7.3.2. Who Am I?
Who Am I, wrote with powerful images that stayed with me after reading her journal. She felt
very alone hardly alive as if part of her was not really living or not able to live fully. She may be
seen as Beauty because so much of her feels unavailable as if she lives a life that others expect of
her.
WHO AM I?
A frozen child
Trapped in painful, unreal perfection
Pleasing others.
Lost in a lonely ice-age
Where there is
No sound
No hope
No help
No others
For I am stuck in my disconnected head
By
Old
191
Cold
Memories.
Who am I?
An abortion
That never happened.
A negative thought
Confused by unknown beginnings
Where choice was the stolen possibility
Of future longings
And power was the enemy of this sabotaged world
Where opposition did not exist.
Who am I?
A self without form
For this „I‟ has no being.
Doing, is a resistant sadness
Where change
Is never conceived
But obscured in the myth
Of each expectant Should.
Cracks of hope are bound by action
Imprisoning my voice in the negative foetus
Of a victim‟s curse.
Who am I?
In the talking hour
Defences start defrosting
As thawing tears uncover glimpses
Of unborn selves,
While anger crashes through the icebergs of misconception.
She warms me
I risk dependence.
I begin to be
And even this writer‟s understanding may be criticized
For power becomes a friend
And opposition feeds the tension
Of new life
As I free my own creation
For I am heard
Raised from the depths of an arctic death
I am alive.
192
This participant asked herself „who am I?‟ several times in her journal and there was a strong
sense of her wanting to find out who she really was as if she was stuck in her past, in the shock
of something that had happened to her. She seems to demonstrate the construct of uncontained-
unfree very clearly for she describes herself as „a frozen child‟. This powerful image of Jung‟s
“stoppage of libido” (1969:33) suggests there is no movement, for the frozen child is unable to
move. Who Am I agrees with the construct of uncontained-unfree and in response to the analysis
writes:
“worked hard in the session - doing the counsellor part! Perhaps this was a way of
avoiding? Not knowing how? It was terrifying, the memory still creates tension in
my stomach”(WAI ).
She still seems to experience something of trauma in this response, in her physical feelings, but
this shows movement in that she is no longer frozen. It suggests that in finding her own metaphor
for her anguish that she alters her frozen space (Flint 2004) and begins to move emotionally. In
her feedback, she describes what she felt was happening when I put another entry into this
category:
“Learning to trust inner voice/self. Experimenting with not having to be and not
being like some others. Beginning to enjoy being self but still frozen but with some
idea about choices”(WAI).
This demonstrates that the uncontained-unfree place enables her to look around and feel where
she is, for not only is she aware of enjoying being herself but is able to see possible choices as if
she is discovering the Beast of internal freedom.
Who Am I, felt stuck in the past, as if she was contained by her memories. Living by pleasing
others like Beauty seemed to keep her in an overcontained-overfree internal world. Here she was
disconnected from herself, and full of old cold memories, as if she replayed the memories over
193
and over in her head. In her responses to the analysis when I had suggested that there was a fear
of losing this known way of being she agreed and added: “even though this way of being was
exhausting and stressful and totally unfulfilling” (WAI). She seems to find meaning through this
process as she comes to understand herself more. This relates to my sense of not knowing who I
was following trauma (chapter 1) and writing seems to help her to explore the unknown just as it
helped me.
Knowing that her mother considered having an abortion seems to stop her from living fully.
There was a strong sense of anguish in her words as if she was howling out grief in her writing.
She was unable to find out more about where she came from because she knew nothing of her
father. This perhaps sabotaged her ability to learn more and felt a powerful part of her need to
know who she was. Control in this way feels external and suggested again the construct of
overcontained-overfree, where power is external and the prerogative of others. This perhaps
confirms Payne‟s (2006) suggestion of someone living a „canonical‟ narrative in that she was
trying to fit into a ready-made stereotypical narrative in order to be the same as others, creating:
“a source of distress and loss of identity when our lives fail to correspond to them” (21). In this
sense it appears hard for Who Am I to have a different identity to others and confirm her
individuality as if she cannot exist unless she is the same as others.
She had a longing „to be‟ rather than always being caught up in doing, particularly for others, as
if this doing gave her an identity, again like Beauty. This busy activity seemed a denial of
opposition which she begins to discover during the counselling. Although she says that she did
not knowingly think about the theme of the study while she was writing, some unconscious
194
knowledge of it seems to appear in her journal for she clearly looks at opposing feelings. She
desires to take care of herself in one entry but is unable to say no when asked to help another,
which would not aid caring for herself. She agrees with my analysis of this section writing “very
true”. She also agrees with the construct of fighting containment-freedom, and writes: “did not
realize this at the time, but it was exactly what happened” (WAI). With hindsight and the
analysis, she seems to recognize that she was fighting with herself. Her fight to change and to
know herself seemed empowered by her metaphors which again suggest that the way she was
asked to write the journal may have helped condense her thoughts and feelings and create a
melancholic stance as if she was writing poetry.
