In the client’s chair - Walking alone

"On Tuesday my friend Rachel sent me a text; she was in need of urgent advice. She had had three sessions of therapy following an initial assessment. She had left the last session early, convinced that the therapist was not for her."

In the client's chair – Change is happening

"My therapist reminds me that we are nearing the end of our sessions of CAT (cognitive analytical therapy). I don’t remember there having been any discussion about the precise number of meetings we were to have, but I am happy to bring matters to a conclusion."

In the client's chair - In the flow

"We’ve settled into a routine now. My therapist and I sit opposite each other in armchairs in a dimly lit room. A coffee table separates us, with nothing on it but a copy of the flow diagram he presented to me in session five"

In the client's chair - Getting on with the job

"There’s a real feeling in my sessions of cognitive analytic therapy of let’s just get on with the job. I’m not absolutely sure what the usual timescale is from beginning to end of a ‘treatment’, but I’m aware that it is expected to be short and not open ended. I welcome this dynamism"

In the client's chair - Ringing the changes

"The turn of the year is about assessing past achievements and future challenges. At the end of November I said goodbye to my therapist. Do I feel a sense of loss? Not really."

Learning zone

Dilemmas

This month's dilemma: Would you break confidentiality if a reluctant client fails to attend, or respond to letters while owing money?

Student column

The student column will resume again shortly, with a new columnist

Counselling and Psychotherapy Research (CPR)

is a peer reviewed, quarterly international journal. Visit http://www.cprjournal.com/ to read abstracts, receive regular e-bulletins and access the research glossary

In the client's chair - Spiritual awakening
by

Emma Munro

I am beginning to think that perhaps my ‘problems’ may be in large part spiritual rather than something that therapy alone can work out. As well as my therapy sessions, I am reading and thinking a great deal and I’m listening and talking to a wide variety of sources. Therapy is helping me see what is going on and why, but as to the resolution, where is that to come from?

I am wondering how much of the resulting change is brought about by therapy or how much of it is because you’ve decided to do something about your issues and you are giving yourself the time and space to do it. All through this therapy voyage I have been struggling to fit into a therapist’s chosen theoretical framework. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter how they do it. I can cherry pick the bits that work for me from different sources and I will then come to some kind of new way of being that is made up of understandings and strategies mixed together to my own recipe.

With the help of my therapist and the flow diagram, I can recognise the cycle of behaviour I sometimes feel trapped in. I fight the irritation of having my every action interpreted through this diagram. I am not as predictable as that. But to be fair, the diagram does keep adapting over the weeks as I reveal more about myself. It has been agreed that I can tape the sessions and this is helpful. I cringe a bit hearing myself whining on about my problems, but it is useful to be able to really listen to what my therapist is saying when I’m not concentrating on what I’m saying or feeling. He is really keeping me on task. He refers to the diagram a lot. He questions me about where I am in my cycle of behaviour. Hearing the session for a second time, I reflect on his questions more deeply and find that I would say things slightly differently given a bit more time and less intensity.

After a period of emotional turmoil and some significant life changes on a number of fronts, he notices that I seem a lot calmer. I pause for a moment and wonder whether I should be honest and open about why I think this is. I’m not sure why I feel this reluctance after all the other excruciating things I’ve told him. One’s inner spiritual life is such an individual, private thing that usually doesn’t stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny, never mind the scrutiny of someone you want to be taken seriously by.

I tell him that I have been listening to some of Eckhart Tolle’s CDs and they are having a big impact on me. He hadn’t heard of Tolle. I find his reaction hard to read. Perhaps he’s a die-hard atheist who only worships at the shrine of sacred psychotherapy tomes and would think a spiritual teacher such as Tolle is a load of new age mumbo jumbo. However, it’s the only truthful explanation I can offer for my change. I just think that I have to mention it, because if he is to understand where I’m coming from at the moment, he has to take all my influences on board. He doesn’t seem to see it as being something to work with and I leave it at that.

It is important though. I don’t believe that I will find resolution or a greater contentment without some spiritual dimension. It isn’t enough for me, at this point in my life, to study my behaviour, see that it is making me unhappy and make behavioural changes. I don’t think I can sustain change, never mind make any sense of it, without it getting through to me on a much deeper level. My mindset must change, underwritten by a belief system I feel at one with.

I find that life has a way of presenting you with just what you need to evolve as a person at any given time. And for now Tolle speaks to me. I still retain a healthy cynicism for what I see as cranky ideas of any ideological persuasion, but I’m helping myself to the bits that work for me in his message. I am practising non-reactivity to situations, acceptance, being present and conscious. I think that the constant retelling of your painful story does not help – you keep identifying with it. Tolle himself borrows elements of wisdom and common humanity from all the major religions. What I am taking from this is calming me down and giving me a perspective from which I can make changes.

I asked my therapist in the last session, so where do we go from here? I am impatient now. I’ve talked about what has happened and what I do. I am ready for and want change in my soul.
Some details have been changed to protect identities.

A New Earth Unabridged 8CDs: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club) (Audio CD) by Eckhart Tolle. RRP £42.30.