​I have written about the gratitude journal before. If you missed that episode, here are the Cliff  notes: angry client complains about everything under the sun for several sessions. Therapist suggests that journaling things client feels grateful for might make client feel better. Client vehemently rejects notion of not just journaling gratitude, but the concept of gratitude itself and proceeds to give a view of the world that would make even the most enthusiastic goth feel a bit overwhelmed.
 
The gratitude journal incident was many things, but primarily it was a point of deep contention because it rose out of what felt like a fundamental misunderstanding of who and what I was. Granted, it was an easy mistake to make. Going into a therapist's office and listing all the things wrong with the world from sick kittens to road cones might reasonably be interpreted as a fixation on the negative which could be addressed with some kind of shift in thinking.

​There can be no doubt that at that time I felt broken. But more than that, I felt that the whole world was shattered, to the very core of creation. One of Douglas Adams' books contains the following opening lines:
 
“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

​Douglas Adams wrote that as a joke, but sitting in the therapy office his words rang true for me. It was all bad, it was all broken, it was all wrong. Hand me my towel, I'm ready for the hyperspace bypass to come on through. 

​(This is a snippet of a piece written by an anonymous client of Lucid Psychotherapy & Counselling. This piece is a part of a new series of writings on counselling/psychotherapy; a client's perspective.)
​

No sudden movements is actually pretty good advice for a lot of situations in life, save maybe a break dancing competition. It's particularly important when it comes to dealing with dogs who have experienced trauma in their lives.
 
It has taken me a long time to write about animal rescue in a context of therapy, mostly because it is hard to see my pain reflected in the pain of the dog named Girl.
 
Dogs who have experienced abandonment and experienced life as strays often develop problem solving skills exceeding those of more cosseted canines. We have a small dog who, though being more than able to fit through a cat door, will never, ever use one, because he relies on humans to do everything. His version of problem solving is climbing up on your knee and staring at you until you do what he wants.
 
Having been born critically adorable and having maxed out at all of 2.5 kilograms, he is under the impression that all people are not only friendly, but terribly impressed by him. He has repeatedly been taught through his interaction with a wide range of humans that everybody adores him. All people are his people. All houses are his house. All things are his things. This is the truth according to Lap Dog.

Girl's experience is quite different from Lap Dog. She did not win the genetic lottery. She was born one of New Zealand's many Pitbull / Staffy / Boxer / Labrador / Mastiff / Sharpei / whatever else happened along at the pound orgy mixes. We know very little of her past, all we know is that she was left to stray, terrified of people, and pregnant at around eight months of age. We know that she was accustomed to sleeping rough, eating out of rubbish bins, and running whenever people appeared. No people were her people. No houses were her house. No things were her things. That was the truth according to Girl...

(This is a snippet of a piece written by an anonymous client of Lucid Psychotherapy & Counselling. This piece is a part of a new series of writings on counselling/psychotherapy; a client's perspective.)