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emotionally absent to the client because of the counsellor‟s capacity to be separate. Freedom
may be experienced as loss or emptiness inside, in that to think one‟s
own thoughts without
relying on previously learned beliefs or attitudes may feel very isolating. Fighting or avoiding
freedom can be the intense reaction to the fear of being different from others, but the movement
created by that fear has a volatile intensity which may enable growth. As with the other
categories, fighting and avoiding containment-freedom is a necessary part of the client‟s journey.
The fight may be passive and/or aggressive, but if a client wishes to change, then this upheaval
of movement may provide the friction necessary to engender that new life.
Examples of this category appear to be expressed in the journals as a desire to end the
counselling, being late for sessions or an inability to be dependent on the counsellor. It may also
be present in words that express opposition and anger that may feel impossible to express. In the
pilot study a section of one entry seems to show this category clearly:
Extract 12. Entry from a pilot study journal to show fighting containment-freedom
Line 1.
Feel “nothing” towards
Line 2.
her. Want her to
Line 3.
be a “non entity”
Line 4.
Do not want to
Line 5.
connect with her.
Line 6.
Don‟t
care what
Line 7.
she thinks of
Line 8.
me - I don‟t want
Line 9.
to know.
Line 10.
Don‟t want to know
Line 11.
what I think of
Line 12.
her. Don‟t want to
Line 13.
“love” her because
Line 14.
its not forever.
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The participant seems to demonstrate her distrust towards the counsellor by feeling nothing (line
1) towards her and wanting her to be a non entity (line 3). It is
as if she cannot face the
possibility of feeling love (line 13) towards the counsellor, for if she did she might feel
dependent on her. It seems there is a fight to stay as she is, distrusting the counsellor but also a
fight to love her. There seems to be a fear of love because it would not be forever (line 14). This
suggests that the client has lost someone she loves and dare not love again. It is as if she
regresses to an earlier time where she has suffered loss and she feels young and vulnerable in a
place where she appears to have lost her balance. Her thoughts towards
the counsellor may be
seen as exaggerated as if there is no room for the other side of her feelings, no room for the poles
of opposition. According to Jung (1969) it is the working together of the inner polarities that:
“makes possible the balanced regularity of these processes which without
this inner polarity would become one sided and unreasonable. We are
therefore justified in regarding all extravagant and exaggerated behaviour
as a loss of balance because the co-ordinating
effect of the opposite
impulse is obviously lacking” (32-33).
The opposing feelings of the participant‟s desire to love seem to be hidden in lines 10 - 12 for
she does not want to know what she thinks of the counsellor as if she is defending herself against
her own feelings. In this sense there is a fight to stay the same and be independent and a fight to
change by risking „love‟, and becoming dependent on the counsellor. It is as if the tension
between these opposing desires leads to „a loss of balance‟ that the participant consciously
experiences in the session.