Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

Construct: fighting containment - freedom 
There remains a sense of aggression in this entry that feels passive. There is a subjective feeling 
of her presenting her internal self in her external world, so that she feels only partially present. 
Perhaps the possible break from counselling is a way of her showing her anger and acting out 
what she is as yet unable to put into words. But it may be that choosing to have a break will also 
give her a sense of control over her own destiny and help her rescue herself from the role of 
victim.
Week 19. 

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369 
Line 1.
Good session - felt exhausted but
Line 2.
positive. 
Line 3.
Pull of the fear of being powerful. 
Line 4.
beautiful + worthwhile. 
Line 5.
Positive strength difficult to value + 
desire 
Line 6.
accept within me. Yet what I (crave) 
Line 7.
+ feel is creating imbalance. 
Line 8.
Power seen as abusive + undesirable + 
Line 9.
past experience. 
Line 10.
Apple - I am the seeds, core. 
Line 11.
Flesh / power, skin / therapy, learning, placement, 
Line 12.
supervisor, = mirroring back, support 
Line 13.
+ learning from. 
Although this next session seems to leave the client feeling exhausted (line 1) she says it was 
good and positive. (lines 1,2) She appears to have been aware of fear pulling (line 3) at her 
because being powerful, beautiful and worthwhile (lines 3,4) is perhaps new and frightening 
because this is a very different perception of herself. What she terms positive strength (line 5) 
seems difficult to value and accept (lines 5,6) within herself because the power (line 8) that hurt 
her in childhood was abusive and is therefore undesirable (line 8) to her. She both craves and 
desires (line 6) power but this creates an imbalance within her because of her past experience of 
abuse. It is as if she is discovering that power can be good as well as bad. She appears to 
compare herself to an apple (line 10), and she is the seeds and the core. But this is only the inside 
of the apple as if she has no flesh, no skin. But then she seems to link flesh to power (line 11) as 
if the edible part of the apple is the most powerful. Perhaps it is seen as powerful because it feeds 
and is the energy of the fruit. The skin seems to be linked to therapy as if this is giving her an 
outer covering so that she is not so vulnerable. She continues to link the skin to her learning, her 
counselling, her placement, and her supervisor (lines 11,12) which all seem to provide a 
mirroring of her good qualities and support her and enable her to learn.