The first session with a new counsellor feels like an interview. They ask you a series of questions about your life, including previous counselling experience and general mental health. Then they may confuse you with a question about tea. In school, we were warned that you should never accept a cup of coffee or tea during an interview. I wonder does this advice apply now, should I accept the tea with confidence, or, with confidence, refuse.
I said "may confuse you with a question about tea", because I seem to alternate between counsellors who offer me tea and ones who don't. After eight counsellors you start to see a pattern emerge: tea, no tea, tea, no tea. It's like somehow they are all playing a therapeutic game without my consent, and the game is called "dealing with resistance to change through granting and withholding tea".
But recently, I found a counsellor who gives me tea without it seeming like a trick. She was even having one herself. I like this, I thought - we could be two friends having a chat. So I accepted the weekly cup with confidence, and even began to look forward to it. Three weeks in and I start to skip my afternoon break at work, knowing it is only two hours until free tea from the counsellor. Counselling now = counselling + tea, and I come expecting tea.
And then it happens, Scene One: Anticipation.
Counsellor: "Would you like a cup of tea?"
Me: "Yes please, I'd love one. I'm gasping!"
Scene Two: Refusal.
Counsellor: "Sorry but there seems to be no milk."
Me: "What? Would you say that again?"
Counsellor: "Yes, certainly. There is no milk today."
Scene Three: Devastation (this bit happens in my head).
Me: "But there CAN'T be no milk." And no offer of going to the shop, or letting me go, no extensive apology and still, no milk. No milk, no tea. Who is this person? I have trusted her with my head, now it seems I can't even trust her for milk.
And I regress about two years.