Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework
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7.3.3. Alice
Alice‟s name came about because so many images that suggested she was underground, searching for herself. This reminded me of Lewis Carol‟s Alice who ventured down the rabbit hole. The Alice of this poem appears to look at the world through an underground spy hole which seems to distort her perceptions. From the first reading I felt an immense weight of sadness in this journal. She is a Beauty burdened by caring for others. ALICE Tears struggled to surface From deep within Blood sucking leeches drained energy A crocodile bit away affect While the spyhole Screened All I did not want to see Yet later Perhaps its fine pin prick of light Illuminated the garbage That had felt irrelevant, Like the blankness That constrained me 198 But protected me Until discerning splits Bridged across my throat To swallow the enduring holocaust To take it in to honour it. Such unknown memories Restrained sadness Into buried shadows Where I did not exist at all But acted out another generation‟s longings. Stuck in a charmed life Exploring for monsters could not be faced. For No sorrow compared No tears qualified No burdens counted Hiding underground Beneath my leaf Senses were bizarrely reversed: Laughing for crying Absence for presence Careless for spontaneous Dying for living I was not me. Power Being Was submerged Within the woman As a four year old Abandoned in hospital Was still searching the bars Of another angry prison Where disabled selves Needed another To restore them in the cold sea Of rebirth To shock them back Onto the roller coaster of life To feel that a headache Could be all of me Where fingers Talked to my heart As fascination Let me dance Let me find 199 Let me be My own story. After she had read the analysis Alice wrote on the text that her mother is a holocaust survivor, and I suddenly understood the enormity of sadness I embodied when reading her journal. It is as if the journal embodied the howling of her soul that could not be herself. The weight of the burden now made sense as she was carrying the burden of the holocaust. How could she have her own feelings when she knew how dreadful her mother‟s early life had been? Nothing compared, she was caught in her own kind of holocaust where no negative feelings were allowed. Instead she could only have a charmed unreal life like Beauty where the Beast of the holocaust and her own feelings is denied. It seems the weight of such a burden stole Alice‟s freedom as she compulsively took on the burdens of others. This can be likened to the impulses which Jung (1969:142) sees as unconscious “instinctual processes” which are characterized by such a lack of freedom. Alice was amazed by the amount I learnt from her journal. She agreed with the construct of uncontained-unfree but thought it was an awful place to be. However later in the analysis she also notes these stuck places are familiar to her: “Yes - these „stuck‟ places are familiar to me, but now I reflect on it, are not nearly as frequent as they used to be” (A). She confirms her agreement with the construct and tells me she is still processing within her internal world. She is aware she continues to change in that she feels she does not get „stuck‟ as often as she used to. Like counselling, it seemed the research process continues processing within Alice, even after the collection of the data had finished. 200 Opposition was present in her journal as feelings were mixed up and even reversed suggesting opposition and anguish. What could not be contained - the holocaust - seemed to become a burden she knew was not hers, but she could not put down. It appears she found meaning in her suffering (Frankl 1984) for carrying others burdens gave her purpose but denied her needs. This suggested the category of overcontained-overfree as she appeared to be controlled by others. Alice agreed with most of the analysis but struggled with the categories, she wrote: “Because I don‟t understand the constructs fluently, I‟m finding it hard to categorize them (meaning the weeks in her journal), but yes, week 5 could be overcontained- overfree” (A). The pull of opposites in the journal is powerfully felt. Unable to free herself from her mother‟s burden Alice struggles in her underground world to find her own story. There is a strong sense of guilt at times that she has feelings at all. Yet the tension created by such a powerful polarity - the pull of her mother‟s story and the pull of her need to find her own - enables movement. She tells of feeling abandoned in hospital, aged four, and the image of being behind her cot bars and her mother‟s prison seemed to meet here. I found an understanding of her story that I would not have had without her feedback in the analysis, and this helped in writing the poem. Alice did not comment in any detail on the category of fighting containment-freedom however she did write yes on the text several times to show that she agreed with the category. She did not say anywhere that she disagreed with this construct when it appeared. Her desire to find herself to have the freedom to contain her own feelings and story enabled her to start to hear her own voice and feel her own affect. She allowed herself to be emotionally held by the counsellor however she also kept herself merged with the counsellor by keeping them the same, as she did when she felt they were both angry. This demonstrated her desire for containment-freedom and 201 she responded to this part of the analysis: “Excellent Tina. You‟ve seen what I usually cannot see. Now you‟ve put it into words, I know you‟re right” (A). It feels as if she is recognizing