The Art of Therapy

  I sit with my client, our flat, wide wooden skiff slipping through the shallows along the shore, reeds occasionally brushing the underside of the boat to remind us of our proximity to the bottom.
 Quiet expectation hangs like laundry on the line, waiting for the still air to lift a corner, move it about, drying hidden folds and dusting out the wrinkles.  The afternoon is hot today and there is a buzz of no see um's in the air.  We are waiting here in the boat without quite knowing why, but sense that this is the right thing to do with this client - wait to see what wants to show up.   
   
 The occasional shadow of fish flicks peripherally into view - it was there - just sure of it.....if only we had paid more attention - been more mindful. Oh well, no point in getting impatient.  The lines are out, floating, just below the surface, buoyed by the fly tied with expert precision - can't rock the quiet - they will sense our hunger and go deeper into the shadows where it is cool and familiar; safe.     

   Another client sits across from me in their agitation.  Their story feels like a discolored book dropped in water and left to dry without attention.  The pages of the story are difficult to turn, stuck together, always in a different place, but the pattern is the same; stuck.  The pages have to be encouraged with the light touch of fingers slipping between, slowly working them apart to keep from tearing away any of the story. There is a delicacy in the pages that calls for a committed and intentional touch, and the narrative is worth it.  

  The client has hopes and dreams, perhaps muffled and worn, confused by internalized voices whose language isn't necessarily native to their own spirit voice, but the dreams are there, just waiting to be rekindled. My theory of counseling lies in the sensibilities of poetry.  Elements of language and sensation, wrapped together in some inexplicable way to create a new reality, a better place, a breathtaking, artful moment of honesty and meaning.