I had an extra session because I felt really crappy and disconnected after Wednesdays session.
I started by telling him why I'd asked for an extra session, that on the face of it the session seemed fine but I still felt awful afterwards and disconnected from him.
He said when he read my request for an extra session he tried to figure out what it was about but drew a blank, so he decided to just follow my lead.
He asked what I thought the disconnection might be about. I said it occurred to me that it could be something going on in his life outside of the room. He said there's nothing major going on in his life that would be distracting him. He said a couple of minor things occurred to him but he'd be "very surprised" if they were distracting him in session. I felt reassured by that and more connected because I knew he wasn't withholding anything and he was being honest with me.
I told him someone had played "everything reminds me of my therapist" by Nancy Tucker yesterday and I felt really sad. He asked why I felt sad. I said because everything does remind me of my therapist and it's because I don't know him, I'm creating him, inventing him. He asked if it's true that I don't know him. I said it some ways, yes it feels like I don't know him. He said he doesn't know all of me either. I said "but you have more to go on."
He asked what questions I could ask that would make me know him. I said nothing would be enough and I'd always want more. It's an insatiable hunger.
He said at his core he's the same person in the room as he is everywhere else.
He asked if it was about knowing things about him. I said no, it's that he can never fully relax because he has to think so carefully about what he says. He's always in role. He said that's true.
We speculated a bit about what might be causing the disconnect. He said "are we missing an elephant?". I said i think so but I don't know what it is. He said where is it? I said it's between us. He asked what it looks like. I said it's more of an absence, a void. He asked what it's made from. I said dark matter. He asked me if black holes are made from dark matter and I replied "You're the scientist!" (because he has a science degree).
He said he was thinking about how this might relate to what we talked about with the connections between him, my mum and my deceased ex. I talked a bit about my ex.
And then I talked about how the version of my mum in a sort of visualisation we've been using is a younger version of her. I said I wondered if that's because when I knew her, the person she was was kind of masked by mental illness, but I know from her writing that she was a very different person when she was younger. Very witty and clever. So maybe it's about knowing/not knowing someone, and missing out on parts of someone.
I said I was thinking of my sadness that he's retiring from public speaking and teaching. It's kind of like mourning the loss of a part of him I never knew.
Now that I reflect on it, I think that perhaps I felt disconnected from him because I have clearly seen that he is in role on a couple of occasions recently. Firstly when he felt unable to talk to me about a professional issue I was having for fear of "coming out of therapy mode" and again two sessions ago when he said he was quiet because he was worried about accidentally saying something that might hurt me. It's like catching a glimpse of the sharp edges of the therapeutic frame. I think it's helped me to make sense of what was going on and I feel a lot better.