Considering my state of mind at the time, I did well to understand that much!

But that ah ha! from me was too much for him. 

At the time I felt that he'd purposefully trapped me  and my ah ha! Was my triumphant, 'oh yes, I certainly remember!' My ah ha! was to stop him telling me that I'd imagined the word question! Gaslighting, inadvertent, accidental even - but oh yes, this is a process I'm familiar with.

He -"I think we need to make a decision as to whether this is a good thing, because we are getting to the point where everything I say is jumped upon, and that's how it steamrollered last time" 

Things got considerably worse from here on! 

He told me several times that I shouldn't attend any more sessions because they are not good for either of us. 

So how did I stop him flying this plane into a mountain? It requires practice and self-discipline to use words as they are. I ignore the sensation or intimation or feeling that there is more that must be understood. Curiously it is the opposite process to being either tangential or contrary. 

And I think the turning point in our conversation occurred only because of my refusal to go below the surface.

He has told me to go. 

I'm not going to appear to him to be as fragile, or as close to absolute despair as I am. So he doesn't know that I'm fighting for my life, or that what he is saying could lead to me following my son's friend onto the tracks. 

People don't say that they are suicidal - when it is real.

The shell I hide behind at this point is protecting a tiny flame, my love for him is so important for me. He is my soul, I can't live for myself yet because of the battle I've been through - no one had faith in me when I fought for my youngest son. Certainly the mental health home visit team would have agreed with Kit that I am contrary, as I told them that my son had a right not to take medication. They would certainly have noticed how tangential I can be, when I intervened, to stop the bullying dialogue (the psychiatrist didn't mean to be, but he sure was a bully. Especially when threatening my son with sectioning for 'non-compliance') and oh, I certainly wore a mask when I realised that dialogue was impossible with them, and so I would have to lie...that didn't come easily to me. Perhaps if I am contrary, this is the very thing in me that meant I didn't lose faith in my son? I don't know. But I can't risk the damage that occurs when Kit misreads my feelings and emotions, and he has done this before.

I will not let myself fall into detachment or dissociation - unless I use them strategically. 

But my flame is very close to going out. 

He is saying - "...in any communication surely it's about bringing out what ever that is, with greater clarity and greater understanding. Otherwise I don't understand what it's about <pause> what's your understanding of what it's about"?

His communication is devoid of his emotions, there have been too many mixed messages. I can't communicate without emotions as a legitimate part of communication. We are trapped in a 'therapy' relationship, and I'm being broken under the constraints of the rules. I'm made nauseous by the deception. I'm in survival mode. Lights are fading, flickering out, one by one. 

Me - "That in this moment of time, to do the best that can be done with it. The best thing to do is to use this time in the best way possible. Examining what's gone wrong, it feels like this is you maintaining a view that there is a process of contradiction, as opposed to looking for some other way around this, and some other version we can do"

He -"I wonder if this is connected to something you said a while ago about SFBT versus integrative, that interaction can be solution based or problem based, and I wonder if that's what's happening here? You see there is something about understanding what goes on that is problematic, which in the way I work is fundamental or we keep repeating the same thing over and over again, you can't get to where you want to get to if the thing that's tripping you up isn't removed. You need to examine it. 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".

"...now I have an idea about why that might be....'I'm not allowed to say it' 

I say, 'please say it' 

And?

And he doesn't.

This has nothing to do with modes of therapy, everything to do with how he takes emotions and confines them in neat, labelled boxes.

We then take another dispiriting trawl through the wasteland which make me feel that I'm wasting his time simply by breathing. Time in which I explain once more that no one can help any of us with those assignments! I end lamely, expressing yet again that therapy is mandatory on my course - so, using this time wisely is a sensible thing to do.

He - "And what would that be - what would be a sensible and good way look like?"

I don't say 'when we are talking about things we both find interesting! 

Me - "Well that's a problem for me, I can't answer that"

I can't answer. I'm beaten. I don't know what he thinks or feels, to tell him how much I love talking with him - when I'm not being told what my process is -  how much I value feeling close - when we both talk about ideas, and it is fun - would be to spread the cloth of heaven under his feet and watch him trample mud into my dreams... 

He - "So it's no wonder that we are stuck!"

Me - "So I'm asking you directly please, to suggest something"

He doesn't, so I offer one of my latest insights about therapy, and it becomes a dialogue between us, and he agrees with me on the point I'm making. 

And we are back. 

Back to normal.

What happened?

I felt utterly defeated when I said 'I can't answer that'. 

And it is my feeling that that reply was significant. 

Capitulation...

And I'm talking about therapy as ceremony, and then talking about myself in third person, wary always of being tangential. I access all my faith and trust in myself, to restore his trust and confidence in me. 

I tell him again, everything is useful. And finally he asks me, what have I got from him. And this moment is the key.

He examines and understands his process.

Through my words...

He - "There are some things I say sometimes, it's only occurring to me now - if sometimes I think I see you bristle, it's occurring to me why that might be. That sometimes you will say something about being with a client, and I'll say something and you will say 'yeah but that's integrative and I'm much more solution focused and I think this is better' and I find myself essentially saying, this will work in these circumstances, it wont work in those circumstances. And I think I remember you saying something when you suggested the move over from therapist-client to mentor-mentee, that I have things you don't have, and there's me trying to give you those experiences. But then I think, maybe that's the sort of thing that somebody needs to find out for themselves. Telling somebody that something is the case, that they haven't yet experienced, can't give them that experience. There are sometimes with some clients when no theory works, even the lightest of stuff like you have described - solution focused... "

And I ask him questions, I give him the Tibetan terms, Nyntik and Menga - heart essence and wisdom key, which show that I've understood exactly what he has been telling me. 

Heart essence is direct understanding, and wisdom key is an experience - an empowerment - that allows meaning to be unlocked. 

Both these terms relate to the prime importance of devotion and trust in one's precious teacher. He doesn't know that, so again he doesn't hear love.

He says - "I don't know what happened - about half way through the session, but you really shifted gear and the second half of the session felt lovely"

I didn't 'shift gear - I 'stayed on the surface'. This is how I work with extremely emotional clients, where their trauma is a whirlpool of chaos and loss. He was speaking to me in a way that would not end well. I describe the process.

Me - "Yes, because most of our sessions have always felt lovely. So it felt un-sensible, or crazy  to focus on the eddy currents and whirlpools that will drag things down. They don't mean that this is reality, they are just a potential. Concentration on what is underneath is a dodgy process -  calling back those feelings - and so I didn't wish to go there or stay..."

I'm not going to put into words for him, what has happened. Which is that I refused to panic. I refused to give in to despair - whilst being in despair. 

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.

And so I go - off to Waitrose for a bottle of Perry and a Charlie Bingham's curry for one.  

This is my 'self care' - I need time to decompress and recover. More than this, I go to the Waitrose where my son's friend worked before his death; I return to remember my resolve, my promise to never give up, I absolutely have to hold tight to that vow. 

No matter how hard this path, I will walk it to the 100th placement hour and beyond.

--

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W B Yeats:

"Contrariness"! 11th October 2021.

The room is 

cold.

Air filters...breathe out 

glacial air.

Like being on a space ship.

He talks about 

disinfecting 

surfaces.

[Definitions of contrariness. Deliberate and stubborn unruliness and resistance to guidance or discipline. Synonyms: perverseness, perversity.]

He refers to a sheet of A 4 on his left and says: "I have a list taken from your emails: 

•  Symbolization. 
• Emails and contracting; 
• in the email there were things you were hearing which I wasn't meaning to say. 
• And 'script analysis'. "

I say - (referring to script analysis) "That last one was a joke - but we could do that if you want?

He - "It sparked a few thoughts....Well, there is a theme here I think in terms of...

Me - (unfortunately I am still in joke mode) "That sounds like induction to me..."

He - "Well if someone has a script it means it keeps reoccurring I think, and the minute you mentioned script analysis I thought, ah yes all these things fit the theme".

Me - (still not getting how bad this really is) "All these things fit the theme? So there is this container, the edge of this small bubble that is this Monday - what's to do best with this time? It's not my whole life. So there is more to me than this".

He - "Well there is one thing you mentioned which I want to talk about directly which is emails and contracting. Have you talked about contracting in college at all?"

I am lost and bewildered. Why he is asking me this? In level 2 it often felt as if we talked about nothing else! I remember having to make myself learn contracting as a script. For the life of me now, I have no idea why it seemed so difficult. I guess training works!

He - "Yes...because there is a standard part of contracting.."

He explains the standard use of emails in a counselling contract, and I'm confused. I feel chastised, why is he mentioning it now? I've emailed him most weeks to say what might be useful to talk about. This has been right from the first weeks. And it began because he emailed me after our first sessions - and I thought...oh, that's not what we were taught...this means that he is thinking of me. And at that moment he was really unattractive.

What changed?

Calling me a minx...that transgression hit me like a freight train (to quote Bob Dylan).

But here now?

The floor cracks and shifts, I'm dropped into a hell of thinking I'm going to be asked to leave. He must know how I feel about him? This must be the session when I'm told to stop it! To go. 

