Self-awareness: May 1st 2009

We are starting to think about where we might study next. I am considering the next year of the diploma. K is thinking about the MA, brave soul. Quite honestly the price makes me blench (plus paying for my own counselling) so It's the diploma for me. We also need to think about the next essay.

What was clarifeid for me about the act of counselling another is the need for self awareness. That is to say; it's fine to feel the same emotions as your client but, in order to avoid the horrors of counter-transference, one must be AWARE of one's identification with the client's feelings and seek to maintain a distance from them. This is to avoid the danger of projecting one's own desires onto the actions of another. K put it very well: We are human. Humans have needs. If needs are not acknowledged, they may (on an unconscious level) become demands. This was reassuring because as a counsellor, one is not an 'expert' necessarily, though I suppose that depends on the context of the counselling relationship.

On a practical level we started on the practical tasks of learning to establish a relationship with a client.

T and I discussed a 'script' for this purpose and decided that:
- be friendly and welcoming, good eye contact. Introduce oneself and establish the other person's name from the off.
- set up the framework eg: ' we're just going to talk about our previous experiences of being counselled for about five minutes'
- focus on client, open body language, encouraging 'um-hums' etc.

We engaged in role play in triads. K, V and I took turns to play at being a newcomer to the group and encouraged the newbie to relate a previous experience of counselling that had helped them. Very interesting to consider our non-verbal communication skills. For some peculiar reason I had a tight grip on my phone and I wasn't even the timekeeper. K also noted that I was a bit keen to leap in with observations from my own experience. All good feedback. K seems very accomplished, I must say. Her input is very valuable.

Arranged tutorial with A for next week.

Essay: 13th February 2009

The essay looms! It's half-term, the boy is upstairs, my friends have called, the House is reasonable and now I have run out of displacement activities. I don't know why I do this: I love writing, especially essays. The title is a doozy:

How does a counsellor differ from a friend?

Lots of people on the course are doing this one. I think because friends have told us we'd make good counsellors. Now all we have to do is to decide why that is. Musing upon it, I think it comes down to frameworks and context. If this question were a Venn diagram, the two categories would definitely overlap but some aspects of the respective states would remain distinct and discrete.

Well, no good procrastinating about it, I'll have to write it now and will post it on here when it's all done and dusted.

L gave a very interesting presentation today about her daughter who was born at 25 weeks gestation. L was pondering how this experience had affected her daughter psychologically and if it had any ramifications for her in later life if she should seek counselling. A thought it depended very much on the type of counselling sought. So a psychodynamic counsellor would give different weight to the fact of prematurity compared to a transactional analyst. This found favour with the group as a whole.

We then moved on to definitions of mental health. It became clear that cultural heritage can play a part in this. For example people with an Afro-Caribbean heritage were more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. People of Asian heritage were less likely to present to their GPs for diagnosis. Interesting and sobering when considered within the context of colonial history.

L and I took turns to listen and respond in a counselling fashion about the essay question. This proved to be harder to maintain in terms of time boundaries (5 minutes listening). As T pointed out, we are all becoming friends, so that framework of counselling became looser and more about discourse than the practice of counselling skills per se.