ECHO
These listening spaces are landscapes of echoes
Echoes of voices bouncing backward and forward
Forward in waves that create the distance
Distance required to hear to the core
Core of what matters
What matters.
There is a gift in the distilling of experience
Experience still vibrating, haunted singing
Singing into the time held delay
Delay between then and now
Now; the pivot point
Pivot point.
The stories that linger resound strongly
Strongly in the small, hard places
Places within that ask what
What was done, what’s needed
Needed to be heard
Be heard.
My client’s words sound against my substance
Substance probed daily to determine
Determine the density of my understanding
Understanding the form of my knowing
Knowing when to absorb, what to repeat
To repeat.
And when they ask how to escape these rebounds
Rebounds pattered on pained loneliness I say
Say in response: Echo’s curse morphed
Morphed adapting to a new voice
Voice that truth-tells ringing
Ringing.
October 1, 2020: Clients come in and bring so many challenges to the table. Sometimes it feels like a dam opening with too many pieces of information flowing over at me once. Which pieces become absorbed into the therapeutic space? Which are reflected back to the client? How do I pick out the patterned nuggets that need to be examined? I have attended two narrative workshops that featured David Epston; he always provides examples in real-time to show how narrative techniques can be applied. I love watching David Epston pull on different threads of individuals' woven stories. He always seemed to be able to find the strands that hold people’s stories together. I struggle to sift through all the words —through all this content— to decide what direction I need to go with each client. I am grateful for the session rating scales that need to be completed with each client session as they help me focus on what the client wants and needs; to learn from any missed opportunities in session.