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travels through its own process of change and growth as do the concepts themselves. The
categories which are set out below are not seen as permanent but rather as part of a process of
learning which may continue to change long after this study is complete. The highlighted main
categories show the colour coding used in the journals by the researcher.
CONTAINMENT - FREEDOM POLARITY
This is the overall polarity which encompasses all the others. It is both the place of the most
movement and the least movement as it holds the polarity and the paradox together. It highlights
containment and freedom experienced almost simultaneously as shifts occur for the client, but it
also highlights still moments where a kind of holding, satisfaction,
pleasure or understanding
occur, which may also be termed moments of equilibrium, balance or stillness. It holds both
containment and freedom, keeping them apart and linking them together
so that their split
provides clarification, while being held together they become supportive (Twachtmann and
Daniell, 1997). The roots of a tree may never touch the branches yet the branches cannot live
without the roots anymore than the roots can live without the branches. In the same way
containment may never appear to touch freedom yet freedom cannot exist without containment
any more than containment can exist without freedom.
CONTAINMENT
This research understands containment as a concept which defines the client‟s search for a safe
internal
and external environment, in which s/he may be enabled to:
1. think his/her own thoughts, in a place where thought can be contained
2. play with notions, in
a contained environment
3. experience feeling, in the safety of a non
judgemental relationship
FREEDOM
Freedom within the therapeutic relationship is understood as a concept which defines the client‟s
search for an infinite space in which s/he may:
1. think her/his own thoughts, in a place where thought
can be set free
2. play with notions, in a free environment
3. experience feeling, in the freedom of a non judgemental relationship
The above concepts of containment and freedom appear to offer identical opportunities for the
client, yet never the less this study suggests that the client perceives and experiences these
opportunities differently. It feels hard to hold this split between containment and freedom yet
experience informs me that when freedom has
been too terrifying to explore, then the
containment offered by the counsellor is essential to progress and if that containment is not felt
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then exploration may be held up. This does not mean that containment was not offered or present
but simply not felt as such due to the impact of the client‟s previous history (Etherington,2000).
In these moments where emotional movement appears to be obliterated by previous experience
what becomes important is the continued emotional presence of the counsellor. This is perhaps
when, without the client being aware of it the counsellor holds what cannot be held or tolerated
by the client. So in a sense it is the client‟s immobilised state which is contained (or freed) and
which in being contained frees the client to experience themselves (Klein, 1995), and their own
affects which have not before been brought into awareness. As feelings are brought into
awareness the client is enabled to move or remain stuck as opposition is either tolerated or
denied. The split between containment and freedom perhaps helps the client organise experience
(Godwin,1994) so that some order begins to be created out of
the chaos of their unaware
unconscious.
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