Accounts

M,

I know you do not encourage communication, and you want to protect yourself very much from involvement in whatever sort that may be, with clients - I totally understand it. It is a way of working.

Though, I have come to a point where I have felt the sessions have brought me less and less, mainly because my needs and what you offer are very apart, very different.

What I found in you at the beginning was vitality; I felt nurtured and "followed", which is the key element of what is happening now, and the mental difficulty I found myself in since a few days.

As it went on, as my communication didn't get much response from you or brought me responses from you that I found unhelpful or which felt like"a diversion", it has drawn be downwards and made me feel that what I long for, I cannot find it with you in a therapy sense and I will have to carry on seeking for "someone else" in order to find it.
I miss and regret my gone homeopath from Basingstoke: he used to prompt me to write to him regularly and writing to him was a big part in my treatment; he would hardly reply to it but would talk about the letters as if they had been an important part in the healing process and the therapy itself. He did not "care" for me I don't think, and I was not in love with him, but I felt "followed" and cared for, because what was happening to me was important to him and he made me understand that it was so, even though he didn't give me much feedback about it.

He became too possessive in a therapy sense, as I told you, which was why I eventually stopped seeing him; though he was the one I could call in the middle of the night, and it happened once, when I was spiked with ecstasy by some ex-boyfriend whom I didn't trust, and thought I was going to die; I had nobody else to call and I called him for help; he reassured me and told me I was unlikely to die and should drink a lot of salted water. He was concerned and was probably upset by my calling at such strange hours; though to be able to do that brought me an immense trust and relief. I only did it twice in 4-5 years of being followed by him, and in the whole, he helped me very much.
But, I cannot go back to him, as he would disagree with all my experimentations with other therapies and psychic things and readings that I go to. Though, I miss someone like him.

Every other therapist I have met since him, (except a French therapist I see occasionally who has similarities), have been over protective of themselves and have not given me the time that I feel I need, nor the untold, professional nurturing and the feeling cared for, even though it is without affection, without physical contact and without words.

I did not invade on him, other than sending him those huge letters every month or 2, and occasionally talking on the phone when I had a crisis, which I didn't abuse of and only used him as a last resort. I respected him, and cherished this feeling of being "followed", "heard" and cared for by him, in a profesionnal sense. Someone I could trust and ask any question to.

I never could find anyone I could relate to or trust to that point since; there is this extreme need in me to feel followed, read and cared for in a therapy sense. Lately, as my difficulties have been marinating in me, mainly with this stupid NHS clinic with the African doctor that doesn't speak English and who doesn't give a damn and the sadomasochist nurse that doesn't neither and is really weird, I woke up this morning having a panic about what is happening to my body and I have been feeling since a few days (a couple of weeks) . It brought up this thought of "M isn't able to provide me with what I need and I need to seek elsewhere as he doesn't really give a shit about what may happen to me except during sessions, which are really too short to be able to let anything happen and be expressed".

My needs are too high for what you are able, or willing, to offer; what I truly need is spiritual help, a connection that I feel is genuinely there and even when I am not talking to the person, that I can feel I can rely on, even just in my head, knowing they do give a bit of a shit about what happens to me and whether I blossom or not.
I do have a therapist like that in France, as I said above, but I cannot see him very often. Just like the homeopath, he likes to read my letters and seems to care just that slight bit I need, in order for me to feel confident about expressing how I feel, and KNOWING IT WILL BE READ and heard. The sessions, as a result, are amazing and make me evolve a huge lot. The ones, lately, with you, haven't.

I am sorry, I don't feel you could really receive me in that sense. I know looking at all that I say here, from above, it sounds like I am trying to substitute "relationships" in my life with "therapists" and their destiny and what happens with them and my relationships is intrinsically linked. But it is part of my symptom, I suppose.
I do not want a "real" loving relationship,as you know, though I want to know I am cared for, by someone I can look up to and whom I can feel comforted by; a bit like a mother or father figure, I suppose.

With you, it has been slightly odd as for when we first met; as I tried to express in that very dry and short email I sent you many weeks ago after I had had a crisis during one of the sessions during which I wasn't able to express to you what was happening, and added as a PS which you ignored at the end, about another email I had written that meant a lot to me which was destined to you, but which I wasn't sure was right to send; well, maybe I should have sent it. That email was not much to do with therapy.

You didn't ask about it. You have not asked about many things that I have expressed. You seem not to want to hear or see certain things that I send, or at least, if you receive them, you act as if they were never sent or said. You seem to withdraw and hide behind untold things. It is my feeling. It may not be true. You may just be whom you want to be and whom you are comfortable being, and which works with many patients and people, and I wish for you that it carries on doing so. It just doesn't work for me, and that feeling hurts me more than anything. I do not feel heard. Strangely...What happened to me with my latest relationships? (I am talking boyfriends, now, even though it has happened with therapists) ? Their Retreating into silence. Symptom, again, again. A circle. Please realise that this is about me, my symptoms reflect in you; and it has probably not much to do with you. I may sound bitter, but I am only expressing how I feel, I know you can only give what you are willing to give. And it is fine. Please, do not feel it as an aggression. I am only a weak, reactive human being on its way to development and mind-soul reconciliation. I am very unbalanced.

As I said to you, I have usually refused to retreat within the silence when something has gone difficult with someone else, with any of my relationships, be they acquaintances, friends, boyfriends or therapists. Though I was ready to go away from you this morning without saying anything more, since you didn't seem bothered about my reasons for cancelling the appointment, and took my "I'm fine thanks" , (said in a crackled, unsteady voice) without asking for any more.

