The Absent Client is an extract from a session where the client did not appear. This was not an uncommon event and a powerful part of the therapeutic work. As I waited for the client thoughts entered my head, which afterward I wrote down.
He is absent again, and in his absence, I think about how – when I am absent (in the transference his mother) – he forgets about himself as important. He focuses so entirely on the external world that his own needs, wishes and desires almost do not exist. I imagine he thinks this of me between sessions and during breaks. This thought is congruous to other sessions where such projections have appeared.
It seems he is unaware of my presence. Not just literally, as I am waiting for him in the session, but as i do so I have benign thoughts regarding his absence. I am thinking of him and hoping he is okay. My thoughts may seem impossible for him to imagine, so isolated and abandoned as he was during childhood. And in those isolating gaps as he waited for mum powerful defences helped him cope.
Today, I made a decision not to message and remind him of the session. This communication has been a development of late where, in order to help, I text in the session and he responds. Today, I didn’t and am not immediately sure why. This decision doesn’t feel retaliatory, or a countertransference response to being abandoned. I have experienced this before, but today it seems different. However, I do wonder about my decision and ask “Am I being cruel, or am I encouraging a healthy response towards the depressive position, who often seems so schizoid?”
Writing this brings anxiety to my mind.