Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework
The Containment-Freedom Continuum 2
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The Containment-Freedom Continuum 2
POLARITY Towards containment overcontained overfree towards freedom desire for containment uncontained desire for freedom _______________ _______________ ______________ _____ the axis______ ____________ ______________ ___________________ Containment Freedom Unfree ATTRACTION The axis demonstrates the point of no movement, where the client may feel stuck but may also be able to look around their internal world. Containment and freedom at either end of the continuum show that each stage may be an integral part of movement, as if to reach one it may be necessary to pass through other categories. The polarity is shown above the continuum to demonstrate the pull of opposition in conflicting directions. The attraction of opposites is shown below the continuum to demonstrate the pull of the magnetism of attraction, towards each other rather than away from each other. 260 the categories seem to make sense of experience. By bringing opposition into focus the categories make experience meaningful as opposed to being an experience which either cannot be explained or is explained as a theoretical concept that does not feel as if it fits experience. This agrees with Harris Williams (2005) belief that the suffering of opposition if it can be tolerated and worked with is followed by the discovery of meaning. This does not mean that theory is not relevant to the counsellor from her theoretical perspective. But for the client it is his/her own experience that needs to be made sense of, not the counsellor‟s experience. The categories provide a way of understanding the client‟s experience in that they seem to provide meaning to experiences that the participants had felt lacked meaning. For example Alice found meaning because she began to understand more about why and how she carried her mother‟s burden and this enabled her to begin to relate differently to that burden so that it did not seem to have so much control over her. In this way discovering meaning seemed to enable participants to make emotional shifts as they continued their journeys towards growth and change. The continuum suggests that there is no possibility of ever achieving a state where the individual stops moving or growing. Just as movement and change is a constant of life, so movement between the categories may also be seen as a constant. What does perhaps change is the ability to recognize the stuck position (or any of the other positions) and do something about it more readily than may have been done previously. One of the most valuable aspects of the participants‟ feedback is that all of them, from both studies, felt that they had experienced each of the categories to some degree. So for a counsellor to have some understanding of such experience may enhance the intimacy of the relationship in that the client will feel understood and that his/her experiences are meaningful. To refer back to Lott (1999) they may feel they are in a real relationship with a real counsellor who is experienced as more than a theoretical stance, 261 which also reminds us of Clarkson‟s (1994) view that the relationship is the most important aspect of counselling for the client. The lesson from Wriggling Fish demonstrates the power of the counsellor in how an experience stays with a client. She makes it clear in her feedback that the experience remains with her even years afterwards for it made her feel that she was not worth a real response and left her with the sense that this was not a real relationship. The counsellor did not respond when asked by Wriggling Fish if she had a cold. Such a response emerges from a theoretical stance which may initiate a negative transference in the client but for this participant the coldness and distance she felt with the counsellor remained with her. She could see that her counsellor was astute and chose to stay and work with her but never felt she had a real relationship or a relationship with a real person. With reference to applying these finding to the practice of counselling it appears that being open to a client‟s perspective, even if the counsellor feels that perspective to be incorrect, may add to and improve the intimacy or the client‟s experience of a real working relationship. The positive transference as seen in the journals by the care participants feel from/towards the counsellor demonstrates that this working relationship enables clients to feel that they have a real relationship with someone they can trust. Although theory may be visible in the client‟s experience it is that experience that as Polanyi (1969) reminds us demonstrate „sites‟ or intrinsic knowledge that has felt too familiar for us to really see. Through attending to the client‟s experience we may see that we have been stepping over their contribution to our understanding of theory and practice. Little Girl‟s experiences of her crumbling internal world are powerful. To witness, as the reader, what appears to be the process of the “deconstruction” (Hunt and Sampson 2006; 172) or fragmentation of the self is humbling. Little Girl may have metaphorically shot herself to pieces 262 but she afterwards she started a process of reconstruction or meeting/talking to her selves as opposed to being shot by them. To follow this process on, and see how differently each participant examines split off aspects of themselves is fascinating and extraordinary. They each appeared to follow a similar process where they linked their past to the present, discovered their internal objects, their child archetypes, and then related to these objects/selves as they restored their selves to more conscious control. The selves who were emerging within each participant seemed to have more power over their internal and external lives with a conscious freedom to make choices that had not initially been evident. The split suggested by Harris Williams (2005) between function and self did seem to be crucial to creativity in that the opposition between self and function appears to create movement/transformation within the internal world. When a participant‟s action was at odds with her perceived or desired self opposition became unavoidable and choices became visible. Their writing seemed to be a part of this process in that it appeared to encourage