Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

Construct: over contained-overfree 
The confusion and explosion of feelings suggest she is uncontained-unfree. It feels as if she is 
aware of the „have to‟ and „should‟ ways of being that she has lived by up until now. The 
questioning if she is alone suggests that she is beginning to experience separation from others but 
this is also frightening, particularly with a break from the counselling looming before her. 
Week 16. 
Line 1.
Relief after Co. 2 week break to be 
Line 2.
back. Wk 1 - OK. Wk 2 - loss and death. 
Line 3.
Past loss - who am I 
Line 4.
Anger at mother. Who was my dad. 
Line 5.
1 photo - nobody can tell me, no one 
Line 6.
knows, acceptance I will never know. 
Line 7.
Who am I? 
Line 8.
Remembering - mother was told to have 
Line 9.
abortion „me‟. perhaps this is why I
Line 10.
have never felt the right to be alive 
Line 11.
Drawing life line + happiness line?! 
The client seems to have had a two week break (line 1) from counselling and appears to feel 
relief (line 1) at being back as if she has missed it. The break seems to have made her more 
aware of loss and death (line 2) and enables her to wonder who she is (line 3). This question feels 
crucial to the client‟s whole internal journey as if the counselling is about finding out who she is, 
as if she has never really known. This is made clearer when she writes about her dad (line 4). She 
does not know who he was, has only one photo of him and no one can tell her anything about 
him (line 5). It seems she has to accept that she will never know him or anything about him (line 
6). She asks again „who am I?‟ (line 7) this time with a question mark as if she recognizes how 
important not knowing her dad has become. Perhaps she is also making the decision that this is 
what she must concentrate on next, finding out who she is. This explains her anger towards her 
mother (line 4) who has never given her any information about her dad. She remembers next that 
her mother was told to abort her (line 8) and she wonders if this is why she has never felt as if 

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she has the right to be alive (line 9,10). She ends this question with what appears to be a 
statement about drawing a life line and happiness line (line 11). But perhaps this is also a 
question in that this is what she wants to do next for herself that is give herself the right to be 
alive and start to take charge, or draw (line 11) her own life and be responsible for her life and 
her happiness.