Session Block: Of Mirrors, Lamps, and other Methods for the Writing up of Notes

Writing up session notes is essential to therapists’ practice, yet the literature on psychotherapeutic writing focuses almost exclusively on more complex tasks, such as preparing case studies or pieces for publication. Nonetheless, problems with writing up seem widespread: this article finds that 85% of trainees report difficulty. Such ‘session block’ has not before been defined. Given the absence of well‐accepted psychotherapeutic tools to overcome such block, and given that writing sessions is a challenge of representation – a phenomenon well described in the world of art – this article appropriates methods from aesthetic theory to address the problem. Applying first the Classical aesthetic metaphor of art‐as‐mirror, the pressure on therapists to produce a clear likeness of the session is explored, and the mirror metaphor is found to be as oppressive as it is widely accepted. By contrast, a revolutionary metaphor from the Romantic era, namely art‐as‐lamp, wherein the poet casts an inner creative light over the world, holds promise in overcoming countertransferential blocks and permitting an imaginative write‐up. This too, though, has drawbacks, and the article concludes by proposing a method which, by integrating metaphors, permits a free‐flowing write‐up of the session, both creatively rich and clinically accurate.