Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

6.5.5 Towards containment-freedom
Towards containment-freedom attempts to demonstrate the client‟s movement in that he/she 
begins to own and experience affect. It is a letting go of overcontainment and/or fighting 
containment-freedom, in that there is a shift towards containing what has previously seemed 
uncontainable within the internal world. Or it may be seen as a meeting between Beauty and the 
Beats. In week 6, Who Am I seems to make her first shift into this category. During the previous 

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five entries she seemed to have moved from; in week 1, a desire for containment-freedom; in 
weeks 2, and 3 to uncontained-unfree; and in weeks 4 and 5 back to a desire for containment. So 
the shift towards containment-freedom appeared to follow both a desire to contain her own affect 
and the stuck position from where she seemed to be able to view her internal world. In this way 
movement appears visible as the client shifts through various states in order to reach a more 
integrated sense of self. In week 6 she writes: 
Extract 46. From a journal to show towards containment-freedom. 
Line 1.
Deep painful revelations. 
Line 2.
Pain of childhood - disconnection 
Line 3.
of doll‟s head + body = abuse. 
Line 4.
Mother not there „head‟ could 
Line 5.
not cope with what happening. 
Line 6.
realized always alone + partly 
Line 7.
parented self. 
Line 8.
Surviving against all odds + seen as problem 
Line 9.
Don‟t be so hard on self (Brenda/Co.) 
Line 10.
Anger to self - staying so long in neg‟ 
Line 11.
ways. Can be diff‟ to have someone there 
NEW
The interpretation of the entry was done with an understanding of the whole journal in that it was 
interpreted with knowledge of the whole context in which it was written: 
Extract 47. From the analysis to show how the whole journal effects the interpretation. 
The deep painful revelations (line 1) in this session suggest abuse (line 3) in the client‟s 
childhood, and although this feels like sexual abuse there is no way of being certain of this. She 

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writes of disconnection (line 2) as if she had to cut off from what happened to her. And this 
appears to be emphasized by the image of the separation of a doll‟s head from it body which 
equals abuse (lines 2,3). As her mother was not there (line 4) the client‟s „head‟ was unable to 
cope with what was happening (lines 4,5) and this seemed to make her feel as if she was always 
alone (line 6), as if she experienced a sense of isolation when she was far too young to be able to 
deal with it. She also feels that this caused her to partly parent herself (lines 6,7) as if this 
isolated child had to manage what happened all alone. She seems to feel that she survived against 
all the odds (line 8) as if part of her realizes that to survive has been quite an accomplishment yet 
she was seen as a problem (line 8). Perhaps her childhood behaviour was seen as a problem by 
others who knew nothing of what had happened to her. Although she seems to be exhorting 
herself not to be so hard on herself she implies that these are the words of others which she 
perhaps needs to internalise. And it seems that she feels angry (line 10) with herself for staying 
so long in such negative ways as if she is still punishing herself. But she ends by suggesting that 
the past can be different (line11) when she can have someone there with her. She notes that this 
is new - feeling the counsellor has been present with her as she has re-experienced the past 
abuse. 
It seems that the client was able to regress and share something of an abusive nature that 
happened in childhood. The feeling of cutting her head off from her feelings is powerful as if in 
the past she had to cut away the Beast. Then she seems to begin to contain her own feelings 
about this event as if re-experiencing it with the counsellor enabled this process. But this process 
was perhaps also enabled by the previous sessions and journal entries which seem to lay out her 
process in the journal. 
6.6 Conclusion
The process of interpreting the journals before even thinking about categories enabled a closer 
intimacy with the narratives. It kept in awareness the way the journals were written so that the 
poetic element of the texts influenced the interpretation and the categorizing of each entry. There 

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is a sense that the emotional movement of the participants is reflected in the process of the 
analysis. Just as they went through a learning curve as they attended counselling and reflexively 
portrayed their thoughts and feelings in the journals so the method of analysing reflects my 
process of engagement with the study. Time away when I was unable to work almost closed 
down my ability to think constructively may be the stuck position of uncontained-unfree. This 
seems likely as when I returned to the work there was an enormous sense of having been 
processing the study without even realizing it, as if internally and perhaps unconsciously, I had 
been constantly looking around to view where I was. There was a new understanding as well as a 
new enthusiasm for the work. It was at this point perhaps that the coming together of the 
participants‟ voices and my voice developed. Their stories have their voices, but as I interpret 
their narratives my voice takes over as I retell their stories, with my voice and make them part of 
the story of the research.