And again he says that I'd given him a task - to talk about the assignments - and that he wasn't able to do it because of the tangents. 

Right now I feel crushed, and I'm scared. 

I defend 'tangential'.

I tell him that exploration is the point. 

Following divers paths, no fear of being lost, enjoying the journey...

And then he repeats my words from last week  "Theory being used on you"

I try to explain that I don't want to talk about it.

I talk about it.

Why did I do that?

This is what I explain: That therapists have a theoretical underpinning to their work. This determines the words we echo back from the client, it alters our tone of voice, it determines the questions (if any) that are asked.

Unfortunately many therapist's forget to hear that what is happening to a person is happening in the here and now. There is an automatic assumption that the present is not working because of the past (rather than because of the present!) and extrapolate that looking at what isn't working, and its relationship with the past will free the client from repeating old patterns. I once believed this to be plausible. But the more I think about it, the less plausible it is. So I work in present - the present problem looks as if it is a replay of thoughts and feelings from the past because everything we see is seen in terms of our past. The art of my work is enabling a person to find a way to react to a present that looks like the past. First step is to name what is really happening by seeking an overview. This helps us to know what we are really dealing with. Then we name our resources, understand our resilience, and start paying attention to those moments when things are better, and then do something different...and that is it.

Healing one's past is something to do during good times. Because even understanding the present with an understanding of the past cannot stop the present being as awful as it really is. An awful present can be changed - by doing something different - but just understanding wont be enough. 

When I first saw a therapist  - I was studying level 3 at that point - my 'presenting issue' was my husband's personality change (he spoke to me like his dad spoke to his mom). 

And that was a problem because? 

His dad was a bully, his mom a victim of coercive control. I couldn't 'be her' but it was as if he wanted me to be, so he could bully me. Four years later I discovered the reason! His personality had changed...because he'd fallen for someone else. I mean of course that isn't a reason to be vile to anyone! But that is how he rolls. The interesting part is, the memory from my past that kept replaying, was of being 'shut out' because that provided a metaphor for how I was feeling in the present, it is what was actually happening. So this perception was crystal clear - but the time frame was wrong. 

But hey, yes, the inner child work the therapist did with me? At the time I thought, wow - this person has qualified - and that seemed such an immense task, I was in awe of her! And don't get me wrong, her work with me was beautiful and kind. But it consolidated my self-blame, because it didn't confound my certainty that my messed up childhood was entirely to blame for the changes in my husband.

But think about it?

How could that actually make any sense?

Second therapy, my issue: son, drugs, sectioning psychosis violence betrayal. Perhaps 'inner child' makes more sense? No, really, don't make me laugh. The outer-child was taller than I am and swinging heavy objects at me if I said the wrong thing, or failed in totally inexplicable ways. And yes, the inner-child work was memorable and a wonderful diversion. And the therapist was so, so compassionate and kind. But the only session that I found to be helpful was when we discussed my feelings about SSRIs. 

He says - "You seem really angry about that".

Directly dismissing my experience!

Me -  "I'm not angry with the therapists, I am frustrated at the lack of common sense. And for people living in that situation, to make out that it's all them, and to patch something that happened to them as a child is not going to help them. At this point they need a conversation about what they are doing that helps them, and what can get them through.

He - "So that sounds like an account of what you got compared to what you wanted"

Me - "Compared with what is useful - it should be a useful interaction"

He - "And what you got wasn't useful"

Me - "Not really, no. I didn't find anything I didn't know before. And did it help? No, of course it didn't help. Help was learning that when you call the police they don't press charges and give 'service user' a criminal record! I didn't know that. A therapist isn't expected to know that. But at those points where things were too much? No help - just developmental theory! I have answers now - Wim Hof method means I have practiced panic, I understand how to use breath, and I now know that a lot of how panic feels, is due to CO2. Nothing to do with childhood. I mean you know how we think anxiety must be a mind thing, adrenaline and racing heart - I hadn't understood until I practiced Wim Hof Method. It gave me control, through practicing physiological stress"

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.

But to go back a step, if I feel as if I need to be friendly and affable with him, unable to be all that I am feeling, why isn't he questioning why we are stuck in this? 

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"

 At this moment I am terrified, because I am not strong enough yet to cope with this. I feel as if I've been placed in a trap that no one can escape by opposing - like one of those woven finger traps, or a spider's web; struggle will make things so much worse!

He - "Let me tell you what I mean, because I think I was using the word mask in a fairly ordinary..."

I interrupt! I'm the one who has studied Jung -  but why should I listen to someone who clearly isn't listening to me tell me, about me - or Jung for that matter!

