The Only P-D Therapist

The Only P-D Therapist.

This story will not end happily.

I am a Mental Health Therapist, though a better description is to say that I am a Trauma Counsellor.

The area I specialise in is unique, because I deal with a very specific range of clients. To the best of my knowledge I am the only person in the whole world doing what I do. This is not because there is no real need for it; it breaks my heart to realise how many individuals there are out there who desperately need the counselling I provide. Unfortunately, to provide support to clients like mine, you need a particular talent and I have yet to hear of anyone other than me who has it.

I realise that sounds incredibly conceited. But it is the simple truth and I am not boasting about it. Indeed, I fully understand that most people, if told of my unique ability, would see me as a freak: though their first reaction would be to just consider me nuts (the non-medical term for insane!). That is one of the reasons - though not the most important one - why I never tell anyone what I do.

The main thing stopping me from publicising who I am, and what I do, is fear.

I live with a never-ending, internal debate over whether I am being cowardly by keeping my talents hidden, or just plain sensible. Certainly, there are a lot of very dangerous people who would be looking for me if they knew what I know and what I do. So, am I sensible - or cowardly - to limit my help to the police, to only providing anonymous tip-offs? I could give them so much more help, but for how long - before it all caught up with me?

Writing this, I realise that it is more than a little presumptuous of me to think that I am the only person to have this strange talent and use it to help individuals who have experienced, and are experiencing, severe trauma. There may well be, indeed I hope there are, many other people doing what I do - and, like me, fiercely guarding their anonymity. I wish I knew. I would love to be able to talk to someone - anyone - who could relate to the stress I experience.

It is ironic to realise how much I would benefit from talking to another trauma counsellor: someone with my training and understanding. "Physician, heal thyself" doesn't really work. There is a limit to what I can achieve by holding a dialogue with myself, as both patient and therapist. And you know what they say, "Talking to yourself is fine, normal. But if you start answering yourself, that is a sign that you are going mad"!

But I am getting off the point. This is meant to be about what I do, not my personal mental difficulties.

I counsel individuals who are, each in their own way, trying to deal with the stress of acute trauma they have experienced. It is undoubtedly true to say that all my clients have experienced the most extreme trauma that anyone can experience. In each case, that trauma resulted in their death.

That is why they come to me.

Now I have told you my secret.

I am a Psychic Trauma Therapist.

My clients are what we call ghosts.

My rare, if not unique, talent, is to be able to see and talk to them.

All my clients died violent deaths. Most of them are homicide victims, though I also get suicide victims, who bitterly regret the action they took.

The victims of violent accidents do not usually need counselling.

It is the trauma of having had their lives wilfully taken that causes clients to seek my help.

And even more devastating than the trauma of their death, is the totally devastating realisation that they can never regain the lives they had. They have lost everyone and everything that mattered to them in that life.

Trying to help them deal with this post-death, on-going trauma is my primary concern as a Post-Death (P-D) Trauma Therapist.

So, how can I help them?

In the majority of cases a therapist or counsellor's primary goal will be to re-unite a client or patient with their family and loved ones. I cannot do that. All I can do is try and help them come to terms with the reality that they will never, ever, again share a hug, a laugh or a tear with any other living being.

I used the words, 'any other living being'. But of course, they - my clients - are not, by our common definition, 'living'. This is also the reason why I refer to them as individuals, which they certainly are, rather than as people.

But that is just labels. The simple fact is that my clients are suffering the very real, very human, stress of coming to terms with the fact that their lives, as they knew them, are over.

"The role of the therapist is to help the person understand his/her situation". Easier said than done. Particularly when so many of the main strategies and techniques used by counsellors, therapists and psychiatrists the world over are not available to me and my clients. Sometimes I feel so helpless. My patients are, as I said, dealing with unimaginable stress. How can I, or anyone, ease their pain?

I have tried everything. The only therapeutic technique which seems to work is EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. Using this technique, working through the last moments - or terrible hours - of their lives, clearly brings them enormous relief. It is seeing this happen that keeps me going.

I do not start to understand the 'metaphysics' of it, and fully realise how absurd it must sound, but as they come to terms with their situation they literally fade peacefully away.

This brings me enormous comfort. But at a cost. I am left with the terrible knowledge of brutal crimes, tragically unfinished lives and - perhaps more than anything - the growing realisation of how many individuals there must be, out there, suffering chronic P-D trauma with no hope of therapeutic help.

I have to talk further about how this makes me feel. It is, as I will explain, why I am writing this.

The stress building up inside me needs to be, but cannot be, relieved by talking to someone. I have described myself as 'the only P-D therapist'. This may not be accurate. What is true is that I am a lonely P-D therapist. I cannot continue to carry this burden alone; nor can I ask anyone to share it with me.

So, one way or the other, this is not going to end well.

I can see the signs: depression, irritability, a growing anger at the unfairness of life - which alone, at night, I try to lose in the bottom of a bottle. It has got so bad that even some of my P-D patients are noticing and asking me if I am OK?

No, I am not.

But neither they, nor anyone else, can help me. If I talk to anyone, I am a dead man. But if I don't ....

Either way, I fear that I am an individual - a potential victim- who will soon be out there, in need of a PD Therapist. How ironic is that?

And so, this anonymous letter.

It is not a cry for help; not for me at any rate. I think it is too late for that.

But surely there must be other people out there who have the same talent that I have; who can use their psychic abilities to help the many unseen individuals suffering from traumatic post-death stress?

The world needs to accept this, find those people and help them to help themselves and their potential patients. Surely this can be done? With them able to talk to each other, without losing the anonymity which I believe they will always need?

With all my heart I hope this can happen.

But I cannot truly think it likely.

Which is why I started by saying that I do not think this will end happily. Not for me, and not for so many other victims suffering from traumatic post-death stress.

**************************

"The Only P-D Therapist".

1400 words

Giles Scott

October 2020

<scotspot@sybaweb.co.za>

For Reedsy:

"Write a ghost story where there’s more going on than it first appears"