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Chapter Nine
The Ending
Missing Time
This is the last of the
fifteen sessions of the
Semester, so it is literally
the ending. Each student
takes a turn to reflect on
the experience of learning
during the semester and
the course as a whole.
However, the experience
of the session is also as if
the ending is not
happening, with the staff
and the group not keeping
to the time schedule. The
issue of what happens is
explored in relation to the
missing time – where did
it go, and why?
Whilst there is some
sense of timelessness in
this session, it seems that
the predominant
characteristic of the
unconscious is the
absence of mutual
contradiction – it is the
end, and it’s also as if it’s
not.
Chapter Nine – An Ending – Page 289
Description Analysis Interpretation
My data includes my
own response to carrying
out this analysis, which
includes shock, resolving
into disbelief and shame.
The group are slow to
take up the invitation,
“to take turns to reflect
on your experience of
the course, in relation to
the growing edges and
significant questions that
have been important for
you”.
I get into anxiety - did I
mess up previously, and
have I not really faced
that experience?
My mind goes
associatively to shame.
The above is about my
inner world – now to
apply these insights to
dynamics in the group.
Somehow we slip
from our purpose,
throughout the
session.
Considering the level
of this experience, it
has projective and bilogical
qualities to it
(for example, it is the
end, and yet it seems
that it isn’t)
Particularly the staff,
but also the students
(as fellow learners)
display a kind of
blindness – this may
link to the
developmental
transition, a form of
Oedipal resolution,
that has been poorly
handled. 6
Avoidance is a core
issue.
The group phantasy
A difficult child,
disturbed and at times
unhappy, but not able to
feel safe to express
disturbance directly.
These students have to go
through a transition, and
their study of human
development, their
reflective group and their
own therapy will have
stirred up these issues
Scapegoating is
simultaneously both a
very symbolic and a very
concrete manifestation.
Conclusion
Reaching the end of the
analysis of this episode
of ending, it is apparent
how the experience of
teaching and learning of
psychotherapy is
probably always fraught.
Are we just (barely)
containing experience too
difficult to voice
directly? And does this
explain how the ending
of the group comes to be
avoided?
Table 9.1
A summary of description, analysis and interpretation of data in Chapter Nine.
6 In the myth of Oedipus (Graves, 1984), as noted in this chapter, the eponymous hero blinds himself on
recognising that he has killed his father and possessed his mother sexually.