A few sunny days does wonders

I don't know who said this, I can't remember because , I am feared my brain really is shrinking.....

if you want to be happy for a few hours.... get drunk
If you want to be happy for a few months......fall in love
If you want to be happy for a few years....get married
If you want to be happy forever get a garden.

ah so true.....

Brain attack

My mind is buzzing. Just had two days with therapists who want to be supervisors.

Nice to be in a group again, but also nice to be back home being ordinary and in the world of asking my
daughter what she wants for dinner.

Ordinary, normal, no big searching questions that make me feel space-y.

I notice when I am in these groups I tend to have moments when I just have to lighten up or make someone laugh by being outrageous, or the opposite of 'empathic therapist' . I want to laugh!!! Let me just be ordinary. And I also know that I am looking for fun in therapy.

It reminds me of Laing's session with a depressive client and how he spent the whole hour telling jokes outraging the client (who had laughed uproariously for the whole time) who felt Laing had not done therapy or earned his money. And Laing's view that he thought he had by providing a window where the client had had a different experience. Or something.

Now I could pick this apart. Just as it would be picked apart in a therapy group as possibly not being empathic to the client bla bla bla, but I also feel - Yes, sometimes too much empathy of the wrong sort, the formulaic sort is also not helpful. And that Laing was actually trying to do something much deeper than telling jokes, by pointing out something about the client's self importance and in his wanting to hold on to his depressive state.

Oh god. See the effect of being in a therapy group. I feel as though I have just disappeared up my own backside. I need to go back to washing the potatoes for dinner again. And changing into my pyjamas and sitting down to watch some drivel on the box. I want my head to stop peeling back layers of meaning and finding more layers of meaning. I want to hear my lover say. Isn't that just stating the bleedin obvious!!! Oh to be back to the bleedin obvious.

Brain attack

My mind is buzzing. Just had two days with therapists who want to be supervisors.

Nice to be in a group again, but also nice to be back home being ordinary and in the world of asking my
daughter what she wants for dinner.

Ordinary, normal, no big searching questions that make me feel space-y.

I notice when I am in these groups I tend to have moments when I just have to lighten up or make someone laugh by being outrageous, or the opposite of 'empathic therapist' . I want to laugh!!! Let me just be ordinary. And I also know that I am looking for fun in therapy.

It reminds me of Laing's session with a depressive client and how he spent the whole hour telling jokes outraging the client (who had laughed uproariously for the whole time) who felt Laing had not done therapy or earned his money. And Laing's view that he thought he had by providing a window where the client had had a different experience. Or something.

Now I could pick this apart. Just as it would be picked apart in a therapy group as possibly not being empathic to the client bla bla bla, but I also feel - Yes, sometimes too much empathy of the wrong sort, the formulaic sort is also not helpful. And that Laing was actually trying to do something much deeper than telling jokes, by pointing out something about the client's self importance and in his wanting to hold on to his depressive state.

Oh god. See the effect of being in a therapy group. I feel as though I have just disappeared up my own backside. I need to go back to washing the potatoes for dinner again. And changing into my pyjamas and sitting down to watch some drivel on the box. I want my head to stop peeling back layers of meaning and finding more layers of meaning. I want to hear my lover say. Isn't that just stating the bleedin obvious!!! Oh to be back to the bleedin obvious.

supervision

I am appalled to learn from a friend who is a chaplain in a hospital that she has no supervision.
She lives alone, and deals with such things as having to arrange burials for dead babies for people who don't speak english, arranging to wrap the poor 26 week old foetus and deal tenderly with the hysterical parents with the aid of an interpreter (dangerous at these times when the words you choose are so important) and then to deal with a suicide the next day. Where does she debrief? She needs to talk about these things. Luckily she opened up to me last night, because she knows I am a therapist, but she felt until then unable to call up a friend just to talk and be heard. She needs supervision. Especially as she lives alone and these things build up in the psyche and need clearing out. This sort of thing really upsets me. Do people who should know better really not understand the importance of support in these situations>

a mark

Today he bit my shoulder and left a mark.
It comes after his fear about my friendship with another man.
He withdrew for a day until he realised he was being ridiculous.
I said "you are doing things in your head, don't , it is all rubbish".
And so after a few days of being jealous he comes back to me.
Love refreshed by seeing the possibility of it's ending- for he is
tied to his family and I am free, except for the fact I love him.
And so for the first time in two years he marks me at the neck.
A sign . Please don't leave. Please don't forget me.
Doesn't he know that the mark he leaves on me runs deeper than
skin deep?

Easter time or White Christmas

Best we switch Christmas and Easter methinks.
The snow we had on Sunday was three or four inches thick. Looked beautiful, didn't ice up the roads, or turn to slush and was gone by the evening. Perfect. It didn't affect travel in anyway, or cause anyone injury. It provided a wonderful few hours of snowball fighting and was so well-planned it arrived on a weekend with time to enjoy it and disappeared before the adults started cursing.

First Draft nearly finished

It is with great delight I report that the first draft of what I laughingly call my novel is coming to a close.
I hope I will hit the deadline of the end of the month. The finish line is in sight. Then I shall put it aside and
look at it again in a month.

I have found the finish the most difficult part. As in everything it seems. I cannot bring myself to finish with my
lover, even though it would be the sensible option. His wife is now monitoring him - has given him a contract phone
so she can keep tabs on his calls, and stays home to work, most days. I am not making this easy for anyone by staying,
but as I said before endings are difficult.My natural inclination is to give my novel a happy ending, but life isn't like
that, is it? There are messy bits, bits that don't work, people left incomplete or dissatisfied. One of my characters who has
been having an affair is realising how important his wife is to him. It's true. I think it is true in my case too. She is the
important one, I am merely a distraction. That doesn't pain me at all. It is as it should be. But in the novel, I think the turn around
is too quick. Usually men leave, then realise the horror of having changed one bad situation for another, and limping return to their wives. My character seems to be cleverer than that, and realising sooner than most men would. I have to think on this a bit more.

Also have just read a really interesting book. It's called the Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Very original, and a real
page turner.