Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

Construct: uncontained - unfree. 
Although the client appears to work in the session in that she says how she felt, and appears to 
re-experience some of her childhood, it feels that the most important part of the entry is the 
frozen child. If this images where the client is in her internal world, it suggests someone who is 
unable to move, stuck. Perhaps she needs to experience this frozen child more in order to be able 
to move on.
Week 3. 
Line 1.
Cancelled session 
Line 2.
I was ill. 
Line 3.
Difficult not to go + share 
Line 4.
Things feel - too much 
Line 5.
College confusing 
Line 6.
Are we all moving to the 
Line 7.
„beat of the same drum?‟ 
Line 8.
Am I too idealistic? 
The client appears to avoid any chance of working in this next entry in that she felt too ill to 
attend the counselling (lines 1,2). Yet she also says that it was difficult not to go and share (line 
3) with the counsellor as if part of her really did want to go. But there seems to be more going on 
in her than physical illness for college is confusing (line 5) and she questions whether she and 
her peers are all moving to the beat of the same drum (line 6,7) as if she is wondering if they are 
all on the same journey. Although the course may be the same for everyone it is unlikely to be 
experienced the same so perhaps the client is being too idealistic (line 8) in that she may want 

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everyone‟s experience or learning to be the same. But perhaps this is also symbolic of the 
client‟s internal world. Perhaps part of her does want to attend the counselling, but another does 
not, and maybe she wants others to feel the same as her rather than feeling what they are, 
different. It feels that the confusion may be within the client. She may be an adult but she seems 
stuck with a frozen child. The two questions perhaps give an image of where the client is within 
herself. Perhaps all the parts of her are not moving to the beat of the same drum, and perhaps she 
is being too idealistic to believe that all parts of her can feel the same about each experience she 
has.