Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

CATEGORIES 
In order to categorise words and statements in the participants‟ journals it is necessary to have an 
understanding of how the polarity between containment and freedom has been separated (split) 
into stages or aspects of the opposition between these two concepts while still holding them 
together. The present meanings / understanding of these categories within the polarity remain 
within a process of change as reflexivity (Rennie, 1998) and subjectivity continue to influence 
the growth of this study. As with discourse analysis the intention is to filter out the categories 
with the most explanatory potential (Clarkson, 1998) about the opposition between containment 
and freedom. The categories came into being during an ongoing process of analysing the journal 
texts. A great deal of time was spent reading and absorbing the data in the journals so as to 
enable my subjectivity to enter into the subjective world of each participant‟s experience of their 
thoughts and feelings after counselling sessions as recorded in the journals. By giving myself the 
time to be reflexsive (Rennie,1998) and return repeatedly to and away from the texts the analysis 

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travels through its own process of change and growth as do the concepts themselves. The 
categories which are set out below are not seen as permanent but rather as part of a process of 
learning which may continue to change long after this study is complete. The highlighted main 
categories show the colour coding used in the journals by the researcher. 
CONTAINMENT - FREEDOM POLARITY  
This is the overall polarity which encompasses all the others. It is both the place of the most 
movement and the least movement as it holds the polarity and the paradox together. It highlights 
containment and freedom experienced almost simultaneously as shifts occur for the client, but it 
also highlights still moments where a kind of holding, satisfaction, pleasure or understanding 
occur, which may also be termed moments of equilibrium, balance or stillness. It holds both 
containment and freedom, keeping them apart and linking them together so that their split 
provides clarification, while being held together they become supportive (Twachtmann and 
Daniell, 1997). The roots of a tree may never touch the branches yet the branches cannot live 
without the roots anymore than the roots can live without the branches. In the same way 
containment may never appear to touch freedom yet freedom cannot exist without containment 
any more than containment can exist without freedom. 
CONTAINMENT 
This research understands containment as a concept which defines the client‟s search for a safe 
internal and external environment, in which s/he may be enabled to:
1. think his/her own thoughts, in a place where thought can be contained 
2. play with notions, in a contained environment
3. experience feeling, in the safety of a non judgemental relationship 
FREEDOM 
Freedom within the therapeutic relationship is understood as a concept which defines the client‟s 
search for an infinite space in which s/he may:
1. think her/his own thoughts, in a place where thought can be set free 
2. play with notions, in a free environment
3. experience feeling, in the freedom of a non judgemental relationship 
The above concepts of containment and freedom appear to offer identical opportunities for the 
client, yet never the less this study suggests that the client perceives and experiences these 
opportunities differently. It feels hard to hold this split between containment and freedom yet 
experience informs me that when freedom has been too terrifying to explore, then the 
containment offered by the counsellor is essential to progress and if that containment is not felt 

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then exploration may be held up. This does not mean that containment was not offered or present 
but simply not felt as such due to the impact of the client‟s previous history (Etherington,2000). 
In these moments where emotional movement appears to be obliterated by previous experience 
what becomes important is the continued emotional presence of the counsellor. This is perhaps 
when, without the client being aware of it the counsellor holds what cannot be held or tolerated 
by the client. So in a sense it is the client‟s immobilised state which is contained (or freed) and 
which in being contained frees the client to experience themselves (Klein, 1995), and their own 
affects which have not before been brought into awareness. As feelings are brought into 
awareness the client is enabled to move or remain stuck as opposition is either tolerated or 
denied. The split between containment and freedom perhaps helps the client organise experience 
(Godwin,1994) so that some order begins to be created out of the chaos of their unaware 
unconscious.