Journal post 29; 29th april 2013

 

I began today feeling okay about things. For me; I feel that recently my placement work has really compounded a lot of the theory work we have been doing, and my confidence as a counsellor has increased. Of course, as my out of college workload has increased I have found less time to spend on my written work, not to mention any relaxation pastimes (I can’t remember the last time I picked up  a piece of knitting and sat down for an evening’s TV watching) – but I am okay with that. I am comforted by the knowledge that is the last few weeks of the course now, the final push, so this is what I expected to happen really. Of course, technical issues (like losing an entire weekend’s worth of work due to a computer crash late on sunday night) don’t help matters, but hey – what can you do?

We began by recapping on person centred theory and practise in relation to an existential perspective, and how this should be conveyed in the exam. An exercise on enhanced empathy  was enjoyable, even if I did unconsciously put myself in the ‘rebel’ role again in class discussion, and lay myself open to criticism. I always seem to do that, throw a slightly controversial perspective on things – it’s like I just feel the need to mix things up a little bit all the time. The issue debated was; how much of one’s own personality should be brought into the counselling room in a session? Of course a counsellor should always be congruent, I feel this wholeheartedly, and cannot imagine working in any other way now – but I told the group about my placement experience last week, where a moment of silence and reflection in the session had been rudely interrupted by an engine being revved outside (there is a mechanic working directly behind the building). Upon being interrupted, as we were, I felt the client’s  annoyance at the noise, and had voiced it, saying (not over aggressively, but with a snark in my voice nonetheless) ‘Oh, will you please be quiet?’ towards the window, where the noise was coming from. This felt appropriate to me to say, as it was what I was picking up from the client, and the client certainly didn’t seem to mind my reaction – he was too cross with the noise to be cross with me. Our moment of reflection had already been broken, and voicing our shared annoyance at that seemed to strengthen our togetherness, to me,  and I very much believe, to him as well. The other members of the group were concerned that my voicing of the annoyance might have taken away from his feelings in the moment; that my personality being shown might overshadow his. I listened, and understood what they were saying, but ultimately found that I could not agree – I still feel that therapeutically, it is our relationship that carries the weight of our work, and part of that relationship rests on my personality being involved. Certainly, the session is not about me in any way, shape or form, but to inject a little of me into a reaction doesn’t feel wrong to me. Well, it didn’t, anyway.

After that, we took a long time digesting the concept of Martin Buber’s ‘I-Thou’ construct. This is concerned with the way the individual relates to the rest of the world, bridging the gap between phenomenology and existentialism. Phenomenology involves  working within the client’s frame of reference, in the here and now – by linking it with existentialism we take that internal process and link it with their view of the world, their existence and their place in the world. The relationships between objects (meaning literally, objects, or people)  can be described as I -It ( a relationship which has no empathy with the object, no real connection) or I-Thou ( a relationship where the object holds a place for the individual, the individual has feelings for it, is connected to it) Once a therapist has ascertained whether there is an I-Thou relationship with an object they can begin to work on the feelings towards it. For example, in the case of an addiction – what is the role of the object the individual is addicted to? Is it a transference relationship? How will the therapist work with that? It gives us, as therapists, tools into empathising on a deeper level and direction for our work. This was brilliant for me, as one of my placements involves counselling addicts in recovery. I felt very excited that this had given me new perspectives to take into supervision with me later this week.

After lunch, we were watching skills videos again; this time it was my turn to be the client in the video – quite a traumatic experience, actually. This particular video had been shot 6 months ago – a lifetime in terms of my learning in my way of being. I couldn’t bear it, and spend the whole duration watching between my fingers, as my hands covered my face in horror. Aside from all of my usual annoyances that I have about watching myself (my weight, my voice etc) I felt a huge sadness at the incongruence conveyed by my past self; I laughed almost all the way through, despite talking about really sad experiences. I presented my information factually, as if I were disconnected from it, yet appearing to be open and okay with my dirty laundry being aired – plainly I wasn’t! I know that this video was made before my medication levels had been really looked at in detail, maybe that played a part, but the overall feeling I had was of someone who lacked self awareness in her whole demeanour, as far away from being an effective counsellor as it is possible to be. Funny, yes – quirky, yes, probably quite nice to be with at a party or something, but not a confidante, not a fellow journeyman.  I hope I have moved on as much as I think/want to have, I really do.

