The Black Box.

Well this is so strange.  And I'm going to interpret and play. Ten minuites ago I saw a photograph of the therapist.  A new photo, a recent photo.  And, the shock!  I laughed. A lot. What happened? A Gregor Samsa metamorphosis must have over come him. He wakes each morning to find that he has become someone else.  The mirror reflects the truth; that his spirit, his soul has been poured into a physical container that looks exactly like a psychotherapist he has repeatedly expressed a loathing for. And this change has grown over time, it was slow, and not over night. Unlike poor Gregor! And this change could have been stopped. Instead he has allowed it, fed it, groomed it! Enabling him to enact  'I don't like the person I see in the mirror'... Or that person and I we are the same... He looks, exactly, EXACTLY like a psychotherapist who he had described as a thug; as a person who provokes arguments, a person with a 'heart of granite'. Oh, interpretation is too...

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...