Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

 
Construct: fighting containment - freedom 
Although the client says that she is taking time for herself there is also a suggestion that she is 
avoiding the work by feeling tired which seems to be a passive way of opting out of the session 
and the journal entry which is shorter than usual. The metaphor of feeling rail-roaded also 
suggests that there is a fight going on in her internal world. 
 
Week 11. 
Line 1.
Anger with relate therapist.
Line 2.
Subsided by the time I left so
Line 3.
feeling tired, drained, lack - energy
Line 4.
to even think!
Line 5.
Tired from pain - neck + frustrated.
Line 6.
Domino effect in other areas of life.
Line 7.
struggle what is mine / what I 
Line 8.
dump. Questioning - what is
Line 9.
reactivated + needs change
Line 10.
+ where change occurs + effects
Line 11.
„instinctual conflict‟. 
The client starts this entry with anger (line 1) towards a relate therapist (line 1) which suggests 
that she is going to a relate therapist with her partner, perhaps because the issues from her past 
are affecting their relationship. But this anger has subsided (line 2) and seems to have left her 
feeling tired (line 3), so tired that she feels drained (line 3) of so much energy (line 3) that she is 
unable to think (line 4). As in the previous week she states that she is tired again (line 5) this 
time from the pain in her neck (line 5) which seems to frustrate (line 5) her. The domino effect in 
other areas of her life (line 6) implies a sense of falling apart as if she has a sense of this as she 
struggles with past issues. There also appears to be a felt struggle (line 7) with what issues 
belong to her and which of these she may dump (lines 7,8), or project onto others. She seems to 
be wondering what feelings or issues are reactivated (line 9) from the past, what in her needs to 

---

360 
be changed (line 9) and what the effect is when this change occurs (line 10). She appears to sum 
all this up with „instinctual conflict‟ as if she is aware of an opposition within her which she feels 
to be part of her essential nature.