As a counsellor: Not there to fix ... but to share & empower

One of the strengths of counselling is that the counsellor does not take responsibility for the client, does not give them ‘answers’, does not provide them with advice or tell them what to do. Instead, counselling is about enabling the client to access their own resources, to empower clients to trust in themselves & to learn that they can find their own answers … they don’t need to rely on a counsellor, or anyone else to find their way through their life.

A number of clients come to me ‘expecting’ me to tell them what to do to make themselves feel better or to improve their situation. At times, clients can be quite unhappy and I sense their frustration towards me when I won’t give them advice, when I won’t tell them what to do, when I can’t ‘fix’ everything for them. And it can be difficult at times when a client asks outright for advice and I know that it’s not what I’m there for. As a counsellor, I have to know at a deep level that I’m not responsible for my clients and their lives; my role is to encourage the client’s own discoveries and strengths. I don’t know what’s right for anyone else, I don’t have a book full of answers, and as we are all unique individuals, everyone’s ‘answer’ will be different anyway … it’s for the individual themselves to discover their own solutions. And as a counsellor, I’m in the privileged position of sharing in that process … often starting with the client’s frustrations at themselves, their situation , and myself, moving sometimes through a state of confusion, and then the enlightenment that occurs when someone suddenly sees a way forward, or begins to see things from a different perspective.

But I can’t do that for them. I can only facilitate the process towards that discovery. And sometimes, clients come up with solutions for them that I could never have imagined. Clients can be incredibly creative once they’re given the right conditions in which to explore their thoughts, feelings, emotions, options, etc. So often in life, friends, families and others are too keen to jump in and give people advice … and this can often prove counterproductive. People aren’t encouraged to trust in themselves or to discover their own resources or they often end up doing things to please other people rather than themselves. If they’ve taken someone else’s advice, it’s easy to ‘blame’ that person when things don’t work out, rather than taking responsibility for coming up with their own answers & implementing them.

When clients ask me for advice, or want me to tell them what to do, I simply reflect everything back to them. I often ask them the question that they’ve asked me … and sometimes, actually hearing that question being asked of themselves by someone else enables the client to answer it … I had this experience with a client recently.

I’ve had another client recently tell me about frustrated they felt with me in the early stages of our therapeutic relationship when they were asking me what they should do, and I wouldn’t tell them. That client has since learned that they have the internal resources within themselves to make decisions and implement them . And because of this, that client is learning to trust more in herself, to take more responsibility for her situations … and they’ll take this learning forward into future situations long after therapy is over.

And for me, enabling clients to discover their own inner resources, to learn to trust in themselves and their capabilities and to learn to take more responsibility for themselves and their life situations is one of the biggest strengths of counselling … and seeing these things occurring is one of the (many) privileges of being a counsellor.

Flying

I promised a couple of weeks back to write down some of the thoughts I'd had whilst on holiday, & obviously haven't gotten round to it yet! I'm going to go some way to making amends there with this blog entry....these thought were all written in the back of a text book (which I was reading for my PhD) on the plane on my way over to Murcia in Spain....which for me is a relatively new thing. In the past, I wouldn't have dreamed about writing in a text book; now all of my text books are filled with underlinings, highlights, notes in the margins...& I love them for it now! They look loved, used, & full of bits of me; so much more personal now.

Over the last year I've been lucky enough to do some of my PhD work up in the sky sitting on planes and it's such a lovely place in which to work. There's none of the distractions which are found on the ground. I can't just get up & go out for a walk or for a coffee, and I think that because I know that, I don't want to. I settle down for the duration of the journey & work. And it's lovely to be away from everything. I love that feeling of being away from everything & not being able to do anything about whatever is going on below down on the ground. Away from mobile phones, away from computers; it's just me & my books / papers....& of course, my thoughts. It's nice too to be able to look out of the window at the world miles below or to simply gaze at the clouds & observe the many different cloud formations there are.

There's something reassuring for me too, knowing that I'm safe in the hands of the pilots. I know I don't need to worry about anything; it's nice to completely hand over all responsibility for a while. I know I'm safe up there in their hands. And I know, and trust in the laws of physics and nature to keep the plane up there in the sky. How incredible! And how lucky are we to live in a time when we can enjoy the wonders of air travel. I remember flying over the pyrenees and being amazed at the stunning scenery below; the rugged mountains and stunning shades of aquamarine as pools/lakes reflected the blue of the sky. I was also aware of the danger though... stunning to look at, but if the plane did need to make an emergency landing, it would be impossible to find anything resembling a landing strip there. And sometimes it's that little edge of danger that makes me stop and look at the world with awe, wonder and amazement.

I wonder if the pilots are aware of the responsibility they carry; do they think about the fact that they have all those passengers' lives in their hands? Do they ever stop to think how much we, as passengers, have to trust the pilots who fly us round the world. Are they aware of a sense of power, knowing they're in control of such a big and powerful machine? And it's such a shame that passengers are no longer allowed to visit the cockpit to see the pilot's eye view; it must be amazing to be up front and to see the views directly ahead through their windscreen.

I enjoyed sitting listening to the sounds of the engines. I find it reassuring to hear their gentle purr. I like to listen to what's going on around me, rather than blocking the outside world out with distractions like MP3 players. It's fascinating too, to overhear snippets of other passengers' conversations.. to sometimes hear their fears, their excitements, their plans. I like to look around me & wonder where everyone is heading for; are they off on holiday, business trips, visiting family/friends? Every person sitting in that metal capsule flying through the air has their own story to tell... and we quite often never know what story the person sat right next to us for 'x' hours might have to tell.

Aeroplanes....full of people with interesting lives and stories to tell.....