Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

THE CONSTRUCT 
The construct of the containment-freedom
Polarity
The overall polarity that holds all the categories. Both stillness and 
movement are contained within it. It could be thought of as the overall shape 
of a rainbow, the arc which holds all the colours within its shape. 
Uncontained-unfree
The still / stuck place where there is no movement. A place from where both 
the external and internal world may be viewed anew. 
Over contained-over free
An agitated and confused place full of other people‟s opinions. Internal 
movement that feels like panic, obsession or hyperactivity. 
Fighting containment-freedom
A fight to change and a fight not to change, an internal battling against the 
self and others. 
Desire for containment-freedom
A tug of war - wanting to be emotionally held, cared for by the counsellor 
yet the opposition of feeling irritation or dislike of the counsellor. 
Towards containment freedom
The pull and swing of the pendulum, movement, owning ones feelings, 
acknowledging what has been hidden. 

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5.3 Containment, freedom and polarity 
Both containment and freedom within the therapeutic relationship may be understood to be 
enabling in that the counsellor attempts to provide a safe (containment) space (freedom) where 
the client can think and feel his/her own experience in the presence of the counsellor. However 
both containment and freedom as experienced within the internal world of the client may be 
disabling. Life events may have provided a containment that was confining, even harmful so that 
any form of containment may be experienced as disabling. Freedom may have been experienced 
as dangerous or overwhelming so this potential space may also be experienced as disabling. 
Within the enabling containment provided by the counsellor the client may experience the very 
opposite of what is being provided. This seems to be demonstrated in the following entry from a 
main study journal: 
Extract 8. Entry from WF journal W2. to show client‟s experience 
Line 1.
Still no better! 
Line 2.
Feel restricted! 
Line 3.
No warmth - can I hack this? 
Line 4.
Do I want to?? No! 
Line 5.
Uncomfortable. 
Line 6.
She is so astute! 
Line 7.
Caught like a fish on a hook! 
Line 8.
And I am wriggling. 
It appears that in the containment offered by the counsellor the participant feels restricted (line1), 
uncomfortable (line 5) and caught like a hooked fish (line 7). Although in the language of theory 
this may be described as transference or countertransference these terms do not describe the 
client‟s experience from her perspective. It seems that from her perspective that she feels caught 

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and hooked as if she is stuck somewhere and can only wriggle but not free herself. This appears 
to show how disabling containment may feel to the client.
The key concepts of containment and freedom in this study are used to discover if these notions 
are understood and experienced by the client to the extent that the participant feels the analysis 
and the theoretical constructs fit his/her internal feelings as a client. My experiences that helped 
form this research enabled me to understand the importance of knowing consciously the effects 
or impact of particular life events. It was this knowing that in turn provided the freedom to 
reclaim myself from trauma and create a new life with a changed concept of self. Etherington 
(2000) states: 
“Telling our story is a way of reclaiming ourselves, our history and our experiences; 
a way of finding our voice. In telling my story to others I am also telling my ‟self‟ - 
and my „self‟ (who is audience) is being formed in the process of telling. So there are 
witnesses to my story, the „other‟ to whom I recount my story (which is what clients 
do in therapy), and the self who is growing within me as I hear my story retold as I 
speak or write it down” (17).
To reclaim myself, I told my story in therapy and in poetry. I journeyed through experiences that 
felt to be, both disabling and enabling forms of containment and freedom where these two 
concepts appeared inextricably linked. My reflections on the paradox of containment and 
freedom being both enabling and disabling led to the idea of a containment-freedom polarity.  
 

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5.4 Polarity
A polarity is generally understood to be the tendency to grow differently in different directions, 
along an axis, as a tree towards base and apex, or roots and branches. It is the opposition that 
Jung (Bischof 1964; Jung 1969) saw as engendering the movement which leads towards 
resolution and momentary equilibrium within the client. An extract from a pilot study journal 
demonstrates the opposing states that may exist within a client during a session: 
Extract 9. From a pilot study journal to show opposing states
Line 1.
Happy / content 
Line 2.
Uncertainty 
Line 3.
mild anxiety 
Line 4.
excitement / anticipation 
Line 5.
What do I say? 
Line 6.
Is this the day? 
Line 7.
Fear / high anxiety 
Line 8.
palpitations 
Line 9.
burning in stomach 
Line 10.
confusion
The participant moves between various feeling states from „happy/content‟ to „palpitations‟ and 
„burning in stomach‟. The confusion at the end seems to say how she may really be feeling but 
the shift between so many feeling states demonstrates the possibility of polarities, of opposite 
poles of feelings being present. 
In this study the polarity between containment and freedom is seen as internal growth (which 
affects the external life), rooting down into internal containment, and branching out into internal 
freedom. If the client experiences containment in their internal world as imprisoning then 

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containment within the counselling relationship may be experienced as disabling. If the client 
experiences freedom as overwhelming then the freedom provided within the counselling 
relationship may also be felt as disabling. In this sense containment with or without freedom may 
be felt as imprisoning, while freedom with or without containment may be felt as dangerous. It is 
suggested then that this opposition between containment and freedom forms a polarity (within 
the client) that may enable and/or disable emotional movement. When the client takes refuge in a 
disabled way of being that has been (unconsciously) learned through life events and experiences, 
the opposition between containment and freedom may come into awareness. As the counsellor 
attempts to provide an enabling and containing environment in the freedom of the space between 
them the client may discover a way to change by finding a route through this opposition to a new 
conscious knowing. It seems possible that this opposition provides various but constant 
emotional movement between containment and freedom. The client may experience this 
opposition as emotional traps, pitfalls and ways of escape from different aspects of their selves 
(Etherington 2000) that they find difficult to allow into consciousness. This opposition within the 
polarity may be understood as enabling the client to grow towards their own containment and 
their own freedom which may be likened to developing their own mature autonomy (Grotstein 
1982; 83) or reconstructing their own self (or the marriage between Beauty and the Beast). The 
paradox of this opposition is perhaps that containment and freedom also appear to be necessary 
aspects of each other. But in the process of changing it is suggested that the client splits them 
apart in order to be able to experience the extremes of each aspect. In the space (between the 
client and counsellor) where anything can be known or experienced in the mind (Godwin 1991) 
the client may feel containment and freedom as different and split before then integrating them 
back together. Jung (1969) suggests that, “just as between all opposites there obtains so close a 

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bond that no position can be established or even thought of without its corresponding negation” 
(206 ). So the paradox of the containment-freedom polarity may be seen as holding containment 
and freedom together while also keeping them apart. 
5.5 Containment-freedom polarity 
As the research has progressed containment-freedom has become the overall polarity which 
encompasses the other categories. It holds the polarity and the paradox together by incorporating 
both movement and stillness. It holds both containment and freedom, Beauty and the Beast 
keeping them apart and linking them together so that their split provides clarification; while 
being held together they become supportive (Twachtmann and Daniell 1997). Beauty may never 
live fully without the Beast who she needs to protect her yet the Beast cannot live fully without 
Beauty who he needs to tame his wildness. In the same way internal containment may never 
appear to meet internal freedom yet freedom cannot exist without containment anymore than 
containment can exist without freedom.