them to relate to split off selves. Beauty and the Beast, their known and unknown selves became visible, embodied on the page as participants met and used opposition to transform their selves. Embodiment, which seems to be inherent in the poetic/reflexive stance, has been a theme that has linked much of the work together. The participants all demonstrate that feelings are felt and inhabit the body, in that they write about their feelings which create physical symptoms of pain. But even when they do not mention physical pain, the pain of their emotions, their feelings are embodied in the writing and transferred to me as the reader. In counselling we may refer to this experience as empathic understanding but perhaps what counsellors do is embody clients‟ feelings. I can explain this to others from my perspective but it is difficult to demonstrate or 263 prove for it is perhaps beyond text. But in the journal narratives, (and the findings poems), the reader can share this experience to some extent for it may be felt because it is embodied in the writing, in the words and even in the spaces/silences between the words. The embodied experience of the participants is transferred from the text into the reader as the “mutuality of embodiment” (Hunt and Sampson 2006; 148) or inter-subjectivity brings the writing to life in the reader. The many layers of such a narrative seem to interconnect and make it difficult to feel the links between established theory, the containment-freedom polarity and participants‟ process. Perhaps this may be clarified by using the metaphor of Beauty and the Beast. If the containment-freedom polarity is seen as the „Beauty-Beast relationship‟ the split between selves is inherent in Beauty- Beast; while relationship relates to the kind of connection those selves have; whether they are communicating and acknowledged or denied and hidden. Also polarity is present in each of their opposing characteristics in that Beauty may represent trapped/stuck and safe/cared for while the Beast may represent agitation/frustration and power/confidence. The image created in the mind by Beauty and the Beast provides a more concrete and visible idea than that created by the term containment-freedom polarity. Just like the metaphors in the participants‟ narratives that create visual images so the Beauty-Beast relationship is a metaphor that may be visualized/felt and so clarify understanding. It also relates to counselling theory where (in chapter two) containment is given three dimensions (Kogan 1988; Quinodoz 1992; Rosenbaum and Garfield 1996) and movement is seen as omnipresent happening within and between each of the dimensions. Beauty-Beast relationship (containment-freedom polarity) may be seen as holding three active dimensions/relationships in that movement may occur between and within each 264 dimension/relationship. 9.6 Findings poems The findings poems appear to be strongly linked to the way the participants were asked to write their journals. Just as they may be seen as cutting up (Biley 2004) their thoughts and feelings to reveal unconscious processes so I cut up their words to give the reader a sense of the relations and patterns which emerged in the narratives. Riessman‟s (1993) transcription method of writing up interviews enabled her to experience the tensions in the composition of the original narrative. My intention in the findings poems is to give the reader a glimpse of the tension and opposition inherent in the original narratives in order to give a sense of the lived experience of the participants. My own words included in the poems add a sense of my lived experience of the research process including my relationship with the participants, the concepts and the journey. The overall intention is to give the reader a sense of the whole and to add their own emotion/lived experience within the process of reading. This agrees with Flint‟s (2004) idea that the poetic space enables changes that occur through metaphor internally, to become manifest outside in the physical body of the writer and reader, where it is embodied (Hunt and Sampson 2006). My function of reflexivity in writing and counselling enabled the selves and feelings found in shock, anguish, a murderous self, howling, and a search for meaning to be experienced following trauma. Through reflexivity the participants discovered similar selves within their counselling stories. There is the shock of their re-experienced feelings when they connect with childhood trauma and more recent trauma through death and loss; their anguish of the opposition created by these feelings coming into experience; their denied selves (or murderous selves) being met, like the grief stricken little girl, the worst mother and the frozen child; their howling is re- experienced as metaphors enable their lost/unconscious feelings to be made conscious on the 265 page; their search for meaning helps them make sense of their history to discover who they really are and who they want to be. My personal experiences led to the discovery of such processes in others by the way the participants were asked to write their journals and then by the writing of the findings poems. Yet the findings poems came into being through grief which took me back to where I started with my own writing processes. Such grief seemed to return me to a place where I re-discovered my passion for the work and enabled the lived experience of others to be heard (Muncey 2005) with a means that is integral to the method already established. By listening to my voice of the present the research journey continued as opposed to being halted by grief. My own metaphors reminded me that I was in a place of opposition where there was a choice between living fully (continuing with the study) and denying that right to live fully (letting the study go). I chose to live fully and continue with the research and in so doing the anguish experienced though such opposition revealed the creativity that produced the findings poems. The concepts are intertwined even within the process of shaping the poems. Beauty and the Beast were never far from me in that I needed the Beast to protect me as I took time away from the work and wrote out the wildness of grief in poetry; and I needed the opposition of Beauty to refuse the death of the study as I held onto it and continued to care for others, the participants who had given so much of themselves to the