The 3lack 3ox.

Right now I'm in a room with the man I've told that I love, and I have no idea what he actually feels. He has not expressed his feelings about me, or about this situation.  And he is telling me that my feelings are missing!  Is there a difference in his hello? We speak in unison.  Coffee? The sound of cupboard doors, cups, the clink of the spoon. This is a strange session, I am talking about my identity. Talking about identity is what I do now (in 2024) with clients who feel that they are broken. I'm beginning to see it as vital, it is a key to restoring a sense of 'I am', because 'I can do x,y,z'. It is more than confounding the sense of ' I can't do anything ' into ' actually I can do plenty '. The question, 'tell me about you, what do you love ' often brings the answer 'I used to' - but in remembering, the past becomes present tense, the memories are breaks in the tragedy, specks of gold to be noticed and gathered. My ...

Well I wonder what it's going to be Progressive, regressive,  "I'm flattered" ? I'm sitting in the car watching people go by Listening to Nadja. Time to go... Luminous Rot by Nadja 3rd January 2022. His 'Hello, come in' sounds exactly the same as normal. No 'chit chat'...The sound of the spoon, of cups, things. Lots of stirring.  Spoon sounds in cups sounds... I'm talking about it being cold... He says the heating is on.  And so it begins. He tells me that he 'hadn't seen it coming' and that he hadn't listened to the recording until yesterday and so he had 'no idea'! Me - "No, you wouldn't have, because I'm good at containing my feelings. It's an important skill."  He tells me that our conversation could  be potentially. difficult and change a lot of things.  I agree - and divert it to focusing on what needs to be done, I really don't want to hear any theory... And as I speak, try...

Monday afternoon - quarter of an hour before my appointment. In my bag there is the Samhain recording The missing information  that I would have handed over last week I mean everything seems positive? Am I being hard on myself? I mean in some ways this is a great adventure Why do my insides feel as if they are made of water? I'm beginning to unravel. And this has certainly been an adventure, and it's been a year. A whole year! And really -------------- had such an effect. Everything made sense,  all the impressions, visions, the feelings. I don't wish to sound all P K Dick and the pink light  but there was something of this, in my experience. I think this is crazy. I just don't know. Part of me doesn't trust these feelings. And yet - what else is there to be done? Of course I should trust these feelings. I get out of the car and walk down the road to knock on his door... -- There is silence in his room. Just the sound of him moving about in the kitchen behind the ...

A bright sunny day really cold in my bag there is a card and a recording I made at Samhain The one in which I tell the story The story behind this story The Missing information Chit chat .  But how else could it be?  I  need therapy for my therapy -  OK, those thoughts lead nowhere!     Focus!  This is us being normal, ordinary people.  I'm here to share coffee, to hang out, to just talk with him about ideas.  As if it was normal!  No, no no!  Nothing here is normal!   I should change therapists.  But I could be asked by my course leader to give reasons for my decision.  Here is the imaginary email I could never send! Me - "Dear course leader - I need therapy for my therapy because I hoped that during our sessions he would come to realize that together we made the dark air between us scintillate with diamond-bright star light; that the cave like confines of his room was in actuality, space; open as the unive...

After several references in our sessions to how much he enjoyed coffee fuelled discussions at 3 am . After our discussions reminded him of all those coffee fuelled discussions he had so enjoyed at university at 3 am... I dared take this idea further. It was excruciatingly difficult - but carefully, gently and slowly I explained that we could do something with this idea. Something along the lines of, if we build it others will join...There would be more people, more ideas! So why was that so difficult to say? Because I was using 'we ', making he and I into an 'us'. And he has done this several times before in our conversations. So I shouldn't feel so uncomfortable? And each time 'us' has been in his sentences, in his meaning, I have held tight as if to a life raft. Each instant, each precious instant was rich with a subtle heat created by our verbal conjunction -  that melted my heart! I had dared to use 'we' and 'us' before, but only in ...

I'm wearing my purry, furry, fake leopard coat.  He says It reminds him of his childhood... Both of us laughing. He tries it on.  And then he says the strangest thing?  "I've never seen a coat like this in the flesh" Then - oh my heart! - he remarks so deliciously on my warmth seeping from the coat into his skin... "Goodness - you're warm!"  Just for a few seconds it is as if I have held him, breathing animal heat and a golden radiance into the void of darkness and separation, confronting the narrative that fixes us in time and space. And then, the spell is broken. But talking instead about music...lost music. As if heard in fairy hills...And then my assignment. He is telling me that the presenting issue a client brings is often like a thin crust over the real problem. And in response I divert us down an intellectual worm hole pursuing the importance of paradox in therapy - and more to the point - what would a meta dox be?  Here now in 2023 my ability to...

Paradoxical and confusing. He opens the door to me and right away he begins with,  chit-chat. Years away from this  - and I have many hours' experience of finding people who have arrived to talk with me, lost outside the building; in the rain, the sun, the wind. Some are anxious, some are smiling anticipating telling their story and needing to feel better, many people are confused - all just people, and hopes and fears.  And then into the peace of the therapy room... But I never begin with chit-chat about me. Ever. So what is happening? Of course I enjoy it, he's talking to me about him.  Like I'm being let in, just a tiny, tiny bit. And then he sits down and we are back to my research proposal, hooray! And he is very clear in his mind that a trauma in the present, confirms the trauma of the past.  A reanimation, that occurs not to resolve it - but to confirm it - because it feels normal.  Observing his way of thinking is like watching someone trying to ...