The Third Voice: Writing Case-notes

The article examines the activity of writing case-notes. For this purpose, case-notes are broadly defined as textual records of encounters between mental health practitioners and their clients. The primary focus is on psychotherapy notes, written for private use. It suggests that note writing is potentially a lively addition to the dialogue within the therapy room, an essential part of the unique relationship that grows between practitioner and client. In particular, it looks at the possibilities of representing intersubjectivity, the third voice, emerging from the dialogue between two subjectivities, in ways that forward both theoretical understanding and the therapeutic endeavour. It will argue that serious engagement with case-notes must of necessity tackle questions of voice, speaking rights, a variety of deafnesses, power, the inscription or oblation of race and gender in professional discourses, and reclamation of knowledge colonized by patriarchal and colonial structures of authority. It is feminist in its orientation. It speaks from a postcolonial African context, and a psychoanalytic approach, and draws on psychotherapy experience saturated with those foundational identities.