work. This takes me back to Gee‟s (1991) belief that the meaning of stories is embedded not just in the individual mind but in our backgrounds and history or as Smith suggests: “A hermeneutics of moral dimensions that tries to explicate how ethical feeling and action emerge from a fuller understanding of where we come from and find 266 ourselves” (2005; 220). Where I come from in relation to my experiences impacted on the research just as where the participants come from also impacted upon the research. Their experiences, traumas, histories of place and time created relationships with me and with the research as we each searched for a fuller understanding of ourselves and of the world we live in. The history of the participants‟ lives, their stories, their impact on me and the study, the history of counselling and my history and present grief are all part of the meaning of this story. All these voices needed to be heard and the impact of so much history and meaning was not lost through grief but rather heard through grief. 9.7 Key contributions to practice, methodology and knowledge The participants found that keeping the journals increased their self awareness and gave them a memory of this emotional journey. For counselling practitioners offering such a form of creative writing to clients may be worth exploring as a way of enhancing or contributing to the work. All the participants felt that the journals aided the weekly processing in between sessions which Lott (1999) felt was so much a part of her and her research participants‟ experience of counselling. It may be possible to take such journal entries into the counselling room where the metaphors and symbols created by clients in between sessions may contribute to the process of the counselling journey. It also seems possible that keeping this kind of journal might help clients understand their own process. The participants found the journals useful personal records even without the analysis as they let their feelings emerge on the page. They became records that they valued because they held so much of their internal journey. Without fully understanding the unconscious 267 processes or messages within them they still added meaning to their counselling experience. So even if clients chose to keep the journals private and not take them into their counselling sessions there remains the possibility that the writing would aid their process in between sessions. To see theory in action from the perspective of the client gives credence to the way psychodynamic counsellors work. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the journal narratives and analysis is not just that they appear to show theoretical concepts like the transferences, the unconscious and empathy, but that they seem to show the process and emotional movement of the client. It has already been established that discovering more about the client‟s experience of counselling is a key aspect of counselling research (Toukmanian and Rennie 1992; Rennie 1998; Lott 1999). Yet in discussing the difficulty of identifying client processes from the experience of the client McLeod (2001b) suggests: “there is a limit to the values of this research, since there may well be significant therapeutic processes which are outside of the awareness of clients” (41). In this research however, the poetic and reflexive stance of the data collection seems to enable the client to provide evidence of these processes that are outside of their awareness. So perhaps the way the data has been created provides the possibility for finding out more about these processes from the client‟s perspective. The participants‟ feedback on the analysis enables them to say if there is a fit between the analysis and their experience. They all felt that the analysis helped them to understand more about themselves in that it increased their self awareness. In particular they were enabled to relate to previously hidden or denied parts of themselves. 268 Although the participants each record these processes differently the similarities are crucial. They all aim to know or understand themselves better; to change themselves internally and change their external lives; to discover who they are and who they wish to be. They all achieve these aims to varying degrees and all feel the success gained through their counselling. This is what stays with me; the participants‟ narratives seem to show that counselling works. They demonstrate that qualitative narrative research can provide evidence to support the counselling process. According to Solomon: “The psyche accomplishes its transformation through the creation of symbols which are capable of bringing together opposing aspects of the self” (1998; 227). The way the journals were written encouraged the use of symbols which in turn seemed to allow participants to find opposing aspects of themselves. This is how the emotional movement or transformation of the participants became visible in the journals. It fits with known theory and with the poetic stance of the data. It is the making visible of such processes, the movement between dimensions that adds to our knowledge of counselling processes and demonstrates the value of narrative research. Practitioners, and researchers such as Payne (2006), Speedy (2005), Biley (2004), and Riessman (1993; 2001) have enabled me to “link language, subjectivity, social organization and power” (Richardson and St. Pierre 2005:961). The “centre piece” (Richardson and St. Pierre 2005:961) being language that has drawn the work together by the poetic/reflexive stance that helped create it. Language constructed the journals and helped the participants to reconstruct their identities, their selves. In this way language enabled them to discover their own 269 reflexivity, to find their own meanings and re-write their stories. At the same time my story and the story of the research was co-constructed alongside. It seems that my writing, like the participants‟ journals, became as much a part of “a method of data collection” as well as “a method of data analysis” (Richardson and St. Pierre 2005; 970). My writing may be seen as data by the way the story was conceived and by the attitude of remaining open. Remaining open enabled the inclusion of my poems, thoughts, embodied feelings and emotions that were key parts of the process of the work. Writing allowed data and analysis to almost combine to release