The Black Box.

Over on substack... Over on Substack I realised that it isn't going to happen.  I dare not send the complaint. So I'm posting here the most part of what I was going to send...a lot missed out. No mention of him talking about the other client who wouldn't #1 'accept love'. Nothing about the references to #2 'coffee fuelled discussions..' So this begs the question, how can a victim complain safely? The usual answer is money...which I don't have. So, in time honoured fashion, if a victim doesn't feel safe in making an official complaint - though I want to hide away, the story has to be told. Back to good old, freeware...(CC) 3. What do you feel was wrong with the therapy/therapist? That the therapist needed to have been aware that by responding to me in a defensive and avoidant way he was repeating the erosive dynamic that had originally proved so harmful to me, and was the reason why I was in therapy. That the therapist had a defensive attitude when I ...

Closed...I've been thinking about what that actually means ever since writing it 20 days ago. My feelings are not resolved on any level, but on the other hand - I have a comprehensive 'crash report' and clarity on what not to do as a therapist when clients make complaints.  And I now have the information that I need to make the formal complaint. Thinking about writing that complaint, and even downloading the form again after saying so many times, that I wouldn't do this; because what good would it do?  Well Things have changed.  The black box has been deciphered. And the complaint isn't so much about him anymore, it should be made because clients rightly fear being disempowered and belittled by therapists. The way to resolve such disputes is up to me to bring forward, and to that end I'm reducing my hours working for a charity, but keeping my private practice,  and I'm going to have to learn something about marketing... OK, so the therapist's choice - go...

Why don't clients speak up when therapy feels off, or when they find themselves feeling hollowed out, almost crippled by the effect of therapy, as they leave the room? I've thought a lot about this. I remember leaving a session with a different therapist, and my brain had been frazzled. I'd been talking about something that involved the outside world - I think I have written about it in this blog? About how my friend was groomed, literally groomed and about to be abused by her teacher when we were teenagers. She phoned me and I got her out...And how my friend didn't want anyone to know...and how for years, decades I kept my promise to her never to tell. And all the time I presume, he continued to 'work with troubled girls'.  I put the feelings of my friend above the abuse other girls probably suffered.  This is awful.  Speaking about it in therapy left me feeling like a cooked lettuce leaf. I didn't feel strengthened by the person centred approach. And I cou...

Perhaps I'm in a tearing everything down mood. After my week off from navigating the complexity of what the NHS thinks therapy should be, the complexity of what parents want therapy to do for their child, and the child sat in front of me who just wants it all to be ok...I'd told admin and a fellow sessional counsellor that I was gone. Well, going. I'd planned to stop working there in October. It doesn't help that the rooms are hotter than the sun. Pro-tip, have laptop continually in YouTube land, playing a vision of the sea, and the sound of the waves.  It helps. This is all I can do! This morning, I'm in the other place and I got the room with air conditioning..and I'm  working with adults who want therapy, and I get half an hour to write my notes. Bliss. After my notes were done for this morning I went back to the letter to my manager at -hotterthanthesun  place, and changed what I'd written during my holiday. Draft one had said that I was leaving  I don...

 Over on substack I've been wading through the words stuck and unsticking, writing the complaint. The complaint I said I'd never make. And at 4am this morning, having woken up in as cold a cold sweat is possible in this greenhouse world, I went back to edit out the name of the therapist's 'ethical body '. I have to view myself through the dominant culture's lens, and agree that I might be malicious and wrong. Unfortunately I'm very good at doing this and the force of it has already stopped me from speaking up when I should, too many times. It has meant that people assume my silence on a matter means that I'm fine. It has meant that I can't see myself as a victim until it is too late. And it still renders me powerless. After editing the post I started thinking about my mother in law who dared not to speak up. So she died of sepsis from bedsores. Yes, they are connected. One thing led to the other. A fundamental principle in her home was of keeping the...

 I'm letting myself imagine writing the complaint. I know - I said that I would never do it. I believed that the victim statement should be enough. But, but...just about everyone knows, therapy is giving a person space, safety and time to reassociate painful memories, catastrophic replay even, in such a way as to create safety and reintegration, to put episodic memory on to the autobiographical time-line. The term, epistemic justice, isn't in the ethical guidelines. But it exists within the guidelines as the ethical behaviour of transparency.  Of having nothing to hide. Without the therapist offering transparency, I did not have information enough to make sense of all that had happened I could not feel safe. I was in catastrophic replay and  retraumatised. Because I'd been through all this before in my marriage. My husband was very good at avoiding the truth, and hiding the whole story. And yes, I can back my accusations of flirting and lack of transparency with quotes an...