In the Counselling Room: Deeply heard, safely held

In the counselling room: Deeply Heard, Safely Held

It can be helpful, when choosing a counsellor, to get some sort of feel for how they work. I work in an integrative way, a style that incorporates different approaches that enable me to adapt to the needs of each individual client. One such approach sees each individual as having many different “parts”, or “aspects” of the Self and works with you in meeting, hearing, celebrating and embracing or re-integrating each of those different parts. With this way of working, the saying goes that “there are no bad parts”.

This poem gives, I hope, a sense of how this might feel…

Deeply Heard, Safely Held
In the room, I listen deeply, 
Opening to what is said
Turning, with gentle curiosity
to what lies unsaid.
A breath, held, gasped - rasping
breath for freedom leaping.
Movements jolting freed,
mind's tension...tight clasp released.

Oh, so gentle, so safe and warm the embrace that holds 
this space for all those parts
of you, unsure at first, then surely
quietly assembling for the telling
of love's hurt, banishments too many to remember,
of loving moments, to few to light the cold and cavernous dark
Until now...

For, in the room, I listen, for
different voices, tones
Rythm, pitch and timbre, 
all, when they arrive, 
are heard, deeply and safely held.

Parts that, long unfelt or heard, sight unseen,
have rumbled in the dark.
Words, turns of phrase,
cards calling from different parts
Felt senses, lumps, colours, tones,
no words needed,
till words they come
deeply heard and safely held

Til when, the part that until now
entombed within the cells
it starts to speak its name, is
deeply heard, safely held.