Meeting Mark

We clicked on to the zoom session and simultaneously announced to each other that we were going to get rid of our self-view. He remarked that it was an odd way of meeting someone for the first time and asked if I could hear him. Checked we could both hear and see each other. He said it was a very clear picture of me and clear audio which is good. His audio to me kept fading in and out which was annoying, I don’t know if that’s a problem with his Wifi connection or mine.

Once we’d got the initial greetings out the way there was a slight pause and I said, ‘I’m just going to start by saying that I’m really nervous,’ Mark was calm, he sat cross legged on his sofa with some plants and soft furnishings around him. He smiled in an understanding way and said, ‘Oh yeah, okay, well that’s not unusual… let’s sort of allow that nervousness to be here, just take a minute with yourself to let that be there.’ I was immediately struck by how calming I found him and how despite this being a ‘chat’ and not a therapy session, he was being very therapeutic. I then said I wanted to apologise for the emails. I said, ‘I felt like I was nit picky and critical and picking you apart in the emails and I didn’t just stick to organising the details of this meeting and I apologise for that basically.’ He said, ‘well you know actually I’m quite grateful because the website you went on is relatively new and I had some teething problems that I thought were taken care of and so thank you for that because it let me know there’s an issue. And the other site, I must have signed that up years ago and didn’t even know it was still active so actually I’m grateful for you letting me know. So interestingly, I didn’t experience it like that. I apologise to you actually that you had that difficulty in contacting me. You had your own feelings towards it which is valid, but I didn’t feel you needed to apologise.’ I joked about my internet stalking abilities meaning I had found everything he’s ever put on the internet and then explained that my tendency to be a bit unforgiving of things and when I reflected on it I was aware I had been a bit like that with him but it was nice to hear his perspective. He said, ‘and I appreciate you clocking that… this was helpful for me, a little bit of a burden for you having to navigate all this just to get me to respond to an email but yeah, it was helpful for me and I appreciate you exploring your process… that feels good to me because we had an unusual start and it feels good to explore the way we both experienced it.’ I agreed and he asked how my nervousness was. I laughed and said, ‘it’s gone now!’ he said, ‘great! Well, take a moment just to feel that outbreath and feeling that little bit lighter.’ I did just that and it felt lovely.

Mark then explained the plan of this discussion, that it’s not a therapy session as such, that unfortunately we aren’t sitting together in person but we can try to get a sense of each other through the screen. He said it was helpful that I’d explained a little bit about what’s brought me to him in the email, he was glad I’d done that and he said, ‘you might want to say a bit more and then I will explain a little about how I tend to organise things and then you might want to ask questions and it will be about 40 minutes… okay?’ I agreed, he said, ‘I got from your email that you’ve done therapy and actually it sounds really sad that your therapist, your transactional analysist, through no fault of theirs had to stop working, that can be quite traumatic…’

I said, ‘Yeah it’s been very very difficult. Both of my long term therapeutic relationships ended out with my control. Paul, who I was working with first, I took some time away because I was pregnant and wanted to spend time with my son and couldn’t afford sessions while on maternity leave, when I went back to him I discovered that he had closed his practice and moved city. I wanted to have a proper ending with him but wasn’t able to have that. I also got into debt paying for his sessions as he was £80 an hour… my need for the therapy outweighed my need for financial stability at the time but when I returned to my therapeutic journey I wanted more of a balance. So, then I found Anna. There was a massive difference between the way she worked to the way Paul worked. It was exactly what I needed and it was going really well… and I did a lot of really valuable work with her and feel like I’ve changed a lot because of the work I did with her.’ Mark was saying, ‘lovely’ and ‘fabulous’ in this really warm, genuine tone. I continued, ‘then the pandemic happened and she became very ill and there was a break for a bit when I worked with Linda and then went back to Anna briefly and then she became very ill again and suddenly decided she had to close her practice so I basically had a 14 minute phone conversation with her where she told me the news and that was it… which to be honest… I’ve worked a lot on it with Linda… I felt like it broke me open, any barriers I had to my grief or any childhood stuff just completely shattered and it was like this damn burst and all these feelings I was holding just poured out of me.’ Mark said, ‘cor, yeah…’ there was a pause and he said, ‘Are you doing okay talking about this? I just want to check with you coz yeah, I can see that you’re pretty grounded as you talk about it but I am aware it can be upsetting to bring that up so just…’ I said, ‘yeah I know, it’s constantly with me, it doesn’t feel like I’m bringing it up, it’s already up here and I had a session this morning so I’ve been sort of talking about this and writing about it all day…’ I continued, ‘so I had described the past four or five months as being the most difficult period of my adult life, really so hard, but also as much as I would not wish that on myself, it’s provided a sort of awakening in me where I felt things I never felt before, I got in touch with something I couldn’t get in touch with before…’ he said, ‘yeah, there’s something good that has come out of it,’ I said, ‘I really used to struggle to cry and even found it hard to cry with Anna… I mean, I’ve cried every day since she left and it feels you know healing, actually, as much as it’s really painful.’ Mark said, ‘that’s good to hear.’

