This article is a case study of the benefits of counselling to one individual who had experienced homelessness, written by Diane Goodkind, lead counselor of Westminster PCT's award-winning counselling service for homeless people.
The GP recommended Jon to come for counselling to talk about his bereavement issues. “Thought I’d come for a few sessions” he said initially.
After 2 years of counselling he has turned the corner – even though there are huge areas of his fraught life still left untouched in his cavernous Pandora’s Box; but his life is now “good enough to live with” compared to every breath being a literal struggle 24 months ago.
By way of background: Over a period of 2 years Jon’s wife died and his children too died after an accident. I believe it is significant that these deaths and his bereavement period cover a similar span of time. After these deaths he declared that he had “nothing to fight for”. He walked out of his home, living on the streets for about a year.
Street workers eventually persuaded him to go into a hostel though he only agreed because someone had thrown all his belongings into the Thames. Being on the streets had been a sort of refuge for him. He had company. He even wrote poetry which people read. An old lady started bringing him a hot meal each day.
His bereavements only served to deepen the personal pain and grieving he already felt. As a child, he had been physically and emotionally tormented and sexually abused by a member of his core family. Pain was and is a familiar and continuing part of his life. His stories are so nasty and demeaning that it is all the more amazing that he chose to defy his past and marry.
He married a woman knowing that one day the illness she bore would kill her – bereavement in the making. Jon always expects everything to be taken away from him. In some respects he controlled his environment by knowing her death was inevitable. Unconsciously by choosing a wife who would inevitably die, it confirms his belief that everything is always taken away.
One of his major regrets was that he never shared his early life history with his wife. He was afraid that she would reject and abandon him like his original family. She never understood why he was so reluctant to bathe or cuddle his children. He never allowed himself to get too close to them fearing that he would repeat his own nightmarish past and become a paedophile. He engineered that someone else was always present with him and the kids.
I have stayed with Jon on a slow and excruciating journey which has allowed him to grieve and gradually begin to come to terms with his reality. We have acknowledged together his childhood deprivation and the constant humiliations he has had to endure. I constantly confirm how amazing I believe he is to break this horribly negative behaviour pattern from his past.
We are now preparing for our “ending”. He says he would rather end the counselling abruptly than feel the pain of leaving. I keep stating how imperative it is that we undertake a different type of ending so that he will be able to hold inside all the work we have done together.
I believe Jon is one of the bravest men I have ever met. He has endured so much shame and violation and yet he manages not to give up. He has lots of medical problems to contend with yet his spirit manages to be strong.
Jon chose to move out of London nearer to where he was brought up. He is now permanently housed. He has a garden in which he is preparing to grow vegetables and he hopes soon to have a dog. He hopes to teach mothers to cook one day if someone will allow him to, yet he also knows with his history that this may never happen.