Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

8.9.2 Loss and death in poetry 
In his poetry, John Clare (1966) seems to long for death in the sense of longing for peace from 

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suffering. Yet although he appeared to long for his physical death he may have been wishing for 
freedom from his mental ill health which kept him locked away in an asylum. Yet the healthy 
part of him continued to write poetry. He had suffered both internal and external losses and his 
response to these losses was not understood by his contemporaries (Reeves 1966). Barrows 
(2003) shows how the capacity to cope with loss and death is demonstrated in Shakespeare‟s 
sonnets. She sees her appreciation of clients‟ losses as being enriched by her understanding of 
the sonnets. In the same way my understanding of loss, death and anguish has been enriched by 
my experiences and analysing the participants‟ journals and creating the findings poems. For 
example, Alice wrote a great deal about carrying other‟s burdens throughout her journal. It seems 
she carried the burden of her mother‟s experience of the holocaust and lost the right to be her 
own feeling self. This was one of her losses. Having taken on her mother‟s burden this became 
one of her roles as she took on the burdens of others. She became an advocate for others but 
realizes, in the journal writing, that she touches her own hurt when she protects others. This felt 
an important realization about herself, so it seems the writing helped her get in touch with the 
hurt, lost parts of herself and find the voices of her own feelings.
Who Am I does not seem to know who she is, as if all of her is lost. It seems that she has lost her 
identity which I feel as anguish. She knows almost nothing about her father and this seems to be 
a crucial part of her not knowing who she is. But through the journal she begins to find herself. 
She writes about the messages she was given about herself as a child and realizes that she does 
not have to own them. She names her different roles such as wife and mother and begins to see 
that she is more than these. She starts to take care of herself and listens to her feelings. She feels 
heard by the counsellor and seems to begin to hear herself. She begins to use the phrase „I am‟ as 

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if she has found herself and is giving herself being. There is a real sense at the end of the journal 
that there is more of her and she has a strong voice.
Wriggling Fish is surprised that she feels caught at the beginning of her journal as though she 
never realized this about herself before. It seems she lost the freedom to have any power. She 
writes about the deaths of friends and leaves me as the reader feeling that parts of her are also 
dying. It seems the selves she needs, like her powerful self, has been killed off or never allowed 
to live. In the journal she begins to discover that she has the power to do whatever she wants in 
life as if she has had no real sense of her power before. She releases herself from old ways of 
behaving and finds a new and adventurous self. 
Turned On starts the journal switched off from her own feelings, as if much of her is dead. She 
appears to have little sense of herself or her freedom to be a self. She has gone through life doing 
as she was told by others and become a carer of others. There is no space for her and she has 
nothing to look forward to in life. But through the journal she turns herself on. Instead of always 
saying yes when family ask things of her she starts to say no. She recalls her childhood with 
regular changes of school where she struggled to learn. Yet by the end of the research process I 
met someone who was loving learning, who had found a passion for words and who had a future 
to look forward to. 
Little Girl seems to be stuck in childhood at the start of her journal. She does not appear to like 
herself very much and she feels small as if there is little of her. Yet through the journal she seems 
to discover many different selves. At the start she shoots herself to pieces and it as if these 

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fragments are the beginning of the other selves. She realizes how much losing her mother still 
affects her and how she lets men take her power from her. She moves from wanting others to do 
things for her to wanting to do things for herself. There is a real sense of her power, her voice by 
the end of the journal. 
Perhaps the power of the losses experienced by the participants is lessened (Barrows 2003) by 
the re-experiencing of their feelings both in their counselling and their journals. As the reader of 
the journals, the variety of loss and death and how these losses were experienced had a powerful 
impact upon me. What stays with me is that even though loss may be hidden away in symbols 
and metaphor it remains present in between the lines, between the words. Although I did not 
intend to look for loss in others it is there in all the journals. Perhaps unconsciously I knew it 
would be but this was not recognized at the start of the research. Here it feels important to 
recognize my own working through of loss and death during this study. Although I recognized 
that working from my own experience might be part of my need for reparation I perhaps did not 
understand just how much this would be present in the process of the work. Yet I was willing to 
risk using my own material as a starting point and this may also reflect my need for reparation, to 
make the world, at least in some part a better place, for: 
“The capacity to be recruited, the willingness to risk ridicule or disappointment, to 
risk sticking one‟s neck out for something one feels to be worthwhile reflects a 
reparative instinct, a drive to make the world, or a part of it better” (Jones 1991:162). 
Perhaps this reparative instinct was present for the participants too, for they risked giving a very 

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personal part of themselves to this research. The loss for all of us is that we give up or lose 
something of ourselves, both in the writing and in the letting go of it to another. Loss is 
embodied within us and escapes onto the page where the reader may take it into themselves.