Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 61
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Ayla’s Gabriel: Yes, she can! She really can.
Adriana: Great! Let’s have a toast with a mate! (We laughed together.)
I brought the conversation to a close, thanking him for his special contribution to
our session. I also invited Ayla to reconnect with herself, giving her some random
options such as stretching and moving her body a little (feet, legs, arms), taking a
deep breath, even drinking some water. She said she enjoyed the experience and
had not imagined it would feel so real: “I could feel like my dad: his words, his
accent, his way of sitting and looking, his caution when talking to someone he
didn’t know so well.”
Ayla’s account
“I want to share a lovely, very special experience I had during my therapy with
Adriana. She asked whether I’d like to have an experience with my father. I
agreed, and she invited me to think of him and to recover my memories of him.
Then she began asking questions to my father – and I answered as if I were him.
At first, I found it a bit strange, but soon I began to feel as though it was really him
responding: his accent, the words he used to choose, the way he got emotional –
he’d breathe in to hold his tears so he could keep talking… I had it all, so it was
incredibly special. It was such a warm experience!
It was profoundly important. It did me so much good because I remember I was
going through a very hard time. I had lost my dad a year before – it had just been
a year – and my mom was extremely sick, bedridden. She was already in palliative
care. And that conversation did me a lot of good because I felt as if he was there
with us. I felt like he was answering those questions, and that feeling filled my
heart with joy. I was at peace.
He talked about me, about how he saw me, about our relationship, and how it
became especially precious after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I could feel
the importance I had for my father, the trust he had in me, and the peaceful
moments I was able to give him at the end of his life.
Narractivating Conversations with the Internalised-Other: A Therapy with a Little Bit of Fairy Dust.
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 45-65.
www.journalnft.com
