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‘I've been in this place too’, would perhaps summarise my initial response to this session. That pervasive sense of irritation, both of the patient and the therapist, feels deeply familiar. So much so, that one of my first reactions was relief that, ‘this time, it doesn't involve me’. Then of course it dawned on me, that having agreed to contribute towards the clinical commentary, I would in some small way, be involved. That realisation, like the session itself, felt quite overwhelming. On reflection, I believe my reaction must in part, be my recognition that the issues I hope to discuss, are my issues too.
On reading the context while also holding in mind what we know about neglect (Alvarez, 1992; Music, 2009 and others) I was anticipating a rather numb ‘undrawn’ child. I was therefore quite taken aback to encounter a very alive and intelligent, if confrontational child. This sense of surprise started me thinking about pre-conceptions and how they are, or are not met. I went on to ponder about aliveness versus deadness in the relationship and the distance between patient and therapist in the session. My thought process continued with questions about how the therapist gets drawn into an unconscious enactment in order to stay in control. I intend to (briefly) reflect on these themes in terms of the interplay of both the patient's and therapist's unformulated experience, which I believe contribute to a sense of rigidity in the session.
Paradoxically, in contrast to this rigidity, a sense of surprise is also present from the very beginning of the session – Cameron and his father have actually arrived on time. At this point in the narrative, I had just been informed about the difficulty of managing the sessions immediately before a two-week break. Consequently, my sense was that this surprise was not exactly a pleasant one. On the way to the therapy room Cameron indirectly brings up the missed sessions and Karl too also reflects on
these missed sessions. A little later