Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

 
Construct: towards containment - freedom. 
The client seems to continue the move towards internal containment of her own feelings as these 
revelations (line 1) come from her sharing with the counsellor. It is appears that by sharing, she 
is tentatively letting go of, freeing, what has been so overcontained. 
 
Week 7. 
Line 1.
Topic of rape from college. 
Line 2.
My shock at response from other Co. 
Line 3.
Felt like friend „raped‟ by group. 
Line 4.
Rape - power imbalance - where is feeling? 
Line 5.
Fight / flight / Frozen 
Line 6.
“How can you get up and walk out?” 
Line 7.
Understand, the process was alive 
Line 8.
to learn from. Not weakness 
Line 9.
from pain but strength. 
Line 10.
“what is this about?” Empathy, feelings?!? 
Line 11.
This is my friend. 
This is a difficult entry to make sense of. It seems that she took the topic of rape from college 
(line 1) and this seems to have led her to feel shocked at the response (line 2) she had from her 
previous counsellor. It appears to make her feel „raped‟ (line 3) as a friend had by the group on 
her course, as if she had her perception of what had happened to her taken away by the previous 
counsellor. She seems to feel the imbalance of power in rape (line 4), and in her previous 
counselling experience as she asks where the feelings are. Perhaps this question also tells where 
she is going next in this journey in that she perhaps needs to find and validate her own feelings. 
She seems to understand her frozen state in that she could not fight or fly from the situation 
physically she could only freeze into herself (line 5). She asks another question with an arrow 
pointing back to frozen as if she is making it clear that a child cannot get up and walk (line 6) out 
when they are being abused. But as an adult it seems she did get up and walk out from her 

---

355 
previous counsellor which suggests that she did use her power when she could. It is hard to tell 
what the process is in line seven, but perhaps she is referring back to the group at college, or the 
previous counsellor. Maybe the process of the counselling is very alive in these moments 
especially as she tells herself that strength rather than weakness (lines 8,9) can grow from pain. 
She asks herself „what is this about?‟ as if she is also confused about this entry. She answers her 
question with another as she seems to question if this is all about empathy and feelings (line 10). 
Perhaps this question also shows that she is also wondering what to do next in her counselling. 
Then she ends with „this is my friend‟ (line 11) which on first glance appears to make no sense 
but perhaps she is talking about the journal rather than the friend she wrote of earlier. Perhaps the 
journal has become a friend in that she is speaking to herself and is making an ally of this part of 
herself who writes.