opposition. The contradictory nature of opposition that holds attraction within its poles seems to have supported the way I attempted to use objectivity and subjectivity together. But perhaps by using such different perspectives I actually moved away from objectivity and subjectivity to a dialectical stance where there is neither, subject or object but “process, always emerging through a self contradictory development” (Reason and Rowan 1981; 241). Foucault (1970; 1977) suggests the possibility of freeing thought from subject and object and perhaps because I was unaware of such a prospect it was possible to accomplish it for it is only with hindsight that I can feel the likelihood of this freedom. For example to understand the findings poems in terms of objectivity and subjectivity would be complex but to understand them in terms of process emerging through contradictory development seems a good fit. 9.8 Recommendations for future research The future of this research feels as if it is embedded in the poetic/reflexive stance. As all the participants liked the way they were asked to write their journals it may be of value to take this further, away from the world of trainee counsellors to clients who have no other connection to the world of counselling. The one participant who had no such connection other than being a 270 client in counselling felt the research was of great value to her, suggesting that such a way of collecting data may be of value to future participants. At a recent presentation of this research two of the audience were interested in the stuck position of uncontained-unfree. They related this to victims of abuse and domestic violence who struggle to move physically and emotionally from where they are. This was interesting as I had not mentioned the trauma that gave birth to the research in the presentation. But there may be a strong link to those who suffer from domestic violence as I have sometimes been aware of my sister‟s inability to move from where she was. Unconsciously, perhaps I have experienced that stuck place from her perspective. So to use this particular form of journal keeping with clients who have experienced domestic violence may be worth considering. However there would be a need to be aware of the risk inherent in such work. Wright (2004) looks at the work of Bolton (1999), Hunt (2000; 2004) and Hunt and Sampson (1998) who use forms of creative writing in writing workshops and in connection with educational and health care settings. She notes the importance of being aware that such writing would not be appropriate for “disturbed or psychotic patients” (9) who would need more therapeutic care than some practitioners might be able to offer. There would be a need with any future use of the method in research and practice, to be sure that such ethical concerns for those taking part be taken into consideration. Bolton presents examples of writing by women that show the fierce inner critic within them. Although this may enable them to identify this aspect of themselves and make it conscious there remains the necessity to be aware of the power of the emotions that might arise in such circumstances. Motion (2000; 6 in Wright 2004) reminds us of the power of creative writing for “poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril.” Such power needs 271 counsellors/researchers who have the experience and sensitivity to recognize when keeping a poetic type journal may not always be appropriate for the wellbeing of the client/participant. Although the method for keeping the journals may not be suitable for all researchers of lived experience it does feel applicable to counselling research for as counsellors we use our sensitivity to listen to and interpret clients‟ stories. Without always realizing it we listen to fragmented sentences where normal logic is disrupted. We hear this natural form of expression whenever we are with clients. Symbols and metaphor are an integral part of the work we do as we listen to clients trying to find the words that fit their experience. It is this similarity between what we do as counsellors and the way the participants were asked to write the journals that creates a method that fits counselling. By taking what we do with the spoken word and transferring it to the written word the narratives created using this method seem to enlarge our understanding of the client‟s experience and process. It creates the opportunity to witness the client‟s experience from the client‟s perspective. To take this further by using the method with clients with specific problems like grief/trauma or eating disorders for example may give practitioners more understanding in these areas of interest. 9.9 Conclusion This final chapter highlights how the varied aspects of the research are bound together by the use of voice and the poetic stance. Keeping my processes, my different voices in awareness through the progression of the study enabled language, the poetic stance to remain at the centre of the work. My passion for the impact that language can create through symbols and metaphor remained central whether looking at the concepts of containment, freedom and polarity or 272 established theory. Language both contained the data in the journals and contained the history of all the stories that were told; and language released the data as the participants shared their lived experience of counselling in their narratives and as I shared the lived experience of a narrative process. The participants helped create a new method, as they added to our understanding of the client‟s process as opposition generated transformations that became visible on the page. From their journals a huge amount of information was created as the concepts, established theory and the process of narrative research all intertwined. As I struggled with the confusion of information even in this conclusion Beauty and the Beast became the metaphor for the containment-freedom polarity. In a sense this had always been but I had not contained it in words, not freed my thought into the action (Foucault 1977) of writing out „Beauty-Beast relationship‟. The process of such contained freedom has enabled a new method, a construct, a polarity, lived experience and meaning to be displayed. Language has enabled a showing of what may be, a knowledge of possibilities, a process emerging through contradictory development, and this seems to be enough. |