The Black Box.

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...