Nethra Nallari

To a mind who can comfortably sleep at night without wondering what it is that the howling sound may be, this essay may simply be fictitious elaboration. This mind will simply fall asleep, attributing to this sound a perfectly reasonable explanation. The sound of the wind, a branch swaying, dogs. And there are others who will attribute to this sound many stories wound up in curiosities and fears, alike. It is for them, I suppose I write. In writing this, I wonder whom my readers are. I think I write for both the therapist and the patient, and for folks who find themselves far removed from the clinic, but nonetheless wonder about the products of their minds. And of course, I write for myself to discover where it is to that I will reach in this relationship of feeling, thinking, re-reading, re-writing on screen.

When a patient brings a description of this howling sound to a therapist, the therapist will respond in many ways depending on their state of mind, conscious and unconscious, the moment at hand, the history that is shared between them and their reverie. How is the therapist to respond, is I suppose, a question that occurs to all of us.

This in itself, could make us wonder, what allows the therapist to respond? Does the therapist find it themselves to simply wonder in quiet what this howling might be? Or does this imagination of howling evoke something in the therapist that leads them away from the sound? Will they find their way back to what the patient has begun with, and wonder what is it that the patient has begun to speak about?

Does the therapist instead begin to think about the patient howling in the clinic? Is the therapist transported to wondering what is transpiring between the two of them? Is the therapist prompted to follow the howling the patient hears on the outside leading them astray from the internal? Would the therapist begin to think about the howling as a distraction from what the patient is to really bring?

Or does the therapist create a picture in their minds of the patient as they listen to this sound from their beds? Does the therapist fill in this mental picture before they speak, in essence, do they speak from that picture? What are they able to and what can they possibly never have imagined. And with such an imagination, can they move in and out of their own minds as the patient speaks, recasting their own?

It is never the therapist who responds entirely from themselves. The moment a communication is expressed from the patient, even so be it the manner of walking into the clinic, a field is created. All that the therapist is to feel, think and respond with can only be understood within this field. This is perhaps why one should acknowledge that their life, history, analysis, theory, training, supervision, reading are carried within the therapist and subsequently transformed by the shared field that is created.

Both the therapist and the patient now exist together in this field, and the field too acts upon them, as they affect each other. I would go as far to say that the field is simply a matrix of all the feelings, said and unsaid that are felt towards each other.

I elaborate on the few of many possibilities that may come to life in the therapist, simply because I continue to be in awe of how we relate to each other. The therapeutic relationship, seems to slow what naturally occurs between people in conversation and in its slowing, magnifies the intent of relating to the other. We ask as therapists, what are they really trying to say to me?

Continuing with what we began, the patient may be asked to elaborate what they might have thought this sound could be? I think this field is formed and reformed with every session, both the patient and therapist add to this field with their expressions. We begin with the assumption that the patient is asked to continue to go on.

The patient begins to describe what they think of this howling sound. The therapist is invited into the construction in the patient’s mind, and as they listen, they too are forming a construction of their own. Perhaps with some (and very few), it may be important to state that the howling sound is simply a swaying branch or the wind. However, I have come to learn that this approach rarely helps. It is the internal reality that is presented to the therapist, and the external reality seems to bear very remote relation to it.

Now, one might wonder, “but it is only the wind, isn’t it?”, possibly, yes, maybe not. The therapist, in all honesty has no way of verifying the truth. I doubt that our work as therapists is to arrive at the truth at all. Perhaps it is our work to listen to how the patient’s truth has been formed, and remain close to this truth.

It is crucial, I believe, to allow some part of ourselves as therapists to enter this truth that the patient brings. It can sometimes be that the therapist is pulled into it, with little of therapist left to themselves. I suppose it is quite tricky to arrive at a place where one listens from the inside and can still manage to find their way to speak from some outside. Perhaps it is important that for some time both therapist and patient stay within the truth that the patient brings. To let the truth take shape, to create an atmosphere where the truth can be elaborated on and to explore what it is of the patient that holds so dearly to this truth. For a therapist would never know their way without their patient, we would be simply lost in our devices of thought.

