Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

8.9.3 Poetry and opposition 
Keats (1966) in his poems „Ode on a Grecian Urn‟ and „The Nightingale Ode‟ brings together 
the opposites of life and death, joy and sorrow. Hilton (1971) sees the melancholy of Keats 
poems as: 
“not just a „fit‟, nor is it a mood, but rather a state of mind in which these opposites 
may be brought together” (Hilton 1971:106). 
Poets throughout history to the modern day bring opposites together in their work. It seems that 
the reflexive space provided by writing enables poets to achieve this melancholic state of mind 
which encourages the possibility of exploring opposites. The participants seem to demonstrate 
this state of mind in their journals as they bring opposites together. Wriggling Fish tends to 
demonstrate opposition in many entries but in entry twelve there is opposition in just a few lines: 
Extract 54. From WF journal to show opposition 
Line 1.
Week „off‟ - glad. 
Line 2.
Neck pain, confined! 
Line 3.
Cannot drive. 
Line 4.
Turmoil / emotional 
Line 5.
New Zealand and life calling! 

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Although she is glad at the beginning because she has a week off from counselling the next three 
lines are about pain, her inability to drive and emotional turmoil. This gives the impression of a 
distressed or unhappy way of being, yet in the last line she seems full of optimism and the 
adventure of life. There is discomfort felt in the opposition as if the entry does not make sense. 
But perhaps it can be understood by her forthcoming move to another country. This may be what 
she wants in her external life, but perhaps she also wants to move this much internally, to get rid 
of the restrictive neck pain and find the freedom of her own feelings. 
Alice has several entries which show opposition and seem to embody her sadness but also her 
desire for change. It seems that feeling opposition in the world and in herself enables her to learn 
about herself: 
Extract 55. From A journal to show opposition 
Line 1.
Sea Saw 
Line 2.
Want what I can‟t have, 
Line 3.
don‟t want it when I can have it. 
Line 4.
Control and out of control 
Line 5.
How to find the right balance? 
Line 6.
Got to know plant 
Line 7.
Feel I‟m getting closer. 
There is a real sense of the up and down movement of the sea saw, the swing between opposite 
desires. Feeling and being aware of internal opposition seems to make her wonder about finding 
the right balance. This appears to take her away from the movement for balance may be seen as 
being still. She goes further away by writing about a plant that was in the counselling room but 
ends up feeling she is getting closer, perhaps to herself. But the real movement of the entry 

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seems to be in the first four lines and this is what opposition, with its melancholy, seems to give 
to the process of exploring the self. 
Turned On moves in her journal between feeling confused and feeling that her thoughts get 
clearer. In the first five lines of her first entry she shows this confusion: 
Extract 56. From TO journal to show opposition 
Lin1 1.
This seemed to be a very
Line 2.
confused session for me
Line 3.
today back into deep family
Line 4.
difficulties and feel not
Line 5.
worthy. Have to prove myself
She seems to have returned to a place that she has been before, deep into family difficulties 
which appear to make her feel unworthy. Yet immediately afterwards it seems she has to prove 
herself which feels the opposite of being unworthy. She berates herself regularly through the 
journal and appears to be seeking to like/love herself and these opposing states seems to help her 
move emotionally. But there is always the feeling of melancholy with such opposing feelings as 
she finds a state of mind that enables such opposition to be felt. 
Little Girl seems to see herself as a little girl when she writes out the childhood rhyme „There 
was a little girl‟. Yet in week seventeen she declares „I am not Bambi‟ as if she is saying the 
opposite. This moving between feeling very young and very grown up is a constant part of her 
journal. She is so very grown up in the way she writes with such accomplishment that opposition 
feels inherent throughout the journal. In week eight she writes: 

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Extract 57. From LG journal to show inherent opposition 
Line 1. SO MANY WORDS 
Line 2. BUT NOTHING TO SAY 
Line 3. AS IF 
Line 4. BY TALKING 
Line 5. YOU CAN HIDE 
Line 6. WHAT IS REAL. 
It seems that there have been many words in the counselling session yet she feels that nothing 
has been said. The opposition here feels encased in sadness for the talking seems to hide what is 
real as if her reality has been hidden by all the words. Her reality feels hidden here and yet so 
present in the embodied sadness. 
Opposition in the journal of Who Am I seems hidden yet it is felt. It is particularly felt in the 
sadness or melancholy of her entries: 
Extract 58. From WAI journal to show melancholy 
Line 1.
Tired, exhausted, virus. 
Line 2.
Irritable bowel playing up, 
Line 3.
tension + stress 
shoulder, neck 
Line 4.
pain. 
Line 5.
Feel want to be left alone to 
Line 6.
do nothing. 
Here she seems to state very clearly that her physical body is holding her feelings. She wants to 
be left alone to do nothing, yet she does not leave herself alone for she still writes which is doing 

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something as opposed to nothing. 
If Hilton (1971) is correct and it is a melancholic state of mind that enables opposition to come 
into focus for the creative writer, then it makes sense of my writing following trauma and the 
sadness I felt when analysing the journals. It was embodied within me, just as it is in the journal 
writers. 
8.10 Conclusion
The participants‟ journals exceeded all my expectations and provided a wealth of material that 
even now seems only partially used for the study. There is so much that may be linked to 
counselling theory and poetry that I feel as if I have only scratched the surface of all that may be 
embodied in the narratives. However the fact that established theory appears to be visible in the 
journals does confirm that theory may be deduced from the client‟s perspective. The journals 
also seem to provide a way of looking at the process of internal growth from object relations 
through the restoration of the self to a more modern view of multiple selves. The similarities 
between the poetic space and the counselling space where the individual/client may discover a 
safe place where the unconscious may emerge is intriguing. It makes sense of my desire to 
enable the participants to use poetic skills without actually asking them to write poetry.

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