Listen Carefully and Other Tales from the Therapy Room PDF
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LISTEN CAREFULLY and Other Tales from the Therapy Room LISTEN CAREFULLY and Other Tales from the Therapy Room Phil Lapworth To my delightful grandson Dean First published in 2014 by Karnac Books Ltd 118 Finchley Road London NW3 5HT Copyright © 2014 Phil Lapworth The right of Phil Lapworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-217-2 Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain www.karnacbooks.com Contents Introduction vii THE STORIES Listen carefully 3 Uncoupled 23 Woody Bay 37 Super vision 49 Different again 61 The thrownness of life 75 Armadillo 89 Seven deadly sins 103 Let’s face it 117 Tales out of school 129 v Contents Reflections 149 References 193 Acknowledgements 198 About the author 199 vi Introduction This collection of ten fictional short stories invites the reader inside the consulting room, right to the heart of the therapeutic encounter, to witness what goes on between a therapist and his clients as they engage with issues such as racism, sexuality, death and dying, disfigurement, coupledom, the thrownness of life, and other existential concerns. They take us, too, inside the mind of Michael Martin, the therapist, into his internal world (including his dream world) and into the process of his supervision. Whether warm and compassionate, thoughtful and reflective, reactive and critical, or simply flying by the seat of his pants, the therapist is exposed in all his human vulner- ability as he draws on his knowledge and experience in his attempts to address the concerns of his clients. These stories intend to challenge, disturb, entertain and amuse, and to provide a rich resource for the reader’s own thinking and discussion—specifically encouraged in the final chapter where the author works through each story present- ing themes and theoretical aspects, and provides a series of questions for reflection. However, while psychotherapists and counsellors (whether students or qualified practitioners) will hopefully find something engaging and useful in the sto- ries and the questions they pose, they were written also for vii Introduction entertainment, particularly for the entertainment of readers who are not connected with therapy in any way. Being fic- tional, these stories escape the confines of a textbook’s clinical case examples and have free rein over the unfolding plot, yet, written by a practising psychotherapist, they have the ring of authenticity that comes from many years’ experience in clini- cal practice. This is the second collection of short stories by Phil Lapworth. His first, Tales From the Therapy Room—Shrink- Wrapped, was published by Sage in 2011. viii THE STORIES
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