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.

Writing styles: 6th February 2009

Today we discussed different writing styles in preparation for the first essay.

It became apparent that a certain balance between the academic and the vernacular was preferable. On the one hand, any quotes should be rigorously referenced to back up (or disprove) your argument but on the other hand there was every danger of sending your tutor to sleep if the tone was too dry and removed from personal experience. Spacing, font, paragraphs and grammar all have their part to play here. Also an awareness of the audience, as it were.

This followed a very honest presentation by M who spoke candidly about how he has altered in his relationships since beginning the course.

16th January 2009

This week: Non-verbal communication. How do I come across by how I dress? Cruella De Vil? Primark Princess? I certainly never mind something cheap that looks like it's more expensive. I feel slightly ashamed for even admitting it but how I look is important to me. Whatever i wear, I just want to put it on, feel satisfied and then forget about it. But, because I am loud, colourful, funky blah blah, I do sometimes fret that I'm hiding... what? A lack of inner substance?? Surely not! I might be a frustrated fashion designer I suppose. E critiques my style and me, hers. She by contrast is very tall, thin and groomed. Her height precludes her from wearing very bright colours, perhaps? We came to no obvious conclusions beyond agreeing that clothes can be codification or indicators of what tribal group you belong to. Also secret signs for certain groups like gay and lesbian for whom more overt display might be dangerous.

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION:
Dress
posture
eye contact
Facial expression
Smell
Mobile ring tones (yes really).

After the break we took turns to be counsellor and client to discuss the subject for the first essay. B went first but my smiling rictus put her off. The brief was to listen without speaking, to indicate our engagement with the client by non-verbal means. I was forced to jump in and ask a question to get B going again and it was fine. I then talked, which I found fine and B's manner was friendly, interested but neutral which made it easy to talk. We had forms to fill in about the experience which we can use to build up a portfolio.

NOTE TO SELF: Don't gurn at the clients. It puts them off.

9th January 2009

An interesting presentation from E who recounted an aggressive encounter she had had when in her other job as a nanny and accompanied by her young charge. She handled it very well but was shaken by the incident. The group were very reassuring and supportive as we discussed various interpretations for the woman's behaviour: something hard to pin down as it is difficult to know what goes on in someone else's head. We agreed that a certain amount of projection and transference must have been going on (on the part of the aggressor) and that it was unlikely to just come out of nothing or indeed as a reaction to anything E might have done.

We then moved on to how we felt about the break and how we felt about coming back to the group. J and I talked about her self-doubt and how she very nearly gave up on the course altogether because of it but I felt she could draw on that feeling as an empathic tool for counselling. We are not experts after all, we are just human.

I then spoke about the holidays, a break in which everybody seemed to be moaning about something. I felt my own concerns to fade somewhat into the background in an attempt to keep everybody happy.

We moved on to different writing styles and discussed it in counselling ways. This I did with T. We identified creative writing, stream of consciousness writing and the academic form. We took turns to speak and to listen. Hard for me to keep my fat mouth shut. Note to self: LISTEN, DON'T INTERRUPT.

First post of 2009:

This an update as I found some thoughts still relating to last year's sessions in my class notebook:

12th December 2009

Some interesting personal revelations came to me unbidden in today's class. We were discussing the completion of the personal learning review paaperwork which led to the following discussion: How am I around people very similar or dissimilar to myself?

I realised that i am actually quite challenged by people similar to myself. I am reminded of a time many years ago when a dear friend said I am bringing someone to meet you. I want to see you together because i think you're very similar. Up turned this boy who was very sweet, not a malicious bone in his body but he never drew breath and seemed very eccentric. After he left, my friend asked me what I thought of him. I denied any perceived similarity but what I really meant was: Is that how people see me? talkative but eccentric? Not the image I had of myself at all! But such is ego and the illusionary tactics of self-image. At least there was no harm in the lad, and by extrapolation, me.

Final post of 2008

We had a very interesting discussion last week about the subject of a forthcoming essay title. Now, personally, I love a good essay. 1500 words? A mere bagatelle. But then I say this as a writer anyway. Slightly different for those who are not used to writing essays and are coming to it fresh, and in some cases, with English as a second language.

The question to be answered was: What are the differences between counselling as a friend and counselling as a 'counsellor'. It seems fairly straightforward. For example, if you have a friend who asks for your advice concerning an aggressive partner, your response might well be; Get a restraining order and LEAVE. As a 'counsellor' I think my approach would be rather more restrained and devoid (as far as possible) of emotion. I think I would ask questions in order to help the 'client' understand why she might stay with an aggressive partner. Is she repeating a pattern of behaviour from earlier relationships or even from childhood? I think what I mean is that good counselling is not necessarily advice as such, but asking pertinent questions and LISTENING.

So, job done! All I have to do is expand that to 1500 words.

No stress then.

Writing exercise

2. Counselling may be used to cope with the challenges of ‘change’.

I shall examine how ‘change’ and the challenges that it presents may be measured against the model defined by Maslow. I shall use as my subject the character of Rose from my screenplay ‘Leave To Remain’. Though she is fictional, I believe that by approaching her dilemmas in a ‘counselling’ way, more specifically in a psychodynamic way, I can understand her character motivations better.

Abraham Maslow identified a hierarchy of needs. Starting with physiological needs then ascending with safety needs, social needs, self-esteem and at the top, self-actualisation or realisation of potential. In the same way that a character’s narrative arc could be measured.

In a script it is vital to understand a character’s motivations, a concept integral to the psychodynamic model of counselling which is concerned with unconscious or external factors in human development and early childhood experiences. The script shows in flashback Rose’s early childhood. Her parents are killed by a fundamentalist Christian sect, God’s Acre, when she is four years old and she is placed into a God’s Acre orphanage. She is encouraged to befriend other children with a view to betraying their anti-religious tendencies.

Fast forward to the young adult Rose. She is still an agent for God’s Acre in the dystopian England of 2015. Rose’s life is at the most basic level of physiological need. She has a place to live (the burnt-out basement of a once-radical bookshop), which she shares with her secret lover, a Resistance fighter. It’s a hand-to-mouth existence. God’s Acre think of her as expendable. Rose unconsciously plays one side off against the other in order to survive and maintain her precarious physiological situation. She resists change. Rose’s machinations fail, her lover is captured and she abandons their child, not an unexpected outcome for Rose as her parents’ death effectively abandoned her.

The new trauma unlocks memories of the past. Rose decides she must find and free her lover, reclaim her child and in so doing begins slowly to move up the hierarchy of need as she changes. Forced into action by having even the physiological needs taken away, change is inevitable as she literally runs out of options. The unfolding of the narrative is itself a metaphor for psychodynamic counselling as Rose examines her past life in the light of her desperate circumstances.

As Maslow’s model might be critiqued for its simplicity and idealism, this too might be seen as a mirror to how a story is created, in that life is not perfect but that art can be and so in the course of the story, Rose ascends through the hierarchy and ultimately realises her own potential by joining sides openly with the Resistance in the North and assuming some authority because of her immersion in God’s Acre and her knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the organisation. Rose copes with the challenges of ‘change’ by connecting her own early experiences with the choices she herself makes and consciously acts to bring about a different outcome.