The 3lack 3ox.

I had discovered that mandatory therapy doesn't end until we have done at least 50 hours of placement and we have a letter from our therapist passing us as stable (!) And also to have filled out more forms to highlight our areas for development, and then also listing what CPD we are planning on taking. In other words, I need not have given him a date to end therapy. He asks , ' have you found anybody'?  A new therapist...I say that I will leave that until I find a placement. And he isn't saying anything. Then we are talking about transcripts. He is telling me to never write my own transcripts because I can use a transcription service!  I write my own transcripts..  I say, 'where does that leave the promise of confidentiality then! I mean talking about a client to a supervisor for the purposes of making sure that I'm doing the best I can for that person is one thing, breaking confidentiality by letting some nameless person transcribe a conversation that I said wa...

Ah me, he asks, as always - if it is light enough?  Does he ask this of everyone, or me alone. And then, he is asking me about an email I sent, requesting that we change to day of sessions to a Friday. He asks, 'what was that about'? I sometimes think it takes all the years I've been a trainee to get past questions like this without mischievously giving a spurious reply!  I have no hidden agenda. The truth is very boring and related to work schedules  His reply is emotional, well - more emotion than I'd expect. Except all he says is, 'OK, so that's sorted' Did he hope that if I needed to change my day, he would be able to say that he's fully booked?  This is my sad and discouraging interpretation. Or perhaps he feels relief that I'm not going? I hold onto that last thought, 98% certain it isn't true. He asks me where I want to go today... Me -  "Well, we could do part 2 because I'm not sure where the plane is going" Untrue - I know...

He remarks upon my layers - I've put on too many clothes! I say -  " Let there be light"! I'm so used to our opening conversation always being about the dimness of his room! He asks me, am I not too warm? And I say -  "Well, I know that intellectually" And this remark causes great hilarity. He says ' You don't know it physically? ( I laugh)  You do know it physically but it doesn't matter! More laughter... He asks me what sort of conversation we are going to get today? Me -  "The airplane - I sort of needed to put it together. It sort of came to me in the early hours of the morning - in that time when things get put together - so I just thought I'd write. To put together the airplane  that keeps crashing. It's crashed how many times now? The first challenge was cannibalism  (This refers to the times he has used an airplane as a metaphor during our conversations) He -  "Oh that airplane" Me -  "So this is a mixture, ...

I brought the fairy lights. Slender copper wire, and tiny, delicate white stars. He laughs, as I drape them gently over his bookcase... And then I'm giving him a card and his money in the card, and talking about how I feel I should offer him a white scarf in return for his teachings.. There is a poem, written in the card. It is the poem that I quote on the first page of my research project: Dust of Snow BY ROBERT FROST. The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. He asks me why? -  Why offer a scarf? I say -  "Because that's how you do it, you offer a scarf to the teacher, and the money is in an envelope" I am  purposefully  missing out the obvious, that I'm treating him as a lama. We are talking about crows, I say " I remember being sat, on Glastonbury Tor, watching a crow. And there were onion rings - not the battered rings - crispy, like crisps! And this ...

The door opens almost before I knock it! He -  "Hello, come in" He talks about heating, I mention the light. And the coffee is there, ready and waiting for me. I am assignment free for a day or two! The assignments make me feel as if I've been locked in a box, unable to think my own thoughts; that I don't know how I'd actually answer the assignments if I wasn't 'writing to pass'.  And to remedy this sense of being confined I talk about something I wrote for him last year. Me -  "So we must still have been in lockdown, April last year? I remember saying something about 'Seven Sermons to the Dead'? And I wrote you the first one - and I did write another one - but I didn't read that second one to you. None of this makes sense" Foolishly I'm attempting now to describe a semi-shamanistic practice of 'riding' experiences. How feeling tones translate into image...I blame the pressure cooker effect of my assignments, I just w...

I knock the door. Nothing happens! Feels like forever. I wait. He is making me a cup of coffee - before he opens the door.  He sees my surprise!  As I sit down I'm saying that I've had enough of writing my assignments, that I just want to be 'let off' And then I'm explaining how our three years of assignments are squeezed into two years. I am exhausted, and on the verge of being insane. And I'm talking about Unit 13, counselling children and how much I dislike   Erik Erikson (stages of development) and transitions. I explain again - "The art is to work out what the tutor wants, how to make it fit what I think the question means and fit the two together." He asks me 'what's wrong with Erikson'? Erikson - Erik - describes age related life challenges. Even when we did this in college we were in fits of laughter as we described our life challenges, not described by Erikson! Basically, life presents problems is all we are sure of. Erikson didn...

Grey skies. Rain. I want to write to him and say...surely it doesn't have to be this way. For my heart really is breaking. I come in. Questions about heating and lighting - I sigh.  I sound beaten. Done... It's over. He asks about my assignments, I talk about comparing the three modalities of psychodynamic, humanistic and CBT. We now seem to be at crossed purposes. He is arguing that CBT isn't on the 'same par' as psychodynamic or humanistic modalities, because it derives from behaviourist theories. And also... He is likening CBT to marsupials - then asks me if I see what he is getting at? Bizarrely as it may seem, I think I do. But this isn't significant. I don't set the assignments. I'd like to believe that the paradoxical and irrational nature of so much of our work at college is but a cunning plan, a way to condition our minds - like a psychological hair conditioner - to erase tangles and make us smooth and sweet scented, to teach us to stop trying...