something that a hidden part of her has always known, and also that she appreciates being able to see something through another‟s eyes. It is as if she is enabled to be objective by looking at herself from my perspective. As Alice starts to gain awareness she realizes that she is not fully present in some sessions. In realizing this she moves towards containing her own feelings. This category is not always commented on in her feedback but she does think on one occasion that it feels like a good fit and on another she writes a response next to the construct but about the analysis: “I always thought of it as „swallowing something down that wanted to come up‟. now you‟ve suggested I could be „swallowing something in‟. I‟ll have to think about this” (A). I had suggested that swallowing was to do with taking in and keeping her feelings as opposed to those of others. It feels that the way I suggest possibilities enabled Alice to think. It seems there was no threat in my suggestions but rather an offer of more space, where she is enabled to think. Alice also appeared to be contained by her journal and even by me for she wrote in her feedback, “I felt accepted and appreciated by you” and also, “Impressed that you have seen and heard so much” (A). This again demonstrates the appropriateness of the way the participants were asked to write. Without realizing it they condensed their feelings and experiences as if writing poetry. After the analysis was completed she wrote: “Talking with you on the phone and you saying the short phrase on each line was like a way of getting a poem, makes a lot of sense to me now and links with where I am now in my work. I wouldn‟t have understood it before though” (A). 202 Apart from affirming the way participants were asked to write the journals this statement also demonstrates how working over a long period of time, (which was increased when I had to take time off), was not necessarily detrimental to the study. If I had not taken time off Alice may have gained some information before she was ready to use it or process it. Alice was able to question the analysis if she did not agree with me. When she did not record in the journal I wondered if the sessions had been too difficult to record, and suggested she could be stuck in the uncontained-unfree category. Alice thought that it was far more likely that she was pressed for time and therefore the category did not fit. In another entry she disagrees again with this construct and felt some frustration that I had not got it right. But on reading the analysis for a second time she changes her mind as she does not have the same reaction to what she reads and thinks after all that I was correct. She also wrote no on sections of the analysis that she disagreed with. This would be followed by yes when I offered a different perspective later in the analysis that Alice thought was correct. Alice wrote clearly about the experience of reading the analysis: “It was daunting to start with, and I felt something like embarrassment reading it, but that changed to a feeling that I couldn‟t put it down. I was fascinated by it. I read through the analysis and then went back to your introduction to the theoretical constructs. Now I am on the point of going through it again with a better idea of how you arrived at the constructs. The notion of containment-freedom as a polarity or as separate constructs had not stayed with me, but I‟m pretty sure that having read this they will now” (A). This gives hope that the construct is credible and fits with the client‟s experience. Alice found the experience of reading the analysis and the constructs paper useful and felt it helped her to understand herself more which was very affirming about the way the research was conducted. 203 In response to the finding poem Alice wrote: “I am impressed by your poem for me. It‟s like you have caught the essence of me that was in the journal you asked us to keep, and have managed to connect up the jumble that was so overwhelming at the time. If I was to give it a title it would be „living with death” (A). It seems that the poem made sense to her and even sorted out the feelings that were so overwhelming at the time. What was interesting was what she wrote prior to her response to the poem. I had explained briefly in the email I sent her with the poem, the reason why she had not heard from me for over seven months. This lapse of time had not been expected. She wrote in response to my loss: “The death of a younger person seems such a heavy weight to me. There have been several young people‟s deaths for me too this year and I am aware of feeling not so safe as I used to. Your poem seems to link some of this together here, now, and there is another because my youngest daughter is going to Poland, to Auchwitz this weekend” (A). It seems that my recent loss reflects a great deal for her in the present, as well as also reflecting the history of the holocaust still impacting on her family. Yet there seems to be a real difference in that it is not secret as it was in her journal, for it appears to be present and talked about because of her daughter‟s visit. Alice‟s feelings of being accepted and appreciated by me were also important. It felt crucial that participants experienced me as someone who appreciated their collaboration with the research. My sensitivity to the intimacy involved in the work enabled them to feel safe while sharing such personal affect. I also felt the humility of helping Alice to understand herself for she thanks me several times in her feedback. The attitude of ethical equality that listened to the first study participants and respected their autonomy and ability to contribute to the research seems to have |