I said, ‘so the place I’m at now is that Linda and I have been talking a lot about my longer term goals in therapy, we talked about it again this morning. I really like her, I like the way she works on some areas of the stuff I bring to her… when I’m talking about day to day stuff. But there’s this gap, of something I’m not getting with Linda that I got with Anna. This desire to work on things within the therapeutic relationship, so stuff comes up for me within the relationship,’ he said, ‘of course yeah,’ and I said, ‘with Linda, the understanding I have is that she doesn’t want to work on it… I told her I felt that she was defensive.’ I explained a bit about what I had discussed with Linda in the session and Mark said, ‘yes this makes a lot of sense, the way we started today in fact was you bringing your feelings about the email and we touched on how I received it and without going too deeply, it’s that sort of thing that happens in relationship. It’s often a really helpful thread to follow these threads, I mean I firmly believe in that. In some ways it happens between you and in some ways it’s the relationship, so it’s not one person it’s both and you need to explore what happened for you and what that triggered and to sort of be able to speak about it freely. And if you can’t do that with someone and work in the present with what you’re experiencing, that’s not helpful.’ I said, ‘as soon as we had that brief conversation about the emails I was thinking ‘he gets it’ that is exactly the kind of conversation I mean. I mean I could spend a whole session talking about why it was important to me that I noticed differences amongst your websites and for you to not take it personally but to help me explore what it is for me and why I look for perfection… when I was looking at your website, the way you describe yourself and what you wrote really resonated with me because you seem to also value looking closely at the therapeutic relationship and looking closely at things and working on deeper levels or spiritual levels and lots of different stuff and not just the surface level conversation that we’re having.’ Mark said, ‘indeed, there’s a lot more going on… the in-between what happens relationally is gold dust, it’s not the only avenue of therapy there’s lots of them but I think if that’s missed out you’re missing some important things that are going on.’ I said, ‘so the dilemma, I guess, is that I have this need for something else which is why I’m talking to you, and also I have this reluctance to let her go, because she’s my last connection with Anna because also she’s friends with Anna.’ Mark said, ‘so there’s a boundary thing there in a sense I’m thinking because… hard for her to have space around that if you’re mourning the loss of one of her friends that’s sort of between you isn’t it and you know she’s her friend so I’m just getting a number of what I’m imagining to be quite tight corners for you to move in.’ I said, ‘yes, its been nuts!’ I laughed. I explained to him that I shared this with her and she was honest with me and told me she felt she was holding a lot and that it’s been challenging for her. That we both feel that it’s getting in the way of the therapy. Which is the important thing. I said, ‘we’re having to use sessions talking about that rather than talking about what I need for my therapy, if you know what I mean.’ He said, ‘I do know what you mean, yes. It’s very much in the way and it’s very charged between you, not very helpful. And you’ve fully named it and you’ve had the courage and the solidarity with your own process to say that ‘this is what’s happening for me’ and she’s acknowledged that this is huge for her too.’

I said, ‘So, my gut feeling here actually is… I feel that it would be right to move away from her and I know it’s only been twenty minutes but I am curious about starting work with you actually, but I’m thinking about timing and… so with Anna and Paul the power was taken away from me in terms of ending the therapeutic relationship and you know for ‘ancient history’ reasons it’s really important that I have the power to do this and to end it the way I want to do it.’ Mark sort of talked over me and said, ‘absolutely I’m 100% behind you!’ (which felt lovely) I said, ‘so I’m not left again, basically…’ he said, ‘yeah so you have control of the ending and do it as far as you can that’s right for you, because before it was something that happened to you rather than something you initiated. That’s very important, big piece of work.’ I said, ‘yeah so I go slowly with things and I process slowly and on a really deep level so I write and journal and think deeply about things… which is another reason why I want to work with someone who is experienced in mindfulness and meditation because I’m really crap at that and everything that’s going on with me is there with me all the time, in my head, conversations in my head all the time, Anna is always here, Linda is always here… it’s exhausting… anyway that’s a round about way of me saying I can’t do this overnight, I can’t just immediately stop this and obviously there are professional logistical things here, I don’t expect you to wait forever and we would want a time frame of sorts… it might take a few weeks… I don’t know how long it would take to wind things down with Linda,’ Mark said, ‘no sure, it sounds very important that you do that in a way that is as right for you as you can make it, you’ve just said that and I would encourage that I really would encourage that, you want as good an ending as you can get in these times and maybe even some space between that whether it is me or someone else, whatever is right. I certainly wouldn’t be pushing in any way for you to stop and start something in a hurry. It needs to be worked through a little bit. Where I’m at is, I’m not in a rush for new clients, if anything I’m shutting up shop a bit… I felt from your email that you wanted to work at a bit of depth so it sort of attracted me in some sense because I think it’s a much more rewarding thing for me if I can put myself out there like that. So, I thought it would be good to meet and discuss it, because I’m very interested in the deep work. So, no rush. I’m not in a rush to fill a slot or whatever. The space is there for you, I’d encourage you to take your time with it. There’s a couple of weeks when I’m away in October anyway. So I guess where we’re at is that you need to come to a place in your current therapy that feels good enough to end so you actually have an ending that you have initiated that hasn’t happened to you. And you may or may not need some space around that, so just sit with yourself and let that bit of work do it’s thing.’

I asked if I could share my thoughts on that and he said, ‘course you can.’ I said, ‘I’m not great with breaks… I think its because of how unsettled I felt when Anna left. I have done breaks, there were two years between me stopping with Paul and starting with Anna so I can do it… but when I get attached to the therapist all this other stuff happens. So, the cognitive adult is totally fine and hearing all this saying it sounds great but the child is like ‘oh my god he’s gonna take two weeks holiday I can’t cope with that!’ so already I’m aware that there’s gonna be these things that come up within the therapy. So, I’m thinking, how can I make it so there’s no gap…’ Mark interrupted and said, ‘but you can.’ And I said, ‘but also maybe I need a break… so I’m going to need to contemplate that.’ He said, ‘sure, take your time to think about it, it’s important you do what feels right for you.’ I said, ‘I mean, I know on a cognitive level I’d be fine, I’m a teacher a mum, a coping adult but other stuff goes on in therapy.’ I was gesturing to my stomach and he mimicked that gesture and said, ‘and that’s the important thing to let that speak and be received and make sure that part can come in and be met in a way that feels right and I think it’s important that if there’s parts of you that have spoken and it feels like the break could be wrong then we will listen to those parts concerns… that was just a suggestion… and I do tend to announce breaks because I understand it can be difficult. As you just did, you were transparent enough to voice that emotional response to that, which we know in the work I would let that part speak but yeah I always announce breaks so that people have warning… I’m rarely ill but that sort of thing you never know, but I try to let people know well in advance.’ I said, ‘yeah that was a challenge with Anna because she was frequently ill which was a shame,’ he said, ‘yes it would be.’

I said, ‘I feel like I should have lots of questions… I mean this conversation has felt good actually, I’ve felt understood by you which is nice.’ He said, ‘That’s great, I’m glad you can talk about how it’s landed with you. You felt good and understood…’ I said, ‘There’s been a lot of me feeling like I have to over explain myself with Linda which has been quite hard and maybe it’s personality types, she’s very straight talking… I appreciate honesty and openness but sometimes straight talking can feel harsh which is difficult when you’re working with really raw vulnerable parts,’ Mark said, ‘Yeah if your young parts are up they might need a different voice or something, yeah..?’ I said, ‘Exactly! I mean this is already feeling so good, Linda doesn’t talk about young parts like that and Anna did and being a transactional analysist she talked a lot directly to my child and that was so healing and so therapeutic because it taught me how to speak to myself like that and be compassionate with myself and you know yeah this is just really showing me that I’m holding on to Linda for the wrong reasons.’ It felt amazing to hear him talking about the young parts… I can not wait to start that work with him!

I said, ‘It’s such a weird time just now with the lockdown and the way we’re living… I mean, I imagine most people who are free to choose, won’t start working face to face with people for a long time… parts of the work I know it can work remotely but I also feel like so much of the work is in the room. And also there was a lot of the work I did with Anna that I really felt I needed and was so powerful but Linda wouldn’t do it. I’m curious to see if you would. So things like moving around the room, and specific prediscussed touch, like a hand on the arm or something… Linda was dead against touch this but it was so important and impacted my healing in such a deep way. I mean I haven’t even sat in a room with Linda but she said she’s not a touchy/huggy person and doesn’t do that sort of thing. It really felt like a closed door when there’s something really powerful about it. Anna and I talked about it for a year before we brought touch into our work. In terms of her sitting beside me and putting a hand on my arm. And it was very professional and boundaried and everything,’ all this time Mark was nodding and saying, ‘yeah’ periodically… I continued, ‘I feel like with Linda it was a dead no and it’s a shame when the therapy is going in that direction to just close the door on it and not even consider it. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.’

Mark said, ‘I’ll speak hopefully very directly and stop me at any point if you want to ask anything. Speaking to the zoom points initially, I’ve been ambivalent about offering in person sessions, I haven’t returned to my office in town, just not had a green light from the inside about that,’ he had his hand on his stomach and I was agreeing with him. He said, ‘I imagined at some point offering a hybrid so for people who are happy to work remotely they can continue doing that, as I say I haven’t made that choice yet. I’ve actually been surprised with how effective this medium can be. I was a bit thumbs-downy about it at the start but actually I’ve had to change my views on things. Including somatic things. There is the option to move around the room and use the space creatively. The way I tend to work is quite organic but I do like to include the body because that’s where things come up and we tend to feel things quite intensely and I will point things out if things are happening. And ask them to explore it. So there’s that way of working. And I guess people start to connect with deeper parts of themselves. And obviously touch is impossible in this medium. It can be a very therapeutic way of working because were not just sort of brains on sticks with our thinking mind and feeling someone’s touch and support sometimes we take that in in ways we cant take words in and it can be very powerful. You can feel something from the inside that you can kind of ground, bookmark if you like, carry with you… so um… I have worked in that way, not heaps, I largely work very relationally,’ I asked if I could give an example and he encouraged me on. I said, ‘so there have been some times when I could get quite dissociative if we were exploring particular topics deeply and there were times when Anna and I felt a complete disconnect and she couldn’t reach me and I couldn’t even feel she was in the room. We explored that a lot and talked about what might be helpful and we came to the agreement that if I asked for it she would pull her chair round to be beside me and she would put her hand on my arm and something really deep inside me would wake up to the fact that she was actually there and then I could take in her care and connection. So, I’d go from feeling completely alone and then the touch would connect me back to her and bring me back to the room.’ Mark said, ‘yeah that makes complete sense.’ I said, ‘so when I explored that with Linda, using the words Anna would use as a transactional analysist, my child felt like Linda was closing a door to my child by saying ‘no I don’t do that’ because that was the only way me or Anna could access her. And I spent a good year and a half denying any existence of parts and being dead from the neck down and not feeling any emotions and being very cognitive and intellectualising. So, Anna worked really hard to connect me to any feelings at all. So, it felt like hitting a brick wall, losing Anna and then working with someone who then said ‘I won’t work with you like that’. It felt devastating to feel that this amazing thing that I’d only just found was taken away from me and I’m never going to be able to have it again.’ Mark said, ‘more loss, yeah more loss.’

