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FIGHTING /
AVOIDING CONTAINMENT
This is a place that could be described as not knowing where or how to be, as the fear of losing
familiar ways of being, encroaches on the desire to be dependent on the counsellor. The part of
the client which needs care, chooses to come for counselling, but
the independent part of the
client is threatened by the possibility of becoming reliant on the counsellor. Fighting or avoiding
containment is a necessary aspect of the process of movement. It is rather like the bad tempered
baby who needs the reassurance of mother‟s presence, even as he tries to hit her. If containment
has not been experienced, except for example as an unknown absence then perhaps the
avoidance of containment is a fight against the unknown. The
containment offered by the
counsellor may also feel intrusive (Stern, 1985) as if the counsellor is breaking through the
client‟s defences. Fighting the containment of the counsellor may be part of the process of
experiencing containment which develops the awareness of the self (Carstairs,1992) that enables
the client to move towards separation.
FIGHTING /
AVOIDING FREEDOM
The freedom to be an individual, separate from others (as opposed to merged), is an isolating,
and frightening way to be when first experienced. Just the separateness
of the counsellor may
highlight a sense of this aloneness for the client. The counsellor may seem distant, deaf or
emotionally absent to the client because of his/her capacity to be separate.
Freedom may be
experienced as loss or emptiness in that to think one‟s own thoughts without relying on
previously learned beliefs or attitudes may feel very isolating. Fighting / avoiding freedom can
be seen as the intense reaction to the fear of isolation, but the movement created by that fear has
a volatile intensity which may enable growth.
As with the other categories, fighting and avoiding containment and freedom are 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 will provide the friction necessary to engender that new
life.
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