A Theory of Everything # 5 'Adverse Idealised Transference'.

The continued formulation of my 'theory of everything' in an effort to understand what happened to me while under the therapeutic supervision of CAMHS art therapist, Sally Mungall between September and December, 2021.

In a previous installment of 'A Theory of Everything' I unpacked one of Sally Mungall’s own session notes identified as ‘megan 1365700 – 02.09.2021 case disc following first appointment.pdf’. Her written entry, completed immediately following her first meeting with me on the 2^nd September, 2021, stated

‘Strong countertransference of feeling violated by the intrusiveness within the room’.

What was about to happen in ‘art therapy’ with Sally Mungall was going to be informed by her own SUBJECTIVE and or NEGATIVE and or PERSONAL COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE with profoundly negative psychological effect.

I will, during the my ‘theory of everything’, show how Sally Mungall’s counter-transference informed her psychotherapeutic approach during ‘art therapy’ and then influenced her decision-making while mitigating against the potential of reputational damage to her following my mental breakdown at the end of the ‘art therapy’ sessions.

The psychological mechanisms around my own transference was multifaceted and complicated while Sally Mungall’s own ‘counter-transference’ evolved and added to the complexity.

I had entered into the therapeutic relationship already vulnerable. In September, 2021I was ‘burned out’ after fourteen years caring for my mentally ill daughter, largely on my own. I was about to be made homeless for a third time due to no fault of my own and I was troubled by a pre-cancerous skin diagnosis. All of these issues dog-piled onto the sizable anxiety over my daughter’s looming discharge from CAMHS, just three months away. Meg was still profoundly unwell, her mental health recovery in the hands of another CAMHS psychotherapist who was demonstrably incompetent. I agreed to engage in ‘art therapy’ with Sally Mungall under duress and desperation though the truth was that my ‘consent’ wasn’t informed. I had absolutely no idea of what I was letting myself in for.

I had a notion that ‘intergenerational trauma’ was somehow how influencing my parenting and it was this idea that motivated me during ‘art therapy’. As it turned out, ‘intergenerational trauma’ had little to no immediate negative effect on my parenting style. Instead, the unpacking of ‘intergenerational trauma’ in ‘Art therapy’ provided the grounds for a dynamic almost entirely between Sally Mungall and me, eliciting responses from the therapist that were based, largely, on ‘counter-transference’.

It has taken me almost four years to arrive at my current understanding of my ‘transference’ during ‘Art Therapy’. I had the pleasure of working with four competent and professional psychotherapists who all contributed to my ongoing recovery from the damage done by Sally Mungall. My understanding of my ‘transference’ coalesced with the help of Isobel Brooks at Basingstoke Counselling Services and particularly trauma therapist, Clara Long and CAT therapist, Dr Jackie Preston, both accessible through the NHS. To begin with, I understood my ‘transference’ to be somewhat maternal in nature.

Maternal transference occurs when a client unconsciously begins to view their therapist as a motherly figure and develops emotions emulating those of mother-child relationships. My recollection of each therapy session remains vivid and detailed and is corroborated by Sally Mungall’s own session notes ( I have an almost complete set of the session notes completed by Sally Mungall. Information Governance for the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust were instructed to deny my access to two sessions notes disingenuously making use of GDPR exemptions. I firmly believe that those session notes were actually withheld because they incriminated Sally Mungall. )

Later I began to accept that the locus of my ‘transference’ was centred on what is known as ‘Idealised’ transference.  Austrian-born American, Heinz Kohut, first used the term ‘idealising transference’ to describe a type of transference in which the therapist's character is distorted and imbued with idealised attributes that reflect the patient's unmet developmental longings. Sally Mungall herself actually described my transference as ‘idealised’ when emailing clinicians about me in early 2022.

More recently I have realised that my ‘idealised transference’ meets the clinical threshold for the modifier ‘adverse’.

‘… (AITs) – the adverse effects that may arise when a patient transfers idealising feelings onto the professional – because, although we have found it to be a significant factor in most cases of harm, it is rarely discussed in the literature on harm.’ - Boundary violations in therapy: the patient's experience of harm Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2018  -https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/boundary-violations-in-therapy-the-patients-experience-of-harm/3A04D90B5BD1832871AA608071EA7CB8 

Nevertheless, maternal transference still explains the broad, though incomplete psychological experience. Indeed, in my case it clearly manifested as maternal erotic transference.  ‘(MET), often leads to clients experiencing shame or worry of being humiliated for having such feelings. (Wrye & Welles, 1989). The subject of maternal erotic transference (MET) doesn’t appear to be very well understood yet an entire cohort of clinicians and leadership in both the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust AND the former Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust made negative judgements against me, blaming me for my own transference, pathologizing me in terms that were eventually used to make gross criminal accusations against me.

I will unpack my ‘transference’ alongside Sally Mungall’s own ‘counter-transference’ as I continue to set out my ‘Theory of Everything'.

My own ‘transference’, in it’s true therapeutic sense, began during the second meeting and just before the beginning of ‘art therapy’ proper.

It began with one single event, a profound change in the psychosocial environment.

I will explain the extraordinary effect that Sally Mungall’s use of Covid 19 face masks had on the therapeutic relationship and the adverse influence those masks had on my own psychological transference in my ‘Theory of Everything 6'.