The Black Box.

I'm sitting in the library, a notebook, mango juice - just eaten my supermarket sandwich before I go back to work . I was trying to draw a mind map , to gather my thoughts. But I think writing here will help me to clarify... I'm very aware that complaints don't work out well for the person who complains. Recently a friend of mine walked out of her job. She had made a complaint about the behaviour of a male colleague - and her complaint was substantiated by other members of staff, but when she spoke about this with her practice manager things did not go well. She left her job. He got promotion. How this happened is so far inexplicable! Enough to say that she felt bullied and undermined by the complaints procedure itself. She felt that her conduct was instantly the focus of the complaint rather than the conduct of the person that she had complained about.  How did that happen? She felt 'as if the attack dogs had been released' and so she ran... It looks like ignori...

Where does attraction live? In our heads? In our hearts? In the vagaries of the autonomic nervous system? Heading into darkening skies, stars flickering into vision, twilight. Following a path that was always there. As the sky dims a sensation of momentum and gravity brings you to the edge of a lake. Here the smooth water is so deeply blue, so silent. The air is perfumed, everything is waiting, and the trees seem to quiver as the moon rises. A quiet hush surrounds this eternal infinity.  This moment is old, it is primal, it is universal. And all it takes is your total surrender. As self dissolves into the void. -- I imagine that Kit would assess my previous post as indicating my closeness to a resolution?  As if by naming the harms done to me in the name of ethical conduct, I'm showing that I'm ready to move on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing has changed, nothing can change. I can't resolve the fragments, too many missing pieces. Hieroglyphs without the Ro...

One of my most transformative experiences during the last few years was getting into cold, very cold water. As I floated in 4 degrees  I reached out and held the ice. My pupils were dilated (sympathetic nervous system on overload), everything radiated energy. The water before me was something else, infinity, death? Not sure. Full of light. The sky was the kind of blue beyond thought, beyond understanding. The trees on the other side of the lake lent me their roots. Deep slow breaths, calm, calm, calm, absolute total bliss... Later that year I bought a ring; amber with a line of silver; like the rune, isa. I assume if you like me are a Hoffer (someone who practices Wim Hof Method...) ice has a slightly different meaning for us. The cold is merciless but righteous! "The cold is merciless, but it is absolutely righteous. It goes past the mind, past the conditioning, past all comfort-zone behavior, past our weakness, and makes us strong." Wim Hof. But, standing on ice is differen...

Revisiting...15th November 2021.  [LINK to post - "Was she in love with him?"] This discussion between kit and myself crystallised my unease about attachment theory , and the reparative relationship . It made me question the shape, limits and function of psychotherapy . Specifically it made me feel uneasy about Kit. In the dialogue on that day, kit tells me about a client who arrived for therapy for three years, who sat with 'clenched fists', unable to accept 'love', and who left therapy 'transformed'. Kit described her case as an example of Richard Erskine 's juxtaposition .  Kit distilled juxtaposition as, resisting that which we most want and need. I listened to our dialogue about this again last night. I was struck by his tone of voice, and the pauses in the transmission. I felt as if he wanted me to feel the impact through his narrative, so I would feel as he had felt. He wanted me to believe? Well there is a bit more to it, what I heard and ...

  Autumn Equinox 2024 . Updated Summer solstice 2025 . This blog begins on Glastonbury Tor .  High up - you can see for miles! It is understood as a magical place, the meeting point of many energy lines and forces. Many people come to stand there together.  No one single belief system rules, it is free and open to all.  Welcome! When I wrote the first post of this blog  I was in recovery from the therapy I left therapy feeling powerless, and silenced.  Again. During the gaslighting  that ended just two months before I started therapy, I had needed to ignore all and any thoughts or feelings that contradicted my husband's version of reality. If I allowed myself to take my thoughts and feelings seriously, I would try to find out the truth. And when I did that....let's just say it really wasn't worth it. The response from my husband would leave me wracked with pain and self blame.  This ended of course once I found out that he had been lying to ...

So I'm fascinated that my thing about Factor X and 'the compelling explanation' brings me back to Freud. I admire him. I'm grateful to him. But I don't like him! I see Herr Freud as Eros's pornographer, unlike Jung, and Hillman, who work from an older symbolism, with awe and wonder. Nevertheless, Freud stands behind modern day psychotherapy, and he certainly had encountered the process I'm seeking to unravel. So, let's go back!  When Freud was listening for the client's 'Factor X' he heard a lot of compelling explanations. Unfortunately Freud thought he knew what Factor X was, because in his view it was always the same one. Freud understood that the client's symptoms or compelling explanation was caused by the client's feelings. Or rather, the client's confusion and compelling explanation was an effect of the client blocking recognition of those feelings. Freud understood that Factor X  was like a rock under the river, causing ...

The 23rd of May has been an an overly significant date, too many times! Without doubt memory is the key to trauma and I'm really grateful for the EMDR I received over a year ago now. The trigger memory for treatment was the sound of the gate and my husband standing there. Waves of disapproval rolling off him, telling me I should not be burning things in the garden. Later that night he would be tricked into going round to her house.  Where her husband was waiting...and her son hit him with a saucepan. His car was a write off afterwards. And he needed stitches. The photo of that car, windscreen smashed, reminds me of how much better I felt once I'd got the truth. Something had to give, something breached, secrecy destroyed. Gaslighting ended. The earth was the earth once more, the sky only sky... Truth, even the worst truth is so much better than lies. But the 23rd. And memories. Between the garden gate and the car, there is the tree. The memory joins and flows into the feeling...