The Black Box.

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...

I'm still looking for and researching the other side - the client's experience when making an official complaint. As I read, I encounter a mix of sadness and anger. And something else rises to the top, I feel guilt?  I'm not taking action, I'm not designing or doing anything except absorbing the impact. But sure it is true, research is important...if I write a plan, make a kanban , be kind to myself, trust myself. It's ok. I don't feel ok. I'm sitting very uncomfortable by the fire, on the floor. The room grows darker. Exactly as it was just before I went to the police station. I feel the same heaviness, but also now, a kind of triumph.. It really helps knowing that I'm not alone, that therapists often throw clients under the bus . We (I'm a therapist ) have the language and tone of voice to do it. We can provide the compelling explanation that will render your account void. And where is your evidence? I'm reminded that I began recording my sessi...

Actually 2026 has arrived with a sense of dread. But that's another story! Every year I write a letter to myself as the year ends. And so, this morning I got to read last year's letter to me now. I sat down with good coffee and cake, and started to read. Clearly this time last year I was stuck in the pain 'therapy' brought me - and I was on my way to making the complaint official, despite all my misgivings about the complaint process. Because I felt so uneasy about making an official complaint, and so that the therapist could understand what had occurred to make therapy so profoundly damaging I sent him the recordings of the sessions with my annotated transcripts . And because he didn't reply, or offer any acknowledgement of a problem I felt that there was simply no other option left except to send him my victim statement . I didn't want to see myself as a victim - but there wasn't any other way now to view it. Only by deeply acknowledging what had happened ...