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Monday. May 5th. Day 8 - Therapy Session 2

I haven’t slept, because my legs were hurting. I have this from time to time, it usually starts when I’m completely relaxed, sitting in the park or lying in bed. My arms or legs start to hurt, the pain increases over the hours and at one point I’m unable to move my extremities. Painkillers don’t help. Doctors say the pain is psychosomatic and there isn’t much they can do about it. Mrs. B. explains that the pain is an expression of unexplored and suppressed emotions. Fine. I have to listen to my body signal more closely.

Mrs. B. gives me a paper to be filled with therapy goals. I have to write down at least five goals, which should be realistic to reach in this time here and I have to provide for each of these goals three examples, which could imply that I’ve reached the goal.

Mrs. B hands me out the paper and says that I can take my time, I don’t have to hand it in for the next session, some patients come up with their goals in 3 or 4 weeks time. Okay.

I take the paper up to my room and I immediately start to write. It’s like an impulse, the thoughts come easily. While writing, I realize that every goal is inextricably intertwined with all the other ones and that it’s actually very difficult to put them into five strictly defined categories. I try to be as analytical as possible and I’m done after half an hour. I think that I – as always – set my standards too high. I don’t know if these goals are reachable. As I go down to the nurse’s counter, Mrs. B. is sitting there and I slide the paper across the counter. She’s puzzled and we both instantly start to laugh.