Vignette from Forms of Feeling by Robert F. Hobson
What do you think the therapist is trying to do?
What do you like, what would you not have done?
A cloud of boredom closes around me. I feel bad about it. Freda’s monotonous
voice goes on and on. All about her ‘agoraphobia’ I try to hear what is being
said ‘beneath’ and ‘between’, as well as ‘in’ and ‘by’ the words. I try hard. I
strive to focus my attention on a verbose, repetitive, and seemingly
interminable catalogue of panic attacks, palpitations, sweating, fears of
fainting, and the dubious effects of tranquilizers.
Freda hardly moves. Her face shows little change of expression, and I detect no
inflection in her droning voice. The monologue goes on; Freda talking about her
symptoms - as if they are ‘out there’. She is treating herself as if she were
only a thing, and talking at me as if I were a thing, not talking with me as a
person. We are trapped in a world of things.
I want to know Freda, not only to know about her.
Almost in passing, Freda, who is forty-eight, casually mentions that her mother
died a week previously. She will miss her because she needs a companion - but,
of course, that is only because of the ‘agoraphobia’. I catch a shaded note of
anger. I am not sure. I say that I suppose her mother’s death must have affected
her deeply.
Imperturbably, Freda confesses that her mother’s death was a ‘shock’, and ends a
long circumstantial account with the words:
Freda: ‘It just seems to be bottled up. And I feel guilty over that, as though
There’s something wrong with me - that I should be crying and yet I just can’t
cry.’
Therapist:
‘Well, I think you are feeling a lot inside.’
As I say these words, I move towards her speaking with my hands. My fingers move
back and forwards between my tummy and hers. I then point to the space between
us.
Freda: ‘Inside, yes, but I ... I just can’t cry. It was the same when my dad
died, and my husband. I found him dead in bed, although it was an unhappy
marriage, and, er, my mother, and, er, I just can’t cry. I want, I feel as
though I should, but I can’t.’
There is a tremor in Freda’s voice - just a trembling hint of emotion. I
respond, wondering what she is experiencing right now. Here, with me. Now.
Therapist:
‘Mm. Yes.’
A transcript cannot do justice to the infinite varieties of ‘Mm’ and the
multitude of meanings that are born from them. I remember when I was not able to
weep, and scenes from the past are joined together in complex shapes with
profound feelings of loss and guilt. I can only hope that my ‘Mm’, will convey
the ‘tone’ of these imaginary forms which are re-creating my own autobiography
in response to Freda, as a person. Now. Perhaps it might strike a chord - call
forth an echo - somewhere deep down inside her. I remember other occasions in
therapy, when a long drawn-out ‘Ah’ has been heard as something like a melody,
or even a fugue with a harmonizing of different verbal, tonal, and non-verbal
‘voices’. In conversation we use many channels of communication hoping for a
resolution of discords. A psychotherapist needs assiduous practice in using the
wide-ranging language of ‘Mm’. It can be a highly imaginative creation.
Freda’s words come slowly and softly with an eloquent sigh.
Freda:
‘there’s ... this terrible empty feeling I’ve got inside.’
Freda moves. For the first time, she moves fluently. Her hand now rests on her
chest. She pauses. Only for a moment - a brief but rare silence. I speak with my
hands, gently moving them up and down with palms towards her. Trying to say
something like, ‘Let’s stay with that feeling. Just stay with it. Let it happen
and see what emerges.’ When I feel that I know what it could feel like in my own
heart, then I speak quietly.
Therapist:
‘Sort of ... empty.’
I repeat her word ‘empty’, and yet it is not a mere repetition. There is a
different inflection contributed by me. My tone is more ‘empty’. In responding,
I am amplifying, not merely reflecting.
Freda’s lips tremble. I hear sadness in her hesitant words.
Freda:
‘Empty. Just empty.’
We now share a feeling-image.
I must not allow the silence to last too long. I sense that Freda is becoming
tense - scared perhaps; going over the top of the stress curve. She is finding
it hard to bear and she might block. By now, I have become aware of recurrent
patterns, especially of how she switches to long descriptions of her precious
‘agoraphobia’ whenever the topic becomes tinged with emotion and her anxiety
mounts. Avoiding fear I suppose.
I discover that my right hand is over my heart.
Therapist:
‘You put your hand about here.’
Freda repeats my movement and her words come with a new gentleness.
Freda:
‘Just about here. Emptiness.’
Therapist:
‘Mm.’
I pray that the ‘Mm’ expresses sympathy - a feeling-with.
I seem to hear the first chord of an emerging theme - a body-word metaphor
‘empty heart’. The ‘commanding form’ of a symphony can be suggested by the first
phrase of the first movement.
We speak at the same time. A meeting is disclosed. Alone and together,
looking into a void.
Freda:
‘Just empty.’
Therapist:
‘Just as if there is nothing there at all.’
My phrase ‘just as if’ is more an analogy than a metaphor. But, I am ‘seeing’ a
system forming from a constellation of messages (‘I can’t cry’, ‘I feel guilty’)
together with a host of slight non-verbal cues which convey sadness,
frustration, and anger. I decide to try out my hunch. It is, perhaps, too
pretentious to speak of ‘putting an hypothesis to the test’ but, as well as
hoping for mutuality, I maintain a quasi-scientific attitude.
Therapist: ‘Let me make a guess ... er ... I think that there are times when
you feel bad ... that you can’t love people enough.’
I introduce a new, odd, indefinable word ‘love’ which means whatever it means in
the context of a particular, unique developing conversation of a few moments or
of a lifetime.
Freda:
‘that’s just it.’
Freda’s tone of voice and expression suggest that the word ‘love’ has been
‘carried alive into the heart’. There is some non-verbal amplification
(extension) of what I say; but I am cautious. By this time there is ample
evidence that she is a person who is prone to placatory agreement. I pursue that
metaphor, albeit wrongly.
Therapist:
‘You see ... you say there’s a gap in your heart.’
Freda has not said that at all ... not yet. Her words were ‘as if I’ve no
heart’. Here, I am intruding my own idiosyncratic image and forcing it by ‘You
see . . . you say’. I have not listened.
Fortunately, Freda does not block. Later, she speaks of an ‘empty heart’ but, at
this point, she takes up the word ‘love’ and extends it with the words ‘fear’
and ‘guilt’.
Freda: ‘I feel as though there’s no love here somehow [hand over heart]. And my
husband or my mother, although we got on very well, and I thought a lot other
but I just feel as though I’ve no love. And, er, it’s a horrible fear. I feel
terribly guilty about it ... terribly guilty about it. It’s just as though here
it’s just empty. Absolutely empty. And I keep thinking . . . well there must be
something wrong with me. I mustn’t be normal ‘cos I should be crying and I’m
not. And I feel as though I should be crying and I’m not and yet I don’t seem to
be able to show them love.’
Freda’s voice becomes more musical as it changes pitch, rhythm, and tempo. Her
words fail, but she continues to ‘talk’ by moving her hands and arms offering
something to me. Some sort of gift. I am slow to understand the language and my
response is vague.
Therapist:
‘No, but you were wanting to show something then, with your hands.’
Freda: ‘Yes, I wanted to, I want to show them love and yet I don’t feel love
here. and I know I should do. It doesn’t seem natural. It’s not natural is it?’
As Freda says ‘I don’t feel love here’ she once more puts a hand on her heart,
repeating the metaphor non-verbally.
Later in this session Freda’s tears flow as she ‘sees’ me looking ‘just
like’ her beloved ‘Dad’.