Me - "No, I deny it absolutely. If you are saying that interaction between people should be genuine, authentic and totally natural all the time, that's incorrect. <Socially it would be a disaster!>"

Ah just as well he isn't me! I hope I'd have replied with - what would be so disastrous about us both being genuine, authentic  and natural!

He doesn't challenge me.

'Confluence'!

He - "Of course it is incorrect"

Me - "Right, the alterative is a level of interaction appropriate to the situation. Do I like to be contrary? No, I like to be clear. But it is from some sense of mutual respect that I believe that you can follow me, or I can follow you when I take 'a tangent'"  

He - "But there is a process whereby what was triggered in my thoughts from your recent term, script. and I thought 'oh, OK ' and then you said 'well that was a joke'..."

Me - "It was a joke, but everything is there as it is, and open to be dealt with"

He - "It set off a train of thought, fairly early on in our sessions I started off in my usual way which is to ask 'how are you' and this was a problematic question for you"

Me - "It will always be problematic because again, it relates to the level of interaction, and who am I talking to?"

He - "Yes, but it's a perfectly ordinary question"

Me - "Yes, but it's not an ordinary interaction!"

He - "What do you mean by that?"

Me - "This isn't an ordinary interaction"

Emotional honesty and open vulnerability, the prerequisites for authentic and genuine, healing dialogue are not ordinary. 

 

He - "I'm still failing to see how this relates to the question, 'how are you'"

But on the other hand...a game of philosophy is going to be as good as it gets, I fire up the philosophy core once more.

Me - "But there is also the problem that you are talking to a person who is Buddhist - here and now, still breathing."

Meaning, think! 

I view reality as a construct. 

How I am depends on how you are!

And if you are treating me as a client, looking for things to therapize..

He - "Well that's the point you made at the time"

I'm consistent in my tangential contrariness!

He -"And you spoke at great length about no self and all of that"

I also gave him Patrul Rinpoche's 'direct introduction to the state of mind', as he seemed to be overthinking the self and non-self thing! The fruition of the introduction depends on you...not the words. It was probably after I said this that he understood quite how mad I must be, because how could this ever be the highest and most splendid of all teachings!

 "Do you see the  room around you?"

"Yes."

"Do you hear the traffic in the street outside?"

"Yes."

"Do you hear what I'm saying to you?"

"Yes."

"Well, the nature of Dzogchen is this: simply this."

Me -"I did not talk at great length about no self, you keep putting that one on me"

He - "That's the way I would characterize - you probably didn't use the term, short hand of what you were describing"

Me - "No, is it? 'No lasting permanent self....so this moment is all of it..."

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."

I'm missing out that he's hurt - he doesn't want me to 'find a problem' in everything he says. But, we don't have that level of relationship because he wont talk to me about what he feels, and I certainly wont tell him that I'm in love with him! So we end up intellectualising - as the only safe place we can meet! 

He - "You see in a later sessions when I was, when we were ...I made reference to 'solid self' any sense of self and you said 'yes, of course there is a self' and I thought, ok so what was the problem with the question 'how are you' then."

Me - "The problem with the question 'how are you' is  I will reply with 'I'm fine thank you' because I'm OK - which doesn't mean everything is OK and that I'm fine! I need an invite to talk about the not OK things - and I'm not OK at this moment."

He - "So it was up to you to answer it in what ever way you felt comfortable with - so where's the problem there"?

I have just said "I'm not OK at this moment" and I need an invite to talk about 'not OK things'.

Me - "So what did I say to the question? I probably said 'I'm OK' so that isn't a problem is it? I would laugh about it because you could have asked a different question! 

He - "What question would you prefer me to have asked"

Me - "To have been more specific I suppose; for example 'how do you feel about...?' ask me about some aspect of my life."

Him - "How can I ask that at the beginning of the session when we have only just started - that was the purpose of the question, to open up - where do you want to go"

His train of thought needs derailing!

Me - "Yes, and the answer was always behind me"

He - "What would be behind you?"

Me - "The Zoom background of Callanish, or by a lake, or any number of other places!"

He - "Yes - so I stopped asking the question....What's going on emotionally... because you seem particularly angry today"

Angry? 

I'm crushed almost unable to speak. 

Despair is so close. 

I need, I want this relationship to be us, worked out between us as human beings. To be human. I need so much to step out of the inhumane language rules guiding this interaction. 

But I'm trapped and I'm stuck. Client and therapist - I can't be truthful - I'm not supposed to want him.

