Tomorrow is Halloween. Tomorrow evening I will be counselling, in a room on a street where trick or treaters roam, oblivious to social norms, hungry for sugar. I am anxious.Not because of the costumes and commercialised terror. But what will happen if they approach and do not heed the note on my door? “Do not Disturb” my sign reads. It usually works. Sometimes an over enthusiastic Amazon delivery person ignores it in their mission to deliver at all costs. I am not sure it will be enough to deter a herd of drooling zombies or cute witches.
I have already primed my clients and offered alternative time slots. For those who choose to run the gamut, what might happen if the knock at the door comes? Well, I guess we’ll bring it into the room as always. I won’t be moving from my chair! Maybe it will bring up issues of interruption, not getting full attention, not being first priority. It might bring up fears, nightmares, hidden shadows of the soul. Or memories of Halloweens past. Discussion of belief systems. Commercialism. What happens after death.
And for me? It is making me consider the space I provide for clients. Can I keep it safe and boundaried? How do I manage unexpected events? What does Halloween bring up for me? Am I open to all eventualities and primed to go with client experience?
Halloween was always about the space between worlds, and it seems tomorrow it will be, for me, more intensely than usual, about the therapeutic space between the external and the internal.
