Dear Audrey,
From my own experience with clients, I have been surprised to find that
only one client, out of all of them, had anything to say about it at
all. Those clients that didn't talk about it, seemed to have
compartmentalised their session as outside (or perhaps inside) of what
is going on in the rest of the world. This is my assumption since they
didn't bring it up, neither did I.
The one client who did mention it was interesting. This person is
dealing with some life consuming issues, in which they feel themselves
to be invisible, and that everyone else must be considered first. I
have simplified things for the sake of confidentiality and because
things are a lot more complex than I wish to go into here, but this
client felt that what was happening in America and the rest of the
world, meant that "who am I to be feeling like I do", and " It seems
petty to look at my problems when all this is going on."
When I heard this I felt deeply protective towards this person, so lost
and unworthy in their eyes. I felt it was vitally important for this
person to hear that I considered their problems to be no less
important than they were before the terrorist attacks took place.
Important to say that no matter what was happening in the rest of the
world, that they were living in these feelings every day. They were
real, valid and that we had met on this day to honour their right to be
valued and witnessed, just for them (inside a pocket of space and time)
even though the world was reeling from the events in America.
I hope this helps you Audrey? I just felt to be real and from the heart
for this person. And I would say the same again and again, to validate
any clients subjective feelings experience of themselves, and their
lives; their problems.
In this way I was not getting into my confusion about what happened, or
my own opinions about it either. I left myself out of it.
With Regards
Amanda
On Tuesday, September 25, 2001, at 10:52 PM, Audrey Vollans wrote:
> Dear Gerald and all,
>
> I am interested to know how others are handling the many questions I
> have
> received from clients about my own personal reaction to the WTC attacks
> and
> subsequent situation. I can see it is really important for some
> clients to
> know where I am on the issue but feel quite uncomfortable disclosing
> much as
> my feelings and reactions are in a constant state of flux, albeit that
> fear
> is a constant (at varying degrees). We have lost any semblance or
> illusion
> of shared safety now with people being willing to bypass their own
> survival
> mechanism.
>
> However, it is of course an area fraught with difficulties
> therapeutically,
> especially given the problems which have emerged on this list where we
> are
> all trained to explore and work through...!!
>
> All comments/responses welcome. (I am taking it on a client by client
> basis
> and being selective according to that as to how I respond but I wonder
> whether I should become psychodynamic on this one and not disclose???!!)
>
> All the best
> Audrey
>
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