I cannot say for how long, for I do not think time in the unconscious functions as time does in the outside world. Time is rather floaty in the therapy hour. We find ourselves breaching the construct of time in its linear sense. We travel back and forth, through events, memories, stories, hoping to continue to arrive at the present, and what is happening between the two in the room.

The matter of time and whether the patient or the therapist continue to be consumed by how much time is left, or how much time has passed, is a question for another essay. If it is time that occupies one of the partners in the couple, there lies a truth that will emerge from this too. One’s relationship to the hour beginning and ending on time, will allow us to enter many tender, and perhaps destructive wishes towards the time we have with each other.

However, even if it is the time that the patient or therapist watches, it is the relationship towards time shared. I do wonder many a time if patient is rarely ever speaking about anything else, but the therapeutic relationship that is beginning to form. I do not mean to write that to reduce in any way the patient’s creations. I think it is perhaps much easier to think that the patient is speaking about something else, someone else, not the relationship between them. There is some relief in this belief, from this work of relating which requires both the therapist and patient to come in close contact with each other.

But I suppose we do undertake this work all the time. I have come to learn that we are always communicating in attempt to connect with each other in the now. As we travel through time, perhaps it is the therapist who must bring together these timelines to the present, to link what is transpiring in the moment. This may not always feel possible, however we continue to attempt.

Before we digress farther, we are to remain in this shapeless container of truth that the patient brings to us. In this container of truth, we are only guests. We are not touch fragile things without care, we are to respect the owners of this house and the foundations they were built on. We cannot simply enter these houses of truth, and dismantle its structure. These were carefully built by the patient to wither the storms of their lives, and to be allowed to enter, is a privilege not to be taken lightly.

We sit, we follow, we look around, we ask before we touch, we accept that they we must leave if asked to. We hope that we continue return to this house that may truly hold what the patient has built their lives around. Over time, we too build a relationship with what lies in this house. We are familiar with where the shelves are, where it may be hard to reach, how the light enters, where shadows fall. And with some familiarity, we attempt to wonder out loud about our experience of being in this house with the patient. It will never be ours, and I do not believe we will ever know all the nooks and crannies around.

We may be tempted to think we do, for it is unduly powerful to be invited in, complete strangers as we are. Yet, we must remain guests in service of our work. And even we transgress, it is hoped that we acknowledge this with respect. It is fully possible that we spill coffee on the sofa, or open a shelf to find many secrets that are not to be known to us. The most we can do is share that perhaps we moved too quickly and then we are to slow down. All of these metaphors are simply the words and silences that occur between a therapist and patient.

Even as we are allowed to enter this house of truth, we leave an impression. And even in the absence of our touching, we still do touch. It may be simply enough to look at what the patient is describing and wonder with the patient about what we are looking at now, together. Suppose it is a vase we look at, I will be looking at it having never seen this vase and the patient will be describing it having brought the vase home to live with it. In my presence, perhaps the patient will take to seeing this vase differently, the hope that we do not take away this vase all at once from their house. It is theirs, and it will remain theirs. Yet it is shared with us, to notice and attend to.

The patient may bring the therapist close to the vase, to describe its source, its manufacture, its history, all that it has held. The therapist in this closeness will have many feelings and fantasies about this very vase, their own. For it is never just a vase, to either of them. A certain play develops between them.

I see this, you see that. I do not see that, why do you? I do not want to know you see what I do not see? I do not want to see. See it as I show you. Why do you see at all, turn away, look at this other object.

Tell me what you see. Let me tell me how to see it again. I wish we could see the same. But it is only a vase, why look so closely at all. Why did I decide to show you this at all?

You see what you see, why do you tell me? Do not. Let me see what I see. But why did you see this, it was not there to be seen.

You see, this play is terrifying to both the onlookers. We begin to see what has never been seen between two. In all honesty, this is a difficult pursuit. It leaves us completely in throes of a chaotic field of feelings. And yet, this is the work. To continue to play in this joint field, and hope that it is to each other we attempt to connect. The vase only becomes the backdrop for what it is really happen between the two. Much like the howling sound becomes noise.