But I changed my mind as your odd text message arrived, later this morning. It made me change, and makes me go back to my own truth; now, I refused to go away from you without explaining how I feel. At least if I act this way , it will be honouring and worthy of my truth. If I didn't do so, I would be as lesser as all those who have done it to me, in recent years and months, and it has been many of them.
They obviously think that silence and space cures all things; well, it doesn't. It may work with some people, but not others, like I.

Honesty is something I seek within, however hard it is to express by voice, it is much easier with writing. So, I may abuse of it to compensate my lack of spoken truth.

As I found out, Michael Kern wants nothing to do with the truth; or at least,doesn't want to listen to some of those that are around him; it is where his course and treatments can't be the best nor entirely helpful for humanity. It is why I was severely disappointed as I thought it he was much wiser, and was more of a pure being than what he actually is. His teachings are all about "political correctness" which means a lot of repressing what we feel or think. It was a huge twist to my timid and repressed being. I am glad I left, even if it left me without a diploma and £5000 poorer.

You have learned with him; and in your behaviour, I can see some of his teachings and his influence, which I personally sense as harmful. I do not know if you are shy of nature, or private, or indifferent, or scared of other's reactions. I do not know who you, M, really are, other than what I see and have heard of you. You do have a lot of wisdom.
I have never asked who you were, because it is not really my place, now we had started being "patient/therapist" since those few weeks. I am not meant to ask about you, the etiquette is that the patient talks about himself and the therapist listens or gives advice, which you do. The patient does not interfere nor ask about the private life of its therapist.

It is slightly extreme. I know that to go to therapy sessions is not about making friends, even though it can happen sometimes (rarely - because of all the etiquette and also the therapist's protection of their private time.) but there is sometimes a lack of humanity in therapy. Not intentioned, since the aim of the therapist is to help humanity and give of themselves in order to do good. But there is something I feel slightly fake in it. Particularly as our western society's structure calls for therapies more and more, rather than relying on the social support between people, friends and family.

Strangely, as I am having more and more difficulty with "authority" and "helpful" figures in my life, be they therapists or boyfriends, I am slowly finding out that those close to me, my dear friends whom I never gave much attention to, actually are being more and more helpful, closer to me and nurturing, which I didn't feel before. Maybe my own balance is getting back to the one that, as part of humanity, it should always have been, when people didn't need therapists. Though, I would quite like to be a therapist that helps people not need therapists; so it would put me out of a job if it was the case. And I do not want to leave you without a job neither.

All that to say, that silence, and the feeling of not being heard, or at least not being told the truth about whether you wanted to hear me or not, has hurt me enough to want to part ways. I know it is important not to become involved emotionally or mentally with anyone, particularly patients (and therapists!!!); but I always do, because I am so needy.

Though, a bit of truth or a few words which may not be politically correct are really, really needed. (words which that french therapist tells me, and he has shocked me many times, in those times of everyone suing for anything, he must be careful with what he says, but he is so truthful and sometimes blunt that one has to forgive him as he is being himself)

An assessment of what our place is, what your place is, what the rules are. To be honest and honour the space, hear the needs of both people. You are not a machine, you are a therapist. Even though you may have felt to me, from your behaviour and response, like a machine at times, the same way Michael Kern feels heavily metallic within his approach. I think it is important to find again what humanity needs; whilst being wary and careful of where the western world is taking us to. (the suing - which leads to us watching every single word we may want to say)

The same way you sometimes feel like machine, I feel overly, extremely flesh and emotions, and lack that metallic support in me. I am sure there is a balance in those approaches; why you are drawing me to be like this, and why I am drawing from you to be as you are; or why we were drawn to each other and for what purpose.
Silence and space can feel like machine. Manipulation. Even though it is what Michael praises and in some ways, there is truth in it being beneficial. But it can be and may feel like manipulation. How often I felt it that way. It's my own problem I suppose.

On the other hand, from the opposite of acting like a "machine", is "Over-involving" and "Over-reacting"in a very primitive human way, which can both lead us straight into the meat grinder, and maybe it is even more dangerous. Which is what used to be done in the past, when doctors and people would just be opinionated and silly and fall out yet, being with their own truth and hearing each other even though they would disagree. They didn't get sued so they could just be who they wanted to be, in those times, which lead to a lot of abuse, I am sure.

Maybe there is a third alternative, than either being meat or meat-grinding-machine.

I am sure you will take all this with distance, my words are emotional, sometimes intellectual and sometimes reaction-seeking; sometimes confrontational, sometimes unfair, sometimes right to the point. Please, forgive me for them. Unfortunately, I am human.

I will leave you with this, but because I do not want any regrets in my life, of an expressive type, I will also forward the email that I had written in big depths of crisis, that day I had met you in the Homeopathic centre and had forgotten my jumper in the therapy room, and what had happened to me during that session which I had not been able to express.

You are a big person, (I was going to say "a big boy" but it is not my place to say so) you can handle it, and I do mean what I am going to add, whether you reply or not is up to you; I will not expect an answer, because what was more important to me was to express what was within and was left rotting; the reaction back this time, is not needed. But to speak my truth is.

I hoped such emails like this one would have triggered when I sent them to people I cared, in the past, including Michael Kern, and the last 3 boyfriends; though, they were responded to with silence, and I got hurt by it.

I must learn to give, without expecting anything back in return.

I will be and feel honoured, today, if you do not reply.

C