I said, ‘and then when I was searching for another therapist, it’s such a black hole searching for a therapist online, especially when it’s not counselling you want, it’s therapy, you want to do attachment work and all the things you were talking about developmental trauma, first 18 months of life… all this stuff I was like ‘yes’ because I haven’t read that in other profiles, you know and I had been narrowing my search down to only women and I realised last week that I was just looking for Anna in all the profiles and I realised I wasn’t going to find her so I lifted all the restrictions and searched again and found you. I felt that you sounded interesting… so that’s that!’ He said, ‘yeah yeah I really appreciate it’s a strange thing to trail through profiles to try to get a sense of someone, I’m glad my words, as far as I could put myself out there, landed with you in a certain way. I offer this meeting and I don’t charge for it because I think it is important to meet people and have a sense of how it is to sit with and speak to the person. It’s whether our vulnerable or young parts feel that it’s okay to speak as well. My sense is that you are feeling quite free in speaking but how is it, how has it been to speak for these parts?’ (I really loved that he said this).

I said, ‘yeah it feels like I’m being heard and understood, it feels good, you know. I mean, I’m not new to therapy…’ he said, ‘no I get that,’ I continued, ‘so I’m used to having to make the most of the hour or however long, um… but I know now what it feels like to be out of alignment with someone or in alignment.’ He said, ‘and right now, with me?’ I said, ‘I feel in alignment with you I feel like you understand me. Actually, you saying to me that you were interested in the fact that I wanted to deep work, that excites me because that is how I feel and I always feel like I’m too much, and that people are frightened off by that. And when you didn’t reply to the initial email that you didn’t even get…’ he spoke over me and said, ‘oh God, right, oh no!’ I continued, ‘all those stories were going round in my head, I should never have told him all that history I should have just stuck to the basics and left it at that, you know, so it’s actually really reassuring to hear you say that actually that’s the thing that interested you because I always have this story that I’m too intense, I’m too much, people don’t want to go so deeply in to things, they want it to be easy, you know all that sort of stuff, so thanks for saying that!’ he said, ‘well that’s brilliant then because you bumped into your assumption and I kind of undid it, didn’t I. and that’s lovely coz it’s a relational experience different from what you imagine is going to come your way.’ I said, ‘and you said it without me asking, usually if I say I feel like I’m too much and the therapist says I’m not I don’t believe them but I didn’t ask you, you just volunteered how you felt… when my attachment stuff is triggered I find it hard to believe what people say, I feel like they say it coz its their job.’ Mark said, ‘yeah I get that and I just happily volunteered that. And I do just bring stuff forward. The main thing for me is that we process the impact of that, of what I say or what you say, how we’re left. Which is partly what were doing now were going back and saying well it impacted in a good way, with you. Now I know that, with the back story of what you imagined. When you didn’t get an email back. So there’s a whole piece there for us to bring forward. Its only if you talk about what happens between you that you get that gold!’ I said, ‘yessss and I really value that work and you know (I know were gonna wind things up)… Linda keeps using this word critiquing, she feels like I’m critiquing her when I’m not, what I’m doing is wanting to have that kind of conversation with her. I want to explore why these things are important to me. I’m not critiquing her but she’s taking it personally. This whole thing is reinforcing that this was the right decision. I’m really glad that we had this conversation today.’

Mark said, ‘okay shall I just say a few things? I mean, you’re quite experienced in therapy so I don’t think I need to say much about it but basically in a nuts and bolts kind of thing… I tend to say lets have 6 sessions, and then we can see how that goes if it feels right for you. What you’re saying is you’re interested in longer term work and so we know that from the get go. I tend to work woth people for as long as they want to come. ive never had to stop someone prematurely or moved away. I have no plans of going anywhere. So it would be your space and the ending would be your control, all things being equal you know, if a bus ran over me or something… but you know, so I offer it in a deep way, the sessions are an hour long and usually once a week. I don’t like to work with lesser frequency than that coz I don’t think its that affective. I think weekly contact is important. Um… what else? Probably that’s about it. Every now and again we’d have a review, have a check in about how were doing together. That tends to happen organically and I can tell it would happen organically with you, but it’s worth sometimes to have a formal 10 minutes looking back. See how its going. There’s a way, I call it ‘house keeping the work’ my way of making sure its effective…. so, is that maybe enough for now? Is there anything you want to ask? How are you left… from today? How do you feel?’

