Clients‟ experience of counselling within a narrative framework

Construct: uncontained - unfree 
The client still feels as if she is in a stuck, frozen place but and this seems to be imaged by her 
illness and inability to go to the counselling session. However she is looking around to see where 
she is, to see is she is in the same place as others and moving to the beat of the same drum 
suggests. She is also able to question herself as if she is looking inside to find answers rather 
than only looking outside to see what others are doing. 
Week 4. 
Line 1.
Use internalisation as skill / 
Line 2.
tool not see as negative. 
Line 3.
See from other side. 
new 
Line 4.
Felt good, valuable, important ! 
Line 5.
Speak. Give it a voice 
Line 6.
so does not overwhelm self. 
Line 7.
Give it back / up to be claimed. 
Line 8.
Release anxiety feelings 
Line 9.
keep, use the gifts 
Line 10.
Synchronicity. 
Line 11.
Felt good! + „Who me‟. 
It feels as if she is exhorting herself to use internalisation as a useful skill as opposed to being 

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something negative (lines 1,2), as if she has never seen the benefit of it before. Perhaps she is 
listening to her counsellor for this seems important which is new (line 4), and so important to her 
that she has to point it out with an arrow as if she wants this to be seen by the reader and maybe 
herself. But it is hard to tell what seeing this from the other side (line 3) means. Perhaps it is 
about voicing (line 5) what has been introjected so that what she has been unable to bring to the 
sessions before (week 1) is spoken rather than only thought. She seems to exhort herself to speak 
as if she is telling part of herself that she needs a voice that is heard. Also voicing these thoughts 
may stop her feeling overwhelmed (line 6) by them. It seems possible that she decides to give 
these thoughts back (line 7) to their original owner as if she realises that she does not have to 
keep them as they are not hers. This appears to enable her to release feelings of anxiety (line 8) 
as if what has been internalised previously has made her anxious. By the end of the entry she 
wants to keep and use the gifts (line 9), perhaps of internalisation as if she has learnt that all that 
she has internalised may be useful to her if she can use her thoughts in the session. Synchronicity 
(line 10) stands on its own and suggests that this could be something she felt within herself and / 
or with the counsellor as if there has been a meeting between them that enabled a new kind of 
intimacy. It certainly appears to have felt good (line 11) for she uses as exclamation mark as if to 
show her surprise and ends with „who me‟. Although there is no question mark she seems to be 
asking a question as if she cannot believe that she felt good in a session. Perhaps the question 
„who me‟ also demonstrates that she is wondering about what to do next as if she is asking 
herself whether she can really have a voice that is heard, and feel good about it.