Process group was awful. Painful. Literally. My head started hurting towards the end of the video being shown, and built and built throughout one of the quietest, slowest, most torturous process groups ever. Hardly anyone spoke. I know why it was torturous, but I wasn’t going to say. I couldn’t be bothered to – and no one else was going to either. It is because our group has been fragmented, the splits within it have finally been acknowledged – they were out loud during our extra workshop last week. Almost all of the group members were finally present this week – way, way, way too late in the day to change things now, as far as I am concerned. I am not interested in them as participators anymore, I am sorry to say. I ran out of empathy a while ago, having given them the benefit of the doubt again and again. So, as a result there seemed little point in participating in process with them. My head was pounding by then, despite the tablets I took, and after the group had finished, I made my excuses and left the day an hour early, to go home and lie in a dark room. A somatic response to stress, pain, frustration, disappointment? Probably. Definitely. A lack of congruence in not saying anything? Just exhaustion, I think, and a feeling that it is pointless. *sigh*

Related articles

• The Pursuit of Meaning (volitionsphilosophy.wordpress.com)

 

Journal post 27; 22nd April 2013

 

 

I began today feeling completely exhausted!  I don’t know if I am a bit under the weather at the moment, or it was because I was up till quite late the night before, writing – but either way, I felt like death. I told everyone at check in, though, and made sure I drank plenty of coffee through the day, in a bid to keep myself alert and participating. Having very nearly not come in, I was glad I did, as the day’s subject matter was introduced – existential counselling – my favourite! I was actually really pleased, for purely selfish reasons, that we would be talking about a subject that already resonated so strongly with me, as I knew it would be more likely to keep me lively for the discussion.

 

We discussed the basics of existential philosophy, the four givens – death, isolation, freedom and meaninglessness, and expanded as to how those subjects can be further developed for a counselling approach using the four dimensions of human existence – the physical, social, psychological and spiritual realms. The most prominent existential counselling theorists; Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Emmy Van Deurzen and Mick Cooper, were discussed (I think I have mentioned all of them in previous journals at one point or another – they seem to be the counselling texts I am drawn to and take the most from) and  we – the group- read through a few texts together, prompting lots of lively discussion about how we felt about this approach. The exercise that followed from this discussion  didn’t sit too well with everybody in the group – maybe it was a little too morbid for some? But for me it was, although emotional, a breeze.  We were asked to imagine our death, consider what we would like to have written as our epitaph, imagine our funeral and contemplate our life and death, meditating thoroughly on them.  The exercise itself posed no problem for me – I visit these places daily, I think about them constantly. What was harder for me was sharing that with the group. You see, I like to think that I project a fairly sunny disposition, generally – I like to make people laugh, and think – I like to get people talking and enjoying debate, but what I do try not to talk about so much is my own private thoughts, as I feel that they are probably too dark to share.

 

I had a near death experience 13 years ago when my son was born. My heart stopped beating and I had to be revived, and I had the whole ‘floating above my body, shining white light’ thing that so many others talk of. I didn’t die though – the thing that pulled me back from the peaceful place was the fact that I had just become a mother, and I needed to see my son, and as such I spent the following ten years throwing myself into the role of mother and wife wholeheartedly, up until my divorce, anyway. I think I have also mentioned in previous journals, that I am not what one would describe as a ‘well’ person; constantly anaemic, a crohn’s sufferer and bipolar. I suppose it is living with these things and having been through what I have, that  gives me my general  questioning outlook on life – what is it all about? Am I living my life the way I want to live it? What if I were to die tomorrow? Or be incapacitated? What things give me meaning? I am quite sure that my experiences have automatically made me confront the concepts of the four givens, so as to not be afraid of them. Although, to a degree, I think that the questioning within me may have always been there – I have always counted Camus, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Tolstoy among my favourite  fictional authors, and I love to read books on philosophy generally.

 

Anyway, as I said, my funeral has been long planned – all of my close friends and family know what I want, I tell them regularly. The epitaph was a nice follow on from that thought – ideas that I had already toyed with – what I feel I am compared with what I want to be. I have to say that after the many years of therapy I have been in, I don’t feel too incongruent with what I want to be. Of course, I have more I want to achieve – this course would be nice, for starters! I think that the main difference of note between them  is the element of ‘fear’ – there are still fears that I have, and such I still don’t feel free to fully pursue the life I want to. But I am getting better at confronting them. Recently I have felt a huge shift within me, I think I have noticeably taken a step closer to being the person I want to be – maybe it is the feeling as the end of the course approaches, or maybe it is the fact that I have been on new ‘mind meds’, and that these ones actually seem to suit me quite well!

 

The recognition of the emotional journey that I feel i have gone on, the questions that I have asked myself, I think do undoubtedly affect my style within the counselling relationship. Although I have been working from a ‘person centred’ orientation,  I feel that the congruence required of the counsellor in this ‘school’ is very much in an ‘existential’ style, and that I do already include my perception of these issues in my style in the counselling room. Likewise, the freedom offered within this approach, the humanistic foundation of considering the client as whole and their experiences, what meaning or lack thereof do they gain from that, the autonomy that both the client and counsellor are aiming for – these correlate with the existential counselling values completely, to me.