And if I said it, I am certain that he'd treat it as an artefact, fail to take it seriously. And he would tell me that it must be transference. And to be told that, offered clichés, have my feelings and intelligence insulted that way, to experience yet again someone I love dismissing my feelings and my ability to understand myself? 

It would destroy me.

This session today is bad enough - he has told me that I wear a mask. That when I contradict, I'm being contrary. That when I change a subject I'm being tangential. That when I'm in almost more pain than I can take - apparently I'm angry. 

A direct insult would be at least straight!

But, I want to know what is going on with him.

Me - "Because this whole session seems to be about your frustration actually. So I'm not sure what we are doing. I'm not angry in particular, and I don't think I have a problem expressing anger, I just don't feel angry. It feels like being stuck in mud, cold, thick mud - unable to move" 

I am not going to say this is despair, I'm not going to let him know, I dare not!

He - "So how do we get out of the mud"

Four styles of dealing with conflict that wont solve anything; there is avoidance - accommodation - compromise - competition. 

Only a fifth style will work, can't we collaborate?

Me - I am beaten: "To go back to the beginning, clarity. So emails. What do you want?"

He explains that he doesn't want emails that are emotionally charged. The curious thing is, I had emailed him before - ages ago with 'emotionally charged' phrases such as ' we are sacred mirrors, opposites reflecting each other' to allow him to glimpse my feelings. 

So that was OK? 

My recent emails had been about theory, and I had addressed his diagnosis of me as tangential, and this seems to be 'it', the 'real issue'.

I explain - "I felt that my attempts to build knowledge were dismissed as 'tangential' so I sent you a mind map to show how the ideas fit together. and I wrote to you about debating theory, I like that idea, I think it has life in it! I asked for continuity. Lack of continuity may be an artefact of person centred counselling, I wouldn't ask a person if they wanted to continue with a subject the following week, and I'm not too sure why. And right now I feel as if I've been put on 'the naughty stool' "

Him - "And that's not something I've intended to do either"

So I'm wrong then - to feel this way? 

Because it isn't his intention?

The implication of his words...that I'm to blame for being so close to breaking down in tears of frustration, my sense of powerlessness and of feeling completely misunderstood, it is entirely my own doing! OK. so if I ran over next door's cat, I could say that the cat isn't injured because it wasn't my intention to drive over it!

What?

One of us in not sane here.

Me - "Regardless of intention, it's the way it's come over. I'm not saying that you have done it on purpose, I'm not saying anything other than this is how I feel"

Rather than talking about how I feel, he returns to the game of philosophy.

He - "You see and this is where we get really slippery in terms of our roles here. It's a really interesting therapeutic question isn't it, about what's intended and given compared with what's received."

Me - "No, no it's not"

I have no wish or ability to play. I'm broken. My reply 'no, no.' was said in despair, it is my response to the game. But foolishly I'm like someone with a broken leg trying to walk, if this is as close as we can be, I will try. I metaphorically manage to stand. I try to engage on the intellectual level, but my emotions are fractured, and unable to support me. I'm still trying to fathom how I could only be hurt by his tone of voice and words, if it was his intention to hurt!

He - "Why is it not"

Me - "Because what people intend is related to their values, belief systems and knowledge.. A person goes into a therapy room, says to the therapist I have this problem...therapist thinks, I've no idea but this theory may help. The therapist's motivation is good and pure, but the thing they offer doesn't help! Motivation is an aspect but not the whole thing - but there is no way to predict how another person sees things"

Curiously, my ability to play philosophy when my guts are in ribbons seems to shift us closer to the truth of what happened.

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!

He - "It depends on what we think it is, going back to a session where you asked me about games....then if I'm defining 'it' as having a clear understanding of what a game is and we go on a whole big journey that started off in one place and ended up somewhere else - then we have two different 'its'.

Me - "Do we need 'it' - what is 'it', so I can answer 4 or 5 questions 'correctly'? The subject is games, if the subject opens up...I'm trying not to use the word tangent! But I'm not meant to ask you...(I ask) what is your problem when 'it' is not what you thought it was?".

He - "Because you asked me a question and then we never get to the answer"

Me - "And this is significant because?"

He - "Because you asked me to be a mentor and then when the subject is X but X is never really discussed, well what's this mentoring about then?" 

That would require an essay...but my answer expresses my crazy, unasked for, deep and for me, a drowning love for him.

Me -"That you have experience that I don't, and I gain it from you. Not from what you tell me, but from your attitude"

I've just said I love you. It is implicit in my tone of voice and in the meaning of the words. It is not explicit - because I'm supposed to be a client. But love has been implicit in all our communications, regardless of who or what I'm supposed to be!

