Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

 
Construct: overcontained - overfree 
Although there appears to be movement within the client in that she is noticing how she has 
developed as she looks back at her life, she also appears to be battling with the confusion she 
feels. This confusion is perhaps a necessary part of the process of change in that she does not 
appear to know how to be with the knowledge she is gaining about herself. There may be some 
fear in losing her known ways of being. 
Week 18. 
Line 1.
Endings. 
Line 2.
Possible working towards me having
Line 3.
a break in Co.
Line 4.
Husbands job - ended today. End of 
Line 5.
course. Feels like holding many 
Line 6.
loose ends - tiring, difficult + how 
Line 7.
needs to be. 
Line 8.
Need to take care of self - otherwise 
Line 9.
burnout. 
Line 10.
Sadness + dissatisfaction in marriage 

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368 
Line 11.
„Something missing‟. Anger, + covers pain! 
Line 12.
„Resolve pain + anger or never be satisfied‟?? 
It seems the client is thinking about taking a break from counselling (line 2) perhaps because of 
her husband‟s job ending (line 3). The counselling course she is on also seems to be ending (lines 
4,5) so it is not surprising that she started the entry with just one word, „Endings‟. It seems that 
she feels as if she holding many loose ends (line 6) perhaps because there is a sense of the 
unknown in all these endings. She realizes that holding all this together is tiring and difficult 
(line 6) but also that it is how it needs to be (line 7). She appears to feel that there is need to take 
care of herself (line 8) or otherwise she may burnout (line 9) as if she is aware that she has more 
than enough to deal with at this time. But this is written without the anxiety of previous entries 
about taking care of herself as if she is getting used to doing this differently. She writes about the 
sadness and dissatisfaction in her marriage (line 10) and seems to think that there is something 
missing (line 11) within this relationship. She appears to feel anger and be aware that it covers 
pain (line 11) and ends this short sentence with an exclamation mark which makes it feel 
powerful. She then seems to exhort herself to resolve this pain and anger or never be satisfied 
(line 12) and with two question marks she makes this a question as if she is telling herself very 
firmly to do this. Perhaps this is again about her internal relationships with different aspects of 
herself. She may need to „resolve‟ the pain and anger of her abused self in order to lose the 
dissatisfaction with herself. It seems possible that it is part of herself that is missing as opposed 
to something missing from her marriage.