We all know the experience of doing a jigsaw only to find that we can’t complete it because at least one piece is missing. It’s frustrating to say the least. All that effort and we are cheated at the very last moment. Like revising hard for a test or exam. We are confident that we will do well. Then we get our result and find we have scraped by with the lowest possible pass grade. So unfair! And in the case of a jigsaw, probably not our fault. Someone else has lost the piece and not bothered to tell anyone. And certainly not me! My reaction in these cases is to sulk and refuse to go near a jigsaw ever again. “I’ll take up cross country ski-ing” I say. “Or ultra marathons.” I can hear my ‘angry child’ sulking loudly.

As a counsellor, I meet this reaction many times. A patient comes to me because their marriage is in trouble. Or they are permanently depressed and anxious for no apparent reason. “It’s so unfair”. Someone has stolen a vital piece that is needed to finish the jigsaw of their life. Our task is to try and understand what piece is missing.

“Is it the sky?” 

“No, the sky is all there.”

“The beach?”

“No. We have a proper sandy beach.”

“So what are we missing?”

“It’s that tree. It’s missing a branch.”

And so we might continue. Working with what it feels like to be missing an important part of the picture. And to wonder how and where it might have got lost. We are then faced with the impact this missing piece has. Sometimes the impact is small. At other times it looms large. Another part of the work in counselling is to assess the damage that this missing piece has on a person. 

One of my patients had suffered sexual abuse as a child and more abuse in her adult relationships. She commented “I’m never going to not have these memories, am I?” She was right. Counselling won’t erase her memories, but it can detoxify them. As she heals and grows, she will build healthy relationships and lay down new memories. She is young enough to have a good number of years ahead of her in which to do this. Therapy has helped her not only to know that a piece of her is missing, but to mourn that loss and to give it a proper burial.

I like this quote by Louis l’Amour— who might have made a good therapist! 

“No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.”

Therapy won’t wipe out our memories of bad things. It can’t necessarily find that missing piece of the jigsaw. But it can help with how we manage that loss. And that’s no small thing.