He - "OK Well there's an interesting question, about the implicit and the explicit in...I suppose, communication generally and the whole question of therapy. Is therapy actually about the words, or is it the atmosphere and two people in a room and how they are communicating? You would only know a fraction of it if you saw it written down, because it is happening in the room between them - that's a fundamental question isn't it."

I am completely at sea now. Unable to say can't you see what's happening in this room between us? In response to his word - question - I answer as if he has asked me a question. But I have no idea why he has asked it! I've heard the word question - so there must have been a question here? I don't understand...

Me - "No, how honestly is that a question? One implication is that all a person needs to do is to sit in front of a computer, a program that runs Rogerian dialogue (Eliza)  and answer the questions and we know that probably isn't true. The whole thing about therapy is the people, it is the room and the atmosphere, it is all of it..."

He - "See this is what I mean about being contrary. You took me to mean the word question in a way that I didn't mean it in order that you could then question the word question."

Again, I've misunderstood his intention and he defends his position that he has no responsibility because it wasn't his intention? I hope someone else would have said "Oh, you thought when I said 'it's a question' I meant it was a question' I see - totally understandable!

Me - "Well? Not necessarily?"

He - Well that's what I just saw happen. I said 'It's a fundamental question' meaning a matter, a subject, a thing. It doesn't mean something you sit at the computer and answer, that clearly wasn't what I meant"

Me -  (still very confused - he had used the word question three times - I feel accused of saying that therapy could be done through a computer program!) - "But no, it is the importance of the people, the room the atmosphere versus is therapy the words the therapist uses. To quote you, 'is it the words that matter or the therapy as a whole'. Why are you asking that?

He - "I wasn't asking that. I'm just reflecting back to you the importance of something you said, that's all I was doing"

Me - "I haven't said that, I haven't talked about that?"

He - "No you just said to me what you pick up from me isn't the subjects I talk about...

Me - "It's the way you do it"

He - "Exactly - and I just fed that back to you"

I replied - "Yes, but I know that because I told you! So why do I need that fed back to me?" 

He - "What are we doing?"

Me - "We are having an argument"

He - "I don't know why. It seems like today nothing I can say will be the right thing"

I don't say - Because I used the word accused in an email and you panicked!

Me - "I am sorry that you feel like that"

He - "And I wonder what's going on for you, that we are in this position?"

That you wont engage with me as someone who likes to explore ideas; that you have called me tangential and contrary. That something about the word *accused* has really got to you!

But I think I've caught sight of the 'smoking gun', something about how important it is for him not to be seen as responsible for other people's misunderstandings. 

Accused...is the key words here.

I don't think it would be wise to ask, 'what was so catastrophic when you were accused of', well of something because whatever it is it has completely wrecked your ability to deal with someone misunderstanding you!? And I'm being made to suffer because of it!

Me - "That I asked you for continuity - in an email - and I've not got it"

He - "What does continuity mean in this context?"

Me - "So - within that email I explained what the in-continuity was"

He - "Tell me..tell me here."

I get my phone to search for the document.

He - almost wails... "No not on your phone, communicate with me!"

Wow, a lot of emotion in that!

And if I had? 

If I'd said that I needed and yearned for us to really communicate - to get out of this one-sided therapy prison' how would that have gone down? And underneath this I needed so much for us to have the promise of a continuity 'on the other side' years away from my course and this situation. 

And if I had said it? 

I think he would have turned red in embarrassment, and blocked me further, shut me down more, used more and more words to prove how right he was and how wrong I am. And then yes - I would have thought of suicide. 

This was my life and death in the balance - my feelings red raw, and still bleeding.

I needed to get much stronger before I could face this

The severed lines of thought, the fractured lines of love, the red hot and tangled lines of meaning; all my reasons to remain alive, so newly mending, so fragile, were so nearly ruptured by this afternoon's session. So yes, I did well to get through without breaking down, and yes it was important not to trust him, important not to let him know yet that my heart and soul were already his - for so long as he didn't know, he couldn't accidentally kill me..

"Coffee fuelled discussions at 3 am". 4th October 2021.

Again, he starts with 'chit chat' - chit chat being his term for fluffy conversation - and it is nice. Yet I have no idea what to make of it. Is this part of the 'Kohuts' - 'Twinship' or, or is it 'real'? 

Could it be indicative of his trust in me, of our pleasure in being together for the purpose of discussion?

Or is this an act?

I have no idea. 

And it is exhausting!

