The Black Box.

A new blog. The first page after the end.  Let's rewind - This blog has history. It starts with Rings Around The Moon , it ended with The 3lack 3ox .  Rings Around The Moon  charted my family's journey as my youngest son suffered psychosis , and our experience of psychiatrists and the mental health teams. Then it follows my year of awful, life sapping days and nights as my husband's lies and cruelty broke my heart. What came next was not good either, and it was recorded as  The 3lack 3ox (now deleted) my blog about psychotherapy - in other words, what bad therapy is, and what it feels like to receive it, and how not to manage 'erotic transfer'! My experience of psychotherapy is best described as a two year plane crash. It was not healing on any level - unless you think taking heroin is helpful? In response to his flirting I'd fallen in love with the man - not the psychotherapist - and how he mismanaged this meant that when I left therapy I was suicidal. When yo...

For a conflict to be resolved through mediation certain factors need to be present. If both parties care enough about the relationship, if the power difference can be levelled out so that both parties feel safe enough, and if both parties feel as if they have some control over the process, mediation will probably be of a considerable help. The therapist and I?  A good mediation would not make! I left his room for the last time feeling that he was glad to see the back of me. And as far as I can tell he has no intention of ever addressing what went wrong. There is also a problem created by therapy culture . The complaint 'formulation' is in itself a bad start. It isn't focused on reparation . So, what am I saying? Clients can find that therapy makes their mental state worse. They feel that something was wrong, so if they make a complaint and if the therapist is working for a charity for instance, the manager investigates, and works with the complainant to get some kind of r...

The form is filled in, and posted. It doesn't contain names or details. Simply a request that my case is assessed, and I'm given advice on what will happen if I proceed with the complaint.  The rules are, that you can only expect a therapist's ethical body to investigate a complaint about the things a therapist has done while they were (and still are) a member of that specific ethical body.  And the complaint must be made within three years. It has been longer than three years. The therapist changed his ethical body.  And my complaint is, that the therapist has not responded to my victim statement.  The longer than three years could invalidate my complaint. But surely when a therapist doesn't respond to a client's request for an apology, surely that is pretty serious. Silence looks like denial, and no one thinks that ghosting is a good way to communicate. But, as I have said previously, my mind is still weaving a 100 and 1 excuses for him, and I'm still feeling ...

It has taken me four years to get enough distance on what happened to me, to begin to make sense of it. The importance of this is, now I know from the inside that it is unreasonable to think that victims instantly seek justice, or that they will be able to identify, name or explain what happened to them, straight away. The greater the impact of the emotional disturbance, the greater their bewilderment, shock and desire to just hide away. And making sense of it? Sometimes it takes decades. Sometimes it is never. It took me years to name the cause of the harm done to me during therapy as epistemic injustice . The inequality of power underlying the withholding of information was a real problem. The therapist and I both suffered because of it. But I was also risking my life. My need for him to see and hear me was so great. I felt threatened each time he became tight lipped. Each time he said 'this isn't working' it was as if acid had been poured over me. I imagine that he wa...

Well here we are.  And I have managed to avoid this book for over a year. I bought it way back, it accompanied me when I did my training in conflict resolution, May 2024.  I tried to read it. Simply couldn't do it. A year and six months later here I am. Dinner time. Tesco sandwiches . Library. Fortunately only three cases this afternoon because yet again something I've seen, heard, read, to do with 'erotic transfer ' has filled my eyes with tears. I am angry, saddened, I think the aim of true person centred therapy is awesome actually. But, it hurts me to read... Brian Thorne describes an experience of therapy that echoes my experience of 'The man of stars'. That when both people are vitally present, vulnerable, open, there is access to an almost external dimension of healing.  I don't have much time to write. But in the final chapters Brian describes his therapeutic relationship with Emma, how he fearlessly allowed himself to be completely honest with her...

Non engagement , 'keeping one's dignity' in the face of outrageous adversity, not ' feeding the trolls ', keeping your head held high, and 'not letting the b******s grind you down, are each a time honoured strategy used to maintain one's power.  Except it turns up as a client struggling with self attack and self abandoning . Silencing oneself because it is supposed to control others, often comes from anger. A feeling of anger indicates a need to protect oneself, playing dead - avoiding/disengaging - is a serious level of autonomic (dorsal vagal) affect.  As an off the shelf answer it is avoiding your answer. Silence as a strategy to control others is a cold anger portrayed in movies as strength, yet it so often contains contempt, and it is dehumanising... I don't see strength there. I see a mouse overwhelmed by fear and paralysed, but not running away when fight flight (self protection) kicks in.  Silence, a paralysis framed as neutrality, isn't ne...

2020. I trusted the therapist . I trusted that he'd follow me into my account of my experiences and be a calm, compassionate witness as I began the work of building a bridge for me to cross from the terror and despair of the previous five years, to the safety of the present. The need in me for such a witness was raw, a wound. I had the task of transforming my memories or I'd stay trapped in the pain of my son's psychosis and attempted suicide, and my husband's choice to betray our marriage. I needed to be able to cope with the pain and devastation. And I thought that I could trust the therapist to track my emotions and to see... For this is what I needed so much. My feelings for him began when I received an email from my course leader saying that as the therapist was not accredited he wasn't experienced enough to see students. This made me feel hot and cold, and panic. I couldn't bear the thought of losing another person. Certainly I was shocked by the depth of...