Journal October 2026 Special DISPUK Release_Full Version - Flipbook - Page 32
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from my second session with Thomas and Mia. I look at our words and think
about the conversation again.
My first letter made sense; Thomas and Mia told me during our second
conversation, especially the question about Hugo, and what it might mean to him
that, as adults, they can talk about all the difficult things—that made sense to
them. They lit up at the idea that, during all the difficulty, they were still doing
something meaningful for their son. They had also both been moved by the image
of a tsunami that had struck them, because, as the letter had prompted them to
discuss—why now? Why the anxiety and all those worrying thoughts now, when
Hugo had arrived like a ray of sunshine in their lives? Why had the anxiety
returned like a tsunami?
That conversation gave me the opportunity to ask about the time around Hugo9s
birth, and Thomas and Mia told me about an episode that, as I think about it here
on the train, I cannot leave unsaid.
Just today in class, I heard myself say that it9s important for people to be seen for
their worth. Could I do that more in my letter to Mia and Thomas than I had in my
questions during our conversation?
It9s not without a knot in my stomach that I9m writing this second letter. A letter
in which I9m following through on my idea of putting my own voice in front and
center, because right now it9s important to me that Mia be seen as more than just
an anxious mother who couldn9t take care of her child:
Dear Thomas and Mia,
Here is what stands out to me from our most recent conversation.
I especially remember your descriptions of that evening, six weeks
after Hugo was born. It was an evening when you, with little Hugo in
his car seat, had been visiting Grandma, and when your dog Charlie
became critically ill. So ill that he had to be put down that very
evening. You also told me that on the way home, little Hugo had
For Me, Starting a Conversation Without a Letter Feels Like I9m Only Half a Therapist
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, October 2026 Special Release, p. 23-47
www.journalcnt.com