So I take everything on face value. This is chit chat. This is all I can know right now. He goes into the kitchen to make me a cup of coffee. When he returns I continue the 'chit chat' and we are  metaphorically in Hereford cathedral. We are talking about the Mappa Mundi - and I feel as if we are there, together - when he suddenly says 'It's funny light - do we need the light on' ?  I say, 'it's the time of year and I'm ok' and he says 'good, because I'm ok as well' . And this synchrony breaks my heart wide open. 

He asks me -"So, where would you like to go today?"

I say that I'd like to talk about anything....I don't say 'let's go back to the Mappa Mundi'.

He says - "Well recently we have talked about Rogers 'Propositions'.

And suddenly 'we' are lost, as he tries to persuade me that my assignment is about 'how we use developmental theory in therapy'. 

But I don't use it!

In my assignment I wrote:

Work by Robert Sapolsky (Stanford.edu 2007) showed that the part of the brain responsible for processing memories is severely impacted by cortisol when stress is prolonged. And this has a link with depression. I take his research as confirming Rogers and Perls’ view that mental health is the ability to assimilate and to make sense of the whole of it - of all our experiences, for then we learn to react appropriately or at least creatively. And that a sense of safety is paramount for this to occur, not least because of the impact stress has on our bodies.

And my experience of watching my son entering into psychosis, and the way he was treated by the mental health team, means that any deterministic theory I hear now goes directly in to the bin!

 
Michael Cornwall writes:

The failure of empathy, and the resulting lack of deep compassion for those in extreme states, may be a not-so-hidden unintended consequence of the belief – and hope – that psychosis is possible only for those who are fundamentally different than the provider; that the dreaded psychosis exists in potential only in people who lack the “ego strength” of the defended and emotionally distant provider. By Michael Cornwall, PhD. Mad in America (2015)

We can all go there - why is eclipsed by the importance of how we get out!

Certainly Kit is a compassionate man - but the concept that there is a significant developmental difference between those of us at breaking point, our sleep full of dread and nightmare, our support systems shot to bits and our ability to think clearly, gone, and those who don't suffer in the same way? 

Ah me, I ask him how he feels about having made notes, having 'done what I asked him to do' and how he feels about the way I 'divert and reconfigure' and change the agenda (as he would see it).

He diverts this!  

He says -  'it's about what is useful for you really...'

I persist. And he persists, telling me that it was about how I asked him to talk about a 'thing', 'but we never quite get there' and then - 'this session is for you'! 

Seriously!? This is a whatever moment! 

How can I reply to that?!

If this session was for me, we would both be truthful.

And then he offers me The Holy Grail, he talks about when he was at university, 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...'

Oh yes!

And then?

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 it would be perfect! 

Meaning...Yes! let's have coffee fuelled discussions at 3 am or pm!

How is that difficult to understand?

It isn't ....

What happened? I try to think only about practicalities, and not how it feels right now; that 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 think it is!

The game of "Precious vase!"

• A offers B a precious vase. 
• B is happy and sits forward expecting to be handed the vase! 
• A sees B's enthusiasm, and 'accidently' trips.
• A drops the vase just on the point of handing it to B.
• A says "Oh, but it's broken! <pause> waits a moment for A to react.
• As A reacts B says, "that's not what you wanted is it!" 
• A's cover story, 'I share your disappointment'.
• A's reason for a cover story: avoiding confrontation with own uncomfortable feelings. A drops the vase at the last minuites, only A can know why! A's solution: ' I'd rather no one had the vase than to explain how I really feel'.
• The words ' oh, that's not what you wanted' has a nasty edge somehow. Dropping the vase , disappointing B as if it is an accident causes B to show shock, sadness, disappointment.
• A expected B to be disappointed in A in some nameless and unpredictable way. By dropping the vase, the disappointment has a name and cause?

I was careful not to show disappointment.

I focus on the present. I'm very aware that I don't want him to lecture me about how to do therapy. I've explained that my research project is about post traumatic growth, he has told me about trauma; the developmental cause and the cure. Totally missing the point! My research is about altered states; about how traumatized people haul themselves up out of nightmare and into the world once more through their interpretation of events, as perceived through their heightened experience. 

What I'm looking at and thinking about isn't part of his universe? 

I wish to proscribe him a hefty dose of J G Ballard to remedy this deficit.

It is no good, I'm smarting from the subtext; it wont work'.

I wont show it!

Too late...I can't stop myself.

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'? I start talking about how I feel about attachment theory! My emotions and feelings are fully online and fully connected - and right now I'm hurt and I am damn angry. And I'm doing this because it feels too dangerous to say, 'hang on! What about the coffee fuelled discussions?'

What's going on here? 

Why am I unable to challenge?

Instead, I am talking about me - something I have learnt to interpret as being tangential!

