I received feedback on my second chapter from my Director of Studies. Very fair and helpful but it filled me with dread in relation to losing the plot and the focus of the thesis. It is more difficult to write a thesis-as-piece-of-work than a thesis report. I know the challenge would be here all along. I have had it pretty easy until now, no data gathering in the conventional sense, no number crunching, no narrative analysis, no conventional, run of the mill method. Because of this, it is not, at the time of analysis and evaluation that I am finding it difficult. What I do requires a lot of thinking and a lot of looking because it is evanescence. It disappears in my hands as I write. Then, at times, it also surprises me.

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The tapping of television into the mystery of the psychotherapy session, into what goes on behind closed doors in the consulting room, was something waiting to happen. TV bosses have funded explorations into the world of gangsters, undertakers and death, the medical body, forensics, mental powers and numerous other enigmatic professions. A while ago, HBO launched In Treatment, a drama starring Gabriel Byrne and focusing on the therapist-patient relation. I have not yet seen much of it (other than youtube’s gifts), as it is not aired in the UK, but the choice of actor delights me. I have a transference relation with Byrne, one that is conflictive, of love and aggression at the same time. He doesn’t remind me of my psychoanalyst in any way, yet he does. He has that listening face.

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