November 2019 – Why stories are important: reality and narratives – the truth within and the truth without

The following events are described as had been proposed to me on real terms during an episode of disclosure and then agreed consent for publishing; it involves a child, parents and a local authority service – it is about a negotiation of parental responsibility and there are audio files and written accounts by all involved with the child in question that verifies and sustains this reporting – there are no questions over interpretation as it re/accounts an experiential living of an event where democratic discernment and human rights come to a holt and/ or block. Therefore, such events are than reinterpreted and bestowed upon decision making responsible public and civilian bodies/and all concerned. The overall results are patiently assessed and outcomes relieved of doubt in their interpretation. Unfortunate 

life events to all such individuals are seen as a boomerang to their decision making process; life experiences of one child for a collapse of corruption, lack of integrity and professionalism - a psychoanalytic thread of black matter being traced throughout.

09/08/2018 – deliberate misinformation/ dishonesty regarding home visit in making contact with a child as part of statutory duty and ISO – the information provided by social services/worker had no evidence being relayed in a Court of Justice as part of Social Work Evidence to Family Court. A statement of Truth has been signed with full acknowledgement of no such evidence to all stated being provided. On the contrary there are audio files and evidence from various sources that not only contradict such evidence but incriminate various other individuals and institutions at large including non-resident parent that committed theft in removing personal identification documents of a child from the resident parent’s property in the presence of a local police, local authority services, privately employed educational tutors and witness of resident parent. Such criminal law pertinent crime was directed and conducted by all attended during a so called safeguarding check conducted by local authority officers to a referral made on 7th of February 2018 from two points of reference: 1. secondary school UCL Academy whereas staff indicated that child in question should be provided with a yellow bag for managing his nosebleeds and excluding the child from all activities including his football team due to absences regarding his medical condition and 2. Local General Practitioner Swiss Cottage Medical Centre partner Sarah Smith making a referral because the resident parent in question decided to pursue a privately paid assessment of the child to various reference points including an Educational Child Psychologist, Anna Freud Emotional Psychotherapy Service and Psychological Service that the child had been NHS serviced at for his nosebleeds. 

The reasoning for Dr. Sarah Smith as a GP were that the parent in question would not be sufficiently educated in what it is the best interest for her child (13teen years of age at the time – the power of the state should intervene when a parent decides to investigate and explore their child's difficulties that would go beyond what is seemed or deemed merited by a GP that had never met the child, had no real comprehension on the child’s lived medical experience and no real grasp on his medical background including an inflicted gross and critical malpractice by the NHS staff at child's birth  under the form of injecting a four days old infant with an antiviral HIV medication ten times the dosage allowed to an infected adult population. The child in question had no viral infection and or exposure to that virus and by administering such a drug without a cause and to a dosage never administered to an adult infected population, the NHS were introspectively on stand by for their own malpractice. The inexplicable nosebleeds and difficulties of family life that the child in question experienced from his four days of birth since the accident, were than reformulated in a different narrative by the GP practice (NHS owned), social services in the service of both the NHS and local Authority Government and the non-resident parent that was - at the time of this happening – filing in Family court for reduced maintenance child and spousal maintenance payments. After the inflicted malpractice by the NHS, the four days old infant survived and was returned to his parents, however, the parental relationship and the marriage did not survived. The mother never agreed to the laisse fair attitude of the father towards the infant exhibited by the father during a meeting with the Royal Free Hospital staff when consequences and impact and a way forward for the child were requested as a consequence of the hospital malpractice towards the new born. 

During such a meeting, the mother (rightly so) requested that assurances of the child not being affected are taking place with requesting from the drug company further information on the drug and from the hospital assurances that such an event had no medical effect on the child. What the mother did no request at that time were that other consequences were written off such as a frequent blood tests and investigations take place on a regular basis. The impact and consequences of the malpractice had been flourished negatively within the marital relationship and the newly born, the parental relationship did not survive beyond three years mark – mostly due to constant divergences between the couple in regards of the best interest of the child. The second point of reference were intense and frequent nosebleeds from the infant that were not manifesting as a consequence of external factors but internal factors. The NHS never repeated the blood tests and when upon request from the mother at three years of age and five years of age, were declared as normal, only to be told six years later that the blood tests conducted at five years of age were never performed with the blood samples being lost.

The moral of the above story is for reader to discern, what is relevant for the purpose of this re/account is “telling the story” and meanings attached to a lived experience that from biographical to a narrative becomes a reality of many. This is not about accountability or shifting sands so to say, there are many perspectives and timelines with a history of their own, more importantly it is about a legacy, a legacy that in the eyes of many is yet to be resolved.

Why stories are important in therapy is exactly about that, creating possibilities of re/examination of deeply rooted understandings, embedded and entrenched ways of being that could find emotional and comprehensible tangible ways for clarification.

Stories in therapy are forms of relocating and prompting oneself to an imaginary scenario, eliciting ways of emotionally thinking, compatible to one’s ways of being. Stories in therapy - as a technique - allows for innovation, creativity, retrospection of self-acceptance, compassion and offering forms of mentalizing with the outside world, others and a sense of self. 

Recently, I have created an exercise about grounding and a re/assessment of values and meaning of self. It is simple and invites the patient/client to describe herself/himself as he or she or they would exist as a country – an agency – an organisation rather than a mere individual. What would such a description bring to light? What would such a sense of self, recreated under such terms, would reveal?

 A story of self-mapped out within a wider context; how emotionally involved one may feel during such an exercise? What corners of one’s mind may look like depicted in such form? Would one decide that one is an island and or a small country with well-defined borders and a clear internal organisation and external ways of co-existing? Such an exercise would allow for self-introspection and exploration -  it can be used at any stage in one’s life when shadows of uncertainty colours one life or simply when one needs to be reminded of a sense of self.