He says - "But I think you are merging two different things here"

I say - "But the point is to explain why I bridle when you explain it (developmental theory)"

He - "We were talking initially about attachment styles because there is an assignment coming up".

Me - "To be honest - perhaps this sounds big headed - but the assignments don't pose a problem for me"

He - "I think this is the sticking point because you sent me the brief, and I'm talking about this not in relation to the person but as background theory for the therapist to have in their head - and then you are coming at it with 'oh this person, and that person' but this isn't what it's about. It's about the background which is in the therapist's mind which is relevant or not relevant, depending on the person sat opposite in therapy"

Me - I laugh...and pause. Waiting for him to grasp the obvious answer - let's carry on with coffee fuelled discussions instead'!

Silence.

I say - "I asked you to go through the assignment brief because we have this period of time and we need to find a good way to use it. So taking knowledge from you seemed like a good opportunity. I found that when you were talking about using developmental theory on clients, there was a part of me that would go 'ah..no no no no!' So that is what I have just explained - that there is a personal aspect to it"

He -  "That was a really interesting form of words 'using developmental theory on clients,' we don't do that"

What was the tone of voice, and that use of 'we' rather than 'I'? 

Is he insulted?

It feels like, 'reaction-formation'?

I  hear faux-regret, spoken by Parental, school-teacher,

The underlying message is - you are wrong - because you are ignorant (Child).

The tone of voice is, 'false pity'!

What else? 

Why does it feel like he is defending himself? 

The truthful answer to 'we don't do that' is 'oh yes you absolutely did 'use' theory on me, and I turned it into, 'please educate me Oh Great One!'

Which of course avoids any of the faux-regret.

All the above condenses into...

Me - "I'm not attacking you"

He - "No, no I know that, but that seemed to be a window on...

Me - "That I bridle at it. Yes! I see it personally, I do see it that way. I hadn't really 'got' the way people 'do' therapy; the structure. Because we are told 'there is no structure it is all client led' but that is untrue"

I then describe in technical details how therapy often includes a therapist offering a theory so that the client's experience can be externalized - to some extent. And how I don't do that...I ask them for their theory.

I say - "And I can imagine you saying to me ' why are you on an integrative course'?

He - "Yes...See what happened about 10 minutes ago is where we keep going to which is, I'm talking to you because you are on an integrative course in an integrative way, and you go, no no no that's not the way I'm going to do things because I'm at an SFBT counselling service"

No - I didn't say that.

Me -  (angry) "No, it's not because I'm working with an SFBT counselling service. I'm at an SFBT counselling service because of who I am. And I work with whatever system I'm in, and deal with whatever rules anyone else gives me, that's what I will do. But personally speaking I've seen that this thing about giving people theories can be a bit of a problem, so there is a bit of a personal issue about that! So I've understood that, I can just put that on one side. But yeah, I will keep bringing things back to me. I always relate experience to me personally"

He - "I really think you are massively missing something which is in the 'I've done that now, thank you' it sounds very dismissive. You have clearly had two unpleasant experiences"

What have I 'done that now, thank you'?

Ah, if I had let him do therapy it would be different, is that the implication?

And different would have been pleasant?

No! The problem is 'using theory'.

Me - "They were not unpleasant but they missed the point, and that is unfair for clients"

He - "Well that's about those two therapists, not something about theory"

He then tells me how useful giving people theory is, but more to the point how it helps him to understand the client. So, this is now parked. There doesn't exist time or space enough for me to explain. But, both therapists were amazing people. The problem was 100%  the theory, and the use of it (as taught) and not them. But now it is time to pour oil on troubled water, again...

Me - "And I want to say, I've never seen you as a person who misses out the other person's feelings"

He - "So you have seen it done the other way"

Well, no! They simply didn't ask me for my ideas or my understanding of how I managed not to break! They listened, but listened to what? Their bias was on 'deficit', 'struggle', 'pain'. With the assumption that if I patched my 'childhood deficits, I wouldn't be stressed about being on the receiving end of life threatening violence. 

Truly, it would have been better to have spent that money speaking to a Wim Hof instructor

But here and now? 

I'd say now that he over reacts to my feelings!

And it would have been so interesting to have said that in the room. But in 2021 I am in no fit state. And so we climb together towards higher ground, getting back into sync...as we talk together about how people are part of systems, and how it is common for therapists to ignore this. And I'm back, close with him again. 

Oh...but then I do the terrible thing. 

He's being so open. 

So I shy away. 

Because I don't want him to know how much I care.

It felt like letting a baby drop from my arms onto a concrete floor...