Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

 
Construct: towards containment - freedom 
Wanting more for herself seems to suggest movement to contain what belongs to her, to be an 
individual with her own thoughts and feelings. The energy felt in this entry implies a sense of 
power, of more control as if she is taking hold of the freedom to be herself and even risking 
letting her partner be himself and different from her. 
 
Week 22. 
Line 1.
Feeling disappointed with self 
Line 2.
stuck + expecting to feel better. 
Line 3.
Removing myself from situations 
Line 4.
making others responsible for own mess. 
Line 5.
Not allowing self to be dragged in 
Line 6.
- do it differently + not explain how or why. 
Line 7.
Keep asking as „just in case‟ 
Line 8.
stop asking + see what happens. 
Line 9.
leave the load, relieve stuckness. 
Line 10.
Accepting + respecting the others 
Line 11.
paralysing fear. 
The client seems to return to the counselling feeling disappointed with her self (line 1) and 
appears to feel that she is stuck (line 2) when she was expecting to feel better (line 2). It seems 
that she has been taking herself away from situations (line 3) with others that before she would 
have taken responsibility for. She appears to be trying to let others take responsibility for what 
she terms their own mess (line 4). Now she seems to be trying to stop herself being dragged into 
(line 5) these situations. She wants to do it differently (line 6) as if she is making an effort to 
change the way she reacts. And at the same time she does not want to explain how or why (line 

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6) she is changing, as if she is expecting a reaction from others. But this appears hard to do as 
she writes that she „keeps asking‟ (line 7) as if she still has to check out what is going on for 
others or in her words „just in case‟ (line 7). But just in case of what, just in case they need her, 
or just in case it is her responsibility to get drawn in. It feels very hard for her to let go of her 
way of being. She then appears to exhort herself to stop asking and see what happens (line 8) as 
if seeing what happens may help her to see the possibility of different outcomes. She then 
exhorts herself again to leave the load (line 9) as if she is wanting to leave all the responsibility 
that she takes on behind her. She also seems to feel that this might relieve the stuckness (line 9) 
she described at the start of the entry. She seems to feel that she is accepting and respecting 
others (line 10)as if this is something that she is in the process of doing already but it feels new 
for she follows it with paralysing fear (line 11) as if actually doing this is so terrifying that she is 
paralysed, stuck, by the enormity of such change. Perhaps letting others take responsibility for 
their own actions is paralysing to her for she loses the role she knows.