I said, ‘ehhh…. I’m feeling excited actually.’ He said, ‘excited! That sounds good! It’s nice to hear that you’re excited. I like that.’ I said, ‘yeah especially knowing where I’ve been the past few months. Its really nice to feel hopeful.’ Mark said, ‘it’s good to feel hopeful, that’s important.’ I said, ‘yeah I would like to work with you, em…’ Mark interrupted and said, ‘oh I’d like to work with you, it’s immediate, I always say to people go away and sleep on it don’t rush to do anything but eh, I’m glad you’ve said that and it’s felt very organic and eh… well sorry, I’ve just spoken over you I guess I’m excited too!’ he was smiling and moving around a wee bit. I said, ‘aww that’s nice, that’s nice… that’s so nice! Coz I reckon Linda and I didn’t have a choice, we ended up working together by default so its really nice to feel like we’re both on the same page with this. So… basically I think then what I’ll do is… I’m having twice a week sessions with Linda which I had started to do with Anna a year ago when a lot of developmental, preverbal stuff was coming up that was really hard to hold for a while week emm…’ he said, ‘yeah that makes sense,’ I said, ‘then it continued with Linda because basically I had a complete breakdown when Anna left and I couldn’t go more than a few days without talking to someone about it…. so I had thought about moving down to once a week with Linda just to try to centre myself into a shift, so what I could do is… I’ll be seeing Linda again on Monday and talking to her about how I’m feeling about all of this and the teacher in me wants to have a big forward plan but that’s not helpful. But I could email you and let you know a sort of rough idea… I’m 100% certain I would like to work with you I just don’t know when that’s going to start and how many sessions… I mean I might feel after speaking to Linda that I’m happy just with another week and that’s it… you’ve said you’re away for a couple of weeks in October so it might make sense to wait until after that. Wait til November… but I could maybe email you and let you know my thoughts on that?’ he said, ‘yes its good to keep me in the loop yeah, and we don’t need to be bound in concrete as you have another ending process… yes do that and get back to me. At the moment, it might change but I am open to twice weekly but at the moment we’d struggle to find the time for that but its not out the question just to let you know.’ I said, ‘okay we could talk about that then, I work Mon, Tue, Wed so at the moment I see Linda Monday early evening and Friday morning… so you and I could move to once a week on a Friday and play things by ear.’ He said, ‘yeah I’m pretty confident we can work something out.’

Mark said, ‘good to uh… I’m glad we’ve managed to meet in this mad medium and um… yeah just let me know what’s happening. Whenever you’re ready whenever feels right.’ I said, ‘okay thank you Mark I will do.’ He said, ‘yeah okay and uh… symbolic of being in control of the ending I’ll let you do the leave meeting button.’ I said, ‘okay great, well thanks very much, it was good to meet with you and I’ll email you next week.’ He said, ‘grand, thank you.’ And he stayed sitting crossed legged while I leaned towards the computer. I said, ‘okay have a good weekend,’ he said, ‘and you, bye for now,’ and I said, ‘bye Mark, bye.’ And that was that!

So… I’ve since emailed him asking when he would be able to start. I’ve been reflecting a lot and I’ve listened again to both my session with Linda and this conversation with Mark. The contrast is stark. Linda hasn’t been able to hold all my stuff and isn’t able to take me where I want to go… I have a very strong feeling that Mark may very well be my next step.

Apologies this is so long… those of you who have been following along with me recently, I’d really love you to stick this out and share your thoughts. This is a major crossroads for me and I benefit greatly from the dialogue from those of you who regularly comment and private message me. So, thanks in advance for that. I recorded this session (first time I’ve ever done that) so this is completely accurate and not just my memory of the session.

I just jumped straight into it. I reminded Linda of the session when we talked about what I feel I need from therapy and how Anna worked and how Linda works and doesn’t work and what I felt I was getting from our therapy. I reminded her that she had even suggested different types of therapeutic approach and recommended a couple of different therapists to me. I said, ‘I had already started putting feelers out and looking… I’m so anxious talking about this which is ridiculous… I really wanna keep working with you but also there’s this other thing that I’m not gonna get working with you… but anyway, at some point I did get in touch with someone else and I’m speaking to them this afternoon, I just wanted to let you know.’ She said, ‘aahhhh okay, okay.’ In a very interested, curious tone. I told her I felt weird about it all because it’s important to me that I am very open and honest and didn’t want to keep it from her. She thanked me and said it was appreciated. I told her that I was confused about what was going to happen and I’ve made it clear with this person as well as hopefully communicating to her that this is just an initial conversation, that I’m not desperate to stop working with Linda and immediately start with this other person. ‘This week I’ve been wondering what I want to do, there’s lots of things that I specifically want to work on with you that I don’t think I would want to work on with them but then I don’t even know them.’ Linda said, ‘okay, do you mind me asking what approach they are?’ I said, ‘so… his name is Mark and… I’m not sure what modality he specifies, there’s all these things he talks about on his website that I’m really interested in like Somatic Experiencing, he did specific training on developmental trauma – on the first 18 years of life. I’m really interested in that. Also there is a spiritual element of his work and he’s a Buddhist and I’m really curious about that. Even though I’ve never talked to you about that before and for all I know you might also be a Buddhist!’ we laughed.

I told her that it is difficult to put into words what I feel like I want and need I’m not getting from Linda. She was making agreeing noises and I explained, ‘I’m getting different things from you that I didn’t get from Anna that I also value, I know that I don’t need to say this as you’re perfectly secure in your own self but it’s not about you not being good enough for me it’s about this thing that I can’t even put words to. Even though I feel like we have talked a bit about this and I felt like you understood me.’ Linda said, ‘I suppose my response to this so far, Lucy is that I don’t think it will do you any harm, to have a conversation with him. You know? I don’t know him but I do know the name. The thing I remember about him is the Buddhist bit. So once again, it won’t do you any harm just to see how it feels.’

I explained that since we started working together, across the 37 sessions there have maybe been like 5 sessions where there’s been this real lack in whatever this thing is that I want and it’s been painful and I’ve gone away and felt that it’s really agony but then there’s always been a reconnection in the next session and so I’m like maybe this is part of my work anyway, maybe it would be here regardless, maybe it’s coz I’m not sitting in the room with her, maybe it’s the grief of not having Anna because that’s obviously a specific person that I connected with… I dunno but in those moments of disconnect I guess my reflex has been to go and look at other therapists and I’ve always narrowed the search down so much that it’s like 10 people left. And anyway I realised I was just looking for Anna in all of these searches…’ Linda was nodding and said, ‘ahh okay,’ in a sympathetic tone. I continued, ‘it is impossible to find her in someone else… and so the last time I looked I took all the filters off and I sat mindfully and said to myself that what’s for me will come to me, whether it’s working with Linda or working with someone else, it will work out in time. And then I searched again and this guys name popped up, despite thinking I didn’t want to work with a man again… I felt that the work I wanted to do had to be with a woman but I dunno now because the only thing that’s putting me off him is that he’s a guy, everything else on the profile sounds like what I want. Maybe I could just talk to him… but then there’s also this uhhh… I feel very conflicted about it all because I want to keep working with you.’

She said, ‘What’s the expectation, for both of you in terms of the conversation today? Have you discussed that?’ I said, ‘so it’s not a session and therefore you don’t pay for it, it’s a 40 minute conversation where we get to talk about what brings me to messaging him and I guess ask any questions. So I’ll be curious to see how I feel talking to him today… but I’m glad I told you I was feeling weird about it.’ Linda said, ‘No, thank you. I really appreciate that, okay, again that’s you bringing it into the room and bringing it to the session and that’s appreciated, okay. But what I would say is trust yourself. I think this is part of your process Lucy, it’s about listening to yourself and trusting yourself about what you need right now. Or, actually you might not need it right now but you might need it in the future.’

She then said, ‘I just want to pick up on one thing that you said 5 minutes ago. You’ve said this quite a few times and it really intrigues me. That is about something that you know you’re not going to get from me or you think you’re not going to get from me and I’m really curious about that because I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t know what’s going to happen with anybody that I work with, yeah? That’s the whole point of therapy. So actually I’m just going to gently challenge that because I’m not quite sure you can know things like that.’ (On reflection, I don’t think she really understands what is lacking. I’m not sure she’s had the desire to do the deeper work that I want to do so she really doesn’t know that it’s not there).

I said, ‘so that makes me feel like cancelling this afternoon because it makes me feel like ‘okay there’s an open door where I thought there was a closed door!’ Linda said, ‘okay but you had closed the door Lucy.’ I said, ‘well I actually felt that you had though.’ She laughed. I said, ‘because I felt like we were butting heads on some very important things or misunderstanding each other but on really big things,’ Linda was saying, ‘okay,’ actively listening through this. I said, ‘you know, early on I was very sensitive because I was right in the middle of the grief stuff, so I had this lost this thing and then you were saying ‘well I’m not gonna give it to you’ obviously because you’re not Anna but it felt painful, it felt like a closed door rather than ‘that’s a possibility’… I wish I had a bullet point list of specifics, it is a felt sense thing, I really feel like you need to be in the room to feel that with someone but also even if and when we end up in a room together I imagine it’s going to be at a distance. You know, life is weird at the moment, it’s not going to go back to normal… I fully expect for you to probably not see clients face to face until well into 2021, I understand that, it could be fucking forever away!’ she said, ‘that’s probably a good guess Lucy, especially the way things are this week with more local lockdowns,’

I then decided to focus on the actual specifics and she agreed it would be important to revisit it now. I said, ‘I feel scared to go into it because my perception is that on occasion you’ve taken things personally, things I’ve said, and I know that might not be the reality or your experience but that is how I’ve felt sometimes when I’ve said this thing. I feel like I have been quite careful in not comparing you but then I’m bound to because I literally fell out of Anna and into you.’ Linda said, ‘yeah, sure, sure…’ I said, ‘and because I felt like Anna and I were in a place where we had worked together for so long and we really gelled and so the way that I was used to working with her (and again it’s not right or wrong it’s just different) it was never about her perception of things. So, say I said to her ‘in the last session you said to me that I appeared to be sensitive about a particular thing’ and I told her I didn’t like being called sensitive because it reminded me of being called overly sensitive my whole life, she would explore my experience of what it was like to hear her calling me sensitive, she would maybe apologise or whatever and trace back to times in my life when I was called sensitive and really feel into the pain of that. Whereas I feel like in the past if I’ve said something similar to you, you’ve said, ‘well that’s not what I meant, what did I actually say’ and so I feel like I’m then having to tune in to you and your experience of it rather than you seeing what my experience is. And I also understand that what you’re doing is getting me to actually listen to you. Am I explaining the difference right? Do you hear the difference?’ In a thoughtful way Linda said, ‘yeeeaahh… and there’s a number of different things going on for me when I am listening to you today, Lucy. I think the first thing is that clarifying can be really important actually, because that’s a big part of how I work. So if I say something, if it’s not right or not what you mean then it’s about saying ‘actually, that’s not what I meant’. To help me understand, because I might be way off base, you know? So there’s that… but there’s also the thing about congruence. The type of therapist I am, I’m not going to sit on something if it doesn’t feel right. If it’s appropriate I will bring it up. I really want to say and put out there the thing, rather than it sitting in my head or body. But you don’t need to take it. I use this analogy a lot about a table. Me putting things on the table and you lifting them off the table and looking at them, but putting them back if you need to, you know?’

I said, ‘so I think the difference then would be that… so imagine you put something on the table and I looked at it and I told you how I interpreted it and then you helped me explore why I interpreted it that way and how it felt to interpret it that way. That’s one way of working, that’s how Anna worked. Your way of working is putting something on the table, me interpreting it and you saying, ‘no that’s not what I mean,’ (she laughed at this point) ‘and so me then having to turn my attention to you and then feeling like an idiot and feeling ashamed because I always twist things and turn things around.  I feel like it becomes me having to work hard at understanding you rather than you joining me in being curious and exploring why I look at things that way.’ Linda said, ‘okay, and I mean I’m horrified, you know I’m laughing coz that was a nervous laugh coz I’m thinking ‘oh shit that sounds awful,’ if that’s been your experience Lucy and I’m sorry that’s been your experience. Because it’s not about correcting you, um, but I need to make sure as well that… I know I can be clumsy because I’m not perfect and I know I can be more direct and more abrupt as compared to Anna, um… because we’re very different people. So, I’m sorry if that’s been your experience sometimes, cos that has got in the way. Yup. And I will take that on board, and I will look at that in my supervision.’ I was aware of feeling really sorry for her here. She seemed vulnerable and it made me want to reassure her.

I said, ‘yeah, thanks for that response, that was nice…’ Linda said, ‘I don’t think it matters how long I’ve been practicing for, life happens to us all and sometimes I think you need to be aware and you need to listen to the feedback like that, because that might have meant that life got in the room that day or something might have happened, but I need to be careful and boundary that off because it’s not about me.’ I said, ‘yeah this is really really helpful, coz one of the things that I had thought was getting in the way was that you know Anna. And that must be difficult, that’s challenging.’ Linda said, ‘it has been, it has been.’ With a very serious voice that actually took me by surprise a bit. I said, ‘so I’ve been mindful of this thing where yes I’m the client in this relationship but I’m also you know a fairly aware, intelligent person and I can tell that you’re a human being and you know Anna and it’s a complicated, strange situation and I don’t wanna hurt your feelings by every day saying ‘that’s not the way Anna did it, I need you to be more like Anna…’ so there was that awareness, there was this notion that maybe I do need to look for someone else, not because you’re lacking but because you know Anna and it makes me hold back sometimes. So, I think also the co-dependency, the people pleasery part of me… it might surprise you but I do have a people pleasery side to me! That part of me is like constantly thinking that if I perceive the tiniest bit of defensiveness in you then it makes me stop and think ‘I can’t explore this any further because she’s gonna say it’s too hard to work with me because it’s triggering stuff in her so I need to not go there’. I was just really aware that if that’s happening a lot for me then that’s not therapy.’ Linda said, ‘yeah it’s not helpful, absolutely.’ I said, ‘but when I talk about other stuff with you, that’s not to do with the therapeutic relationship, its fucking brilliant… so then I think maybe I’ll just talk about all the other stuff but then every so often it IS important, something does come up and then rather than going away from those sessions thinking you heard me I go away thinking I had to really pay attention to how you were feeling, but anyway… you know when you made the comment about me critiquing the sessions, I found that word really painful because that’s not what I was doing in my head, but that tuned me in to how you were feeling again, it made me think, do you feel defensive when I want to go over past sessions, because that’s never what I meant. What I mean when I go back over sessions is that I constantly want to find out why the fuck I’m like this, you know? And in the room between you and me, I can try to find out why I’m like this in relationships. Just like I was doing with Anna. And if you wanna use that word, I critiqued her loads! But I felt like she would constantly bring that back to me, she’d be like, ‘what does that remind you of? Do you remember the earliest time you felt like that?’ so I never went away thinking ‘I really offended her’ but I have felt like that sometimes with you. And so rather than thinking that’s because you can’t do your job, I’ve thought the type of therapy you do, I’m too sensitive for, you know? I find it really painful. I really hope this is making sense.’

Linda said, ‘no it absolutely is, Lucy. I think today it’s really clarifying for me. This is the first time that I’ve ever been in this situation. In terms of we met because of the situation between you and Anna. And it has been and it continues to be incredibly tricky, for me. Yeah, so it’s always difficult when this kind of thing happens. It does affect the therapy because it’s always in the room. It’s always with you AND because I know Anna… I am holding an awful lot of stuff, every time I see you. And I think maybe we need to look at that, or make a decision about that because maybe it is too much for me to hold, actually. And that’s me being really congruent and honest with you. I am holding a lot. And maybe it is too much. And maybe that’s my issue, because I don’t want that to impinge or affect or get in the way of your therapy. Because that’s not right and it’s not fair. And maybe, I know you’ve used the word defensive a few times and I’ve been a bit ‘ooh ouch’ about that, but maybe that’s part of it as well. Because I don’t want to interfere with your therapy. However, I’m also aware that there’s an aspect you quite like about the fact that I know Anna, I know you’ve said before there’s something almost comforting in a way.’

I said, ‘if I was to write a list of all the reasons to stay and the reasons to find someone else, on the reasons to stay one of them is that you are a connection to Anna…’ she nodded and I continued, ‘but that’s on the other side as well.’ She said, ‘course it is, yep,’ I continued, ‘and I journaled about this the other day because I had this constant sense that you’re my last connection with Anna like once that’s gone then that’s a whole other grief but then I worked my way through it and realised that’s not actually true. You’re not actually a connection to Anna because you don’t ever tell me anything about her (annoyingly) and I can’t send her messages through you and in a way it’s painful the stories I make up in my head about the fact that you chat to her… and actually my connection to her is my relationship with her and that’s separate from you and… there’s this weird sense that if I was to stop working with you and if that was to get back to her somehow, she would think, ‘Lucy’s really cut all ties now and she’s going to commit to working with somebody else’ and so if Anna ever started up her practice again she wouldn’t get in touch with me like she said that she would because she would think I had moved on with somebody else. So, there’s like a grief there as well. And this need in me to message her to tell her… and also you might know in your head that’s never going to be a possibility and she will never start up again, I don’t fucking know… but because in the last interaction we had she said she would get in touch with me if she ever did set up again, I still feel like I would go back to her. It’s complicated, it wasn’t ever finished off. I didn’t get the rounding off of the sessions that I really wanted and needed to have. And there’s almost a denial there when I think, ‘maybe I’ll have it one day even if it’s in two years time, I’ll have the ending sessions I need.’ There’s a self-protection in believing that, but also its like holding back the full force of the healing powers of feeling grief of it all. I almost feel like if I just had a definite no, then I could really try to close that.’ Linda said, ‘Yeah okay so what I think I heard there is that you’re still waiting for her. And if that’s still around for you then that will be in the room between us.’

I said, ‘Yep. I’m still waiting for her. Because we started working together as an inbetweeny thing, when she was off the first time, there’s still a part of me, a young part of me, that feels like I’m just being looked after by you, by my aunty, until I get to go back home to mum… it feels like I can tolerate being away from her as long as there’s this part of me holding on to the fact that I’ll go back to her to have these final imaginary conversations with her. It’s really hard to figure that out because I don’t know what happened to her, really. This is an example of what you were just describing that I’ve been fully aware of and have been aware of all along, that you are holding a lot… you know what happened and it’s really really difficult because I feel like I’m choosing my words carefully to make it easier for you, even though you’ve never asked me to do that. And I feel like there’s like this sort of badly behaved kid in me who wants to beg you to tell me. I want to be like, ‘just fucking tell me, tell me what happened to her. Please tell her how I’m feeling. Tell her that I only want to speak to her once, just one hour, or half an hour…’ to beg you and like shake you and be like ‘can’t you see how tortuous this is for me? I want you to tell her that I need to speak to her!’ You know? Surely she can have a phone conversation for Christ sake?

Linda was listening intently but also I noticed something quite vulnerable in her. She said, ‘yeah absolutely. Um… I don’t quite know what the answer is then Lucy, what I would do is encourage you to speak to Mark this afternoon and just see how it feels.’ I said, ‘I really hope you’re not hurt by any of the things I’ve said or offended by anything I’ve said. that’s really important to me.’ She said, ‘I’m not feeling hurt or defensive but I am aware that there’s something about this that is really important, Lucy. Because this is your therapy. So it is important and I’m really glad that we’re talking about this today. To try and help you figure this out. Because if the odds are too much stacked against this being the best place for you, in terms of me and you. I know that’s difficult but it might be about acknowledging that, because I want you to get the most out of your sessions, yeah? It is important to acknowledge and to say these things and bring them out.’

I said, ‘if I did decide that I was going to move on to somebody else, whether it be Mark or someone else, I wouldn’t want it to just be like right this is our last session, bye… I would want to do some work on an ending… don’t get ill and take that away from me! I feel like the power has been taken from me and I’m desperate to have the opportunity to confront this really difficult thing which is ending something properly,’  Linda said, ‘the way that you want, the way that it hasn’t happened before.’ We made agreeing noises. Linda said, ‘thank you for that, I appreciate that and I know that’s the way you would want to end things, that you’re not just gonna say, ‘let’s cancel all the sessions we had in the diary’. I laughed and agreed I’m definitely not like that.

I said, ‘this whole thing has been so weird… this whole year so far. And today I feel like I had the chance to stand still. I’ve been running on survival mode since mid-march and I realised today how different I feel. Everything that I lost through the lockdown was so painful… and now I’m back at work and it feels okay and life feels a little more manageable. Today was the first day by myself. I have a tendency to fill my time with doing stuff but today I just had some peace and realised I’m still standing, I’m okay!’ We talked about that a bit more and then Linda held up a book that she had looked out to recommend for me called, ‘The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down.’ She said she’d been thinking about me and felt it would help. It’s written by a Buddhist monk. It was so apt that she brough this book to me today and I have just bought it and look forward to reading it. She reflected to me how different the session felt to her today. That I wasn’t checking the time loads, I was going with the process. It all felt very very important. I told her that the therapeutic relationship to me feels like this sacred thing where you share things openly and honestly and you don’t hold back. So to have come to the session and not told her I was talking to someone else this afternoon would have felt deceitful, like a betrayal of her or me or the process. She thanked me for being so honest and she reiterated that it’s very important.

I said, ‘what I’m taking away from this is a real willingness from you to be completely honest and open with me within the boundaries and to hear me and not be defensive… all the things I want from a therapist… I felt understood… but also the acknowledgement that you’ve said it’s been a lot for you to hold and the fact that you know Anna. I feel like I’m resigned to knowing what needs to happen. I like working with you but we can’t just erase the fact that you know Anna. That’s always going to be there with us. And… even if we both were constantly completely aware that that’s always going to be in the room, I still think that it could swallow up session after session rather than me focusing on my ‘life things’ that I need therapy for. And you don’t want to be spending every supervisory session talking about me and Anna!’ Linda said, ‘I’m wondering what it would be like for you to actually start a fresh with a therapist who doesn’t have anything to do with this. His responses will be completely different to you about this stuff and that in itself will be valuable.’ I thanked her again and she thanked me as well. We wound things up and I’ll be able to follow this up with her on Monday.

This whole thing felt very grounded and adult and open and exactly the conversation I needed to have with her.

And now… on to my conversation with Mark.