The Black Box.

The application for university has been sent, so I wait. Meanwhile here I am again in the library thinking things through. Rather like criticising the theories that underpin why mental health services failed our family, criticising the theories that underpin how the therapist re-traumatized me is simple. What happened isn't difficult to understand. And I think that this signifies a deeper problem. The obvious answers don't work. Theories are only theories, and the people who made up the mental health team, and the therapist, did not set out to cause harm, quite the opposite! This leaves a more complicated idea to be thought about. Is it bad practice when a good therapist uses bad theories, or is bad practice something else? I'm clear in my own mind that someone who chooses to apply a theory that isn't working, needs to be clear on what working looks like, and reassess their theory.  For example, remembering how terrible it was to feel absolutely unloved and unlovable ...

Time to look at the compass and consult the map. I've asked my formidably impressive boss to write a reference so that I can apply to university - because I need to get into research.  My feeling is that no one is going to listen to me until I spend enough money gain more qualifications. Probably because of how rubbished I felt by the therapist. I remember saying this as I left his room the last time. The man had made out that his two years of studying the theory of therapy (only two years!) was somehow better than the five years I and my 'sisters' took. We had literally completed years more practice sessions, feedback, and case studies than him.  Despite my 'lack of education' I can categorically say that therapy isn't supposed to leave a client-student feeling that they wont be qualified 'enough' after completing and passing a BACP approved course. My insecurity is a part of the pathology left over from my sessions with him. And I obviously believe hi...

February is a bad month. It was in a February that I sent the therapist a heads-up that I was thinking of requesting my notes. It was a February when he called me a minx. And just before February last year I was shifting towards making a formal complaint against him, hoping against hope for a sensible resolution before I metaphorically let out the dogs... This February feels like it is going to be tough. But no longer is this to do with the therapist. I had a long drive to the border land between England and Wales to meet up with friends. But almost there a warning light lit up with an unwelcome ping! It was raining, it was cold. I stopped the car and felt the aloneness and vulnerability of being a woman who has 'lost' her husband. I felt all the fear I carry all the time, no longer drowned out by whatever clients, whatever CPD, whatever...it is the fear I feel in the evening when I catch a bus home. But not in the car; my car is my safe place! This sudden need brought back mem...

I've updated the blog posts of my therapy sessions. Beginning in 2021. Feeling like the box has been opened up as much as it is possible for me to do without publishing the original recordings and transcripts - all have served their purpose and have been deleted. The session accounts derived from them are pretty accurate... I was going to delay the posting of the updated versions - but I don't know, felt like I needed to put it all down, here and now. So, in this picture kindly drawn for me by Chat GPT, we have Freud, Jung, Fritz Perls and Carl Rogers - the funny thing is, I asked for Ellis to be included - as he is always forgotten.  Even by Chat GPT! Mesmerized by the brilliance of their theories, each of the four, in his own sweet way, wished to do good. Each one was temporarily blinded by the power of his  enlightening ideas.  And each of them went completely mad sometimes , and liable to act in ways deemed even then, completely unethical. Except dear old Carl Rogers...

Victim blaming is alive and well in the therapy room. Not just in the defensive labels thrown about by therapists who have been accused of misconduct. And I must admit  I'm feeling kind of washed up at the moment. I've not made any progress towards my goal of changing the world for the better (!) and meanwhile, I come across more victim blaming motifs, this time as I skim through the blurb describing courses offered for therapists. It is depressing. But I think there is a smattering of anger? Enough to make me write this! I'm trying hard to feel some moral indignation - but instead I'm just thinking of all the time I've wasted and how busy my weeks ahead are, and is my car booked in for an MOT? I love therapy, but do we do any good? And no, we therapists don't mean to victim blame.  You know, I have only seen the first episode of Pluribus , but sometimes I see similarities!  OK, it begins like this - I'm reading from a course for therapists who want to kno...

The study also revealed an intriguing pattern: people with aphantasia showed a disconnect between their physiological fear responses and their subjective experience of fear. Their bodies reacted with fear, but they didn't feel as afraid.Dr. Monzel suggests this might be related to alexithymia - difficulty identifying and describing emotions - which appears to be more common in people with aphantasia. This "decoupling" between physical and emotional responses has been observed in alexithymic individuals before. The more I think about the dialogues between the therapist and I, the more puzzled I become. I don't 'do' diagnosis, and I tend to see labels as very likely to concretise and limit identity. The problem in therapy was that my thinking includes metaphors to describe sensations, emotions, experiences, and I've learnt to rely on Gendlin's focusing to understand the felt sense of any issues, both for myself and with clients. It works well for som...