She became aware of her defences and uses them in the journal to keep the small foetus part of
herself safe. Being aware of her defences enabled her to question herself and begin to desire and
move towards containment-freedom. She appeared aware of changing. Her desire to change felt
powerful and seemed to enable shifts in her internal world as she became dependant on the
counsellor and started to trust the process of counselling. She seems to make this clear in a
response to the construct of desire for containment-freedom:
“Yes. Also some desire not to be over reliant on the counsellor. Lean on her, dump,
be challenged but be separate” (WAI).
Her awareness of counselling theory seems to help in her desire to be separate, but this could
also be a defence against being reliant on others. What feels important is that she agreed with the
construct and even has opposition in her response in that she wanted to be reliant but not over
reliant on the counsellor.
As she progressed through the journal there appeared to be moments of movement as she seems
195
to gain energy, perhaps by the opposition evoked in her. These shifts categorized with the
construct towards containment-freedom were felt and responded to by the participant. Again the
need to be separate is commented on after I felt she was finding more power and taking hold of
the freedom to be herself as if she was discovering the confidence of the Beast: “letting me be
separate and different was a huge struggle-very powerful”(WAI).
Next to the same construct later in the analysis, I comment that she is owning her feelings and
attempting to be herself separate from others, she writes:
“Also to be myself not a role - mother - wife etc - to enjoy and experience life,
perhaps from a different perspective”(WAI).
She seems to agree with the construct and adds to how she was feeling at the time as if the
analysis helps her to continue with her internal processing.
Who Am I, stated that the journal became important to her and that she enjoyed writing it, which
confirms my sense of the journals becoming personal documents that were not only written for
the study. I was also aware that she would criticize her poem if she felt I had misunderstood
anything, for she was becoming her own creation, with her own voice, as if Beauty and the Beast
were uniting within her. There was a strong image in her journal of her being raised from the
dead as if this is how she was feeling - born again into her own selves. This may describe the
hatching process that Mahler, Pine and Bergman (1975) use to describe the process of
individuation.
This participant did not answer the separate questions but wrote comments on the analysis text. It
comes across clearly that she enjoyed reading the analysis and felt the journal was mostly
196
correctly interpreted. Where I did appear to make a wrong interpretation of her experience she
did not seem to feel upset that I had not understood. Overall she was very pleased with the
accuracy of the interpretations. On the process of keeping the journal she wrote:
“I would like to think that whilst in writing the journal many entries seemed to be
feelings without always much thought process. They eventually meant a great deal to
me and the changes I made in life situations” (WAI).
This demonstrates how the journal came to be a personal account for her and shows the impact it
appeared to have had in her life in that it added meaning.
She could hardly believe on reading the analysis just how much progress she made over that
period of time. She appeared to want me to know how important the counsellor/client
relationship was to her, that it was a positive experience and that she continued to work on the
themes in the journal after her counselling finished.
On her first reading of the poem, Who Am I was critical as I felt she might be:
“I think I was initially surprised by the content of the poem as I found it quite harsh.
We are possibly looking at things from a different point of view and as I have moved
on from my writing at the time, perhaps that is why it feels that way”(WAI).
She simply underlined the lines of the poem that she felt were harsh and responded again several
weeks later:
“I have been delaying my reply as my previous response called the poem harsh and I
have been trying to see things differently. The word abortion feels „sensationalistic‟
and I wonder if it was necessary to include. Over time I have accepted this as your
interpretation and whilst parts of it feel as if they focus on the negative to a great
extent, overall I see how you have interpreted the change that I felt occurred” (WAI).
It feels as if it was very difficult for Who Am I to see words that she used transformed by the
197
findings poem. The word abortion was in her journal but moving it into another context it seems
„sensationalistic‟ to her. Yet to me it feels full of anguish and the howling of her soul which is
why I chose it. This perhaps is the risk of this method of writing up findings. Her story has
become part of the story of the research. What felt important to include because of the embodied
emotion created within me seems inappropriate to her. Perhaps the word abortion took on more
power in my use of it than she gave it in her journal. Although she does see that I interpreted the
change that she felt occurred what feels more important is that she has the strength of voice to
respond to the poem. She does not just accept it but shares her opinion with her own voice.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |