A restless and irritable session. I could not relax at all. At one point I got up and got a drink of water. I kept looking at my watch and saying it was a boring waste of time and I'd rather be having a cup of coffee somewhere.
I complained that Dr. T wasn't doing enough for me. That in spite of all the work we'd done I didn't seem to be making much progress. I also said that the feeling of closeness I'd had with him a few weeks ago had gone. I couldn't sustain any theme but kept coming up with these little bad-tempered criticisms.
I was quite surprised when at the end Dr. T seemed to think it had been a successful session. He said what I was expressing was the irritation and anger about his being about to go away and that it came from a very early developmental stage.
He said if I had been expressing the same thing from a developmental stage after the age of five it would have come out as a direct complaint about his being about to abandon me for three weeks. In fact what I was doing was from a deeper level in which I could only express my dissatisfaction through behaviour, by verbally 'hitting out' at him.
I thought it was interesting that he had seen what I had done in terms of behaviour rather than looking at the content of what I'd said. He had observed me from one step removed, which I hadn't been able to do. But this is the essence of interpretation, and the use of language, including his interpretations, is always a form of action.
Later in the day I felt a new strong feeling arising inside me. It was an attitude of mind which said if I want to do something just do it, if I want to say something just say it, and if I want something just try and get it. It felt like healthy aggression, the aggression that is needed just to be a normally assertive independent person.
This feeling is unprecedented and unlike anything I learned in childhood. It feels like a potentially independent person arising inside me and if it grows and develops it could transform my life.
*
That feeling of autonomy and strength is still around in me today, though in a very tenuous manner. I keep catching it for a moment then losing it for long periods. It is a feeling that I could be a person, I could have a voice, and I could say things I decided to say. It is an absolute novelty.
For others it is probably something taken for granted, something they have always had and can't imagine not having, but I have never felt like this before. I have never conceived of having so much freedom.
In comparison I see that normally I feel as if there are guards with machine guns standing over me to ensure I never say anything which might indicate that I am a separate person in my own right.
I sense that to put this mode of being into practice would mean functioning from a different centre of myself. It would mean locating my sense of self in my whole body instead of just in the part of my mind which perceives, and feeling my identity to be firmly inside me rather than half way between me and the person to whom I am trying to talk.
*
The last session before Dr. T goes on holiday. I told him about the new feeling of autonomy and he seemed pleased about it. He said it was all about separating out from fusion into an independent being.
He confirmed that to other people it is just normal. He said it represented the stage of development children go through when they cease to be fused with their mothers and become separate autonomous individuals. In other words this feeling which is an absolute novelty to me is something most people have taken for granted since they were three years old.
He made the comment that to begin a relationship what is needed is to interact with the person. I found that word very helpful and talked for some time about the associations I had with the concept of interaction and the difficulties I have with it.
The main insight to emerge was that I am still too much in the fusion state. I still do not have a very strong sense of identity and when I am with a person I feel I am as much the other person as myself, so there isn't enough of a me to do the interacting.
Dr. T pointed out that the new feelings of autonomy and separateness indicated that I was beginning to emerge from this phase.
So we ended on an optimistic note. It hadn't been a particularly deep session but it was illuminating and there was a strong sense of us working together and seeing definite signs of progress.
I asked a bit about his forthcoming holiday and about what his family was doing now. At times like this a little bit of personal conversation feels appropriate. Then, with a friendly and optimistic feeling between us, we shook hands.
*
My diary continues, in more detail in Psychotherapy Notes
© Psychotherapy Diary. See also Inside Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Notes, Psychotherapy Bookshop
