The Black Box.

  To read the post: https://open.substack.com/pub/3lack3ox/p/question-one? My Substack posts are more logical, better English versions, distillations of the contents of this blog. But to the question, is unconditional positive regard from your therapist all an act? My answer is, no. Or, yes - it could be. Therapy is a vocation for many therapists. And many therapists discover that therapy isn't about feeling rewarded by following their vocation. Others discover how to balance on a tightrope that stretches between hope and fear. And because they can do this, their clients likewise pick up the skill. Not being phased isn't an act. It comes from a genuine trust in oneself. The vocation only led you here. Now you better find out what it's all about! Going back to the subject, authenticity. Once the dreaded Kohuts were mentioned - read the post! I could not trust the therapist at all, well not as a therapist. He'd already blown his therapy credentials to bits by calling me a...

Deliquescence (Live) by SWANS GDPR is very much in my mind. Anyone who holds digital information about another person is a 'data controller' and as I write notes about my clients, I'm a data controller and so I have to have a policy, explaining how I will handle any requests for notes from clients on my website. Actually I've always had a policy of transparency, if a client wants their notes the protocol is that they sign to say that they accept responsibility for their information and that their therapist is no longer able to preserve the confidentiality of the notes.  Then they also have a choice, to go through the notes with me, or to simply have the notes. The ICO is very keen on confidentiality - the way notes are stored - and the law is very keen on clients being able to see their notes and correct any information about themselves that they don't want recorded. Should I make another, more assertive request to see my notes? Would The therapist regard this as mo...

As I left the house this morning, those were the words in my mind - I didn't run away . This is the kind of statement clients might make, and I will reflect such statements back with a hint of admiration in my voice. I know what it costs - to not run. Because of course there have been times when I did run,  for instance when the emergency services man was yelling at me to get out of the house. If I hadn't run then to distract my son, my husband could have lost a finger. My son was trying to bite it off.. I remember the aftermath, sitting on the ground, a dark and cold February night. My back to the garage, watching the police take my son away in handcuffs.  (What happened? +)  And there have been lots of things I've said that I should do, or will do, and then thought better of it! Not phoning the police when my son was extremely violent was one. I didn't know what was on the other side, would he be arrested, get a criminal record? But doing something different when it i...

It isn't just women.  I'm not even going to say that this happened to me, but if someone else told me that what had happened to me had happened to them... Ok, well we know that therapists will go to the police and claim that they are the victim of harassment - see Dangerous Memories (Tortoise Media / BBC Sounds), The shocking part is, the 'victim' only has to say that they told the client never to contact them again (twice ) for their complaint to be taken very seriously as harassment, and to have some evidence such as an email about or to the victim says that there is a problem with the victim. The communication doesn't need to contain a threat. The perpetrator doesn't have to have made a threat to hurt or harm. The victim's complaint is enough. Because a person experiencing harassment might be in such a bad psychological state, that they can't speak about it. And quite possibly, police, unlike therapists, don't feel comfortable with going into the ...