 

Skills practise in the afternoon; being aware that I was using these principles as a place to come from, made me realize that actually this was completely natural to me – this is what I already do. It was a natural, flowing session, like any that I would have with a regular client within my placement. So, well – there I have it – I guess I could describe myself as an existential counsellor, but actually, one of the things that my ‘existential’ approach to myself has taught me is that I don’t like labels particularly, certainly not on myself – so I will hold off on trying to pigeon-hole myself for a while longer yet…

 

Related articles

• Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals (danielmiessler.com)
• How to Manage Your Existential Dread in Light of, Oh, Everything (jezebel.com)

 

Journal post 26; Monday 15th April 2013

Our first day back after the Easter break, and being the busy bee that I am (now I am working in not one but TWO placements – I started a new placement last week, working with people dealing with drug and alcohol addictions), I had hardly noticed being away – being so busy with the whole balancing act; placements, supervision, personal therapy – not to mention the fact that the kids were off school, and wanting me to cook and provide taxi services! But it seems that I was actually the only one who hadn’t missed college; the general mood within the group on check in this week, was that of deep anxiety – most of them have placements working for a children’s counselling service within schools, and as such they had a complete break from the routine for the holidays – I think that the break, combined with the sudden realisation that we are reaching the final stretch of the course (6 weeks till the exam), and are facing independence as counsellors (possibly, if we do go on to work for a service) gave everyone a sudden reality check. Do I want to be doing this? Do I feel capable of doing this? Will I continue next year? How hard am I finding this?

As usual, being me, although I empathised with the general feeling I did not share the anxiety ( as seems to be becoming a habit) Not that I was feeling full of confidence and self assuredness, but again, for me, this was a wall I had hit many weeks ago in the course, when things were not going so well; my placements were not happening, I was struggling financially and therefore could not afford the cost of the supervision and therapy required, and as a result, was feeling that I wasn’t really participating fully with the process, and was questioning my ability to do so.

A few months later, and what a difference! I am loving my placement work, beyond words. It is not easy, by any stretch, but it is challenging, and fulfilling, and – bizarrely – I actually think I might be quite good at it, too! Certainly my service manager seems pleased with my work – he is full of praise and admiration for what I do, and he even managed to arrange a training morning  for me last week, paid for by the hostel. I (maybe misguidedly, I don’t know, I hope not though) interpret that as being him having faith in me and wanting to invest in developing my skills, for the benefit of his service.

My clients, who began erratically, have settled, noticeably. Absences are rarer, and we are getting to the point in our relationships where some real work can be done. I feel the weight and power of what goes on within our sessions, and I respect and am humbled by the fact that they deem me both capable and trustworthy enough to share this with them. It feels like a very special thing that happens within the counselling room.

I do feel slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of suddenly having lots of written work to tie up, however, and the thought of the exam is not a particularly pleasant one, it is true. But am sort of stoical about these things – they are inevitable, they just have to be faced and gotten on with.

So, when we were asked to do an exercise on ‘embracing authenticity’ as a counsellor and as a person (one can be both – amazing!), asked to question things within us, as whether I am comfortable feeling my feelings? Can I admit distraction, voice irritation, show my anger, put words to affection if it is there, be spontaneous with a client and cope with the unknown, be both gentle and forceful, understand my senses when working with my client, and basically BE ME in response to my client? I actually, hand on heart, felt confident and honest in answering a resounding YES, and I felt proud of myself for being able to answer that. The task asked us to reflect on the impact of congruence (authenticity, honesty, being real) in the counselling relationship – remembering instances when it had real impact on the counselling work, and to think about our congruence with ourselves. When do we feel most connected with our true selves? What has it taught us in relation to ourselves and our approach to counselling, thinking about these things? I found it a process that I met easily, with no resistance at all – in fact, I would say that for me, the path of incongruence now seems alien, horrible to me, and the impact of this in my everyday life has been huge too. I finally appear to have a decent, if only for the sake of the children, relationship with my ex-husband – and I do put that down to my true honesty with myself about how I feel towards him, and my finally relaxing on myself about how I ‘should’ feel. Equally, I am beginning to stop beating myself up in relation to my children; my parenting skills, my guilt for the harm that I believed the divorce caused them.  For the first time since my divorce I actually feel able to begin a romantic relationship again- I feel that I am honest enough with myself to trust myself again, finally. These are all huge things to me – they have made a real difference to my quality of life, and my quality of life, in turn, has made a difference to my abilities as a counsellor. I feel that I come from a much steadier, healthier place, and I think that must radiate to my clients. I don’t feel that I need to hide anything of myself to them – not that I am self-disclosing all over the place, talking about myself within the room, but if I feel compelled to I don’t worry about doing so – I feel that genuineness in the relationship is key, and whatever feels real and right within that should be trusted. Undoubtedly, my supervisory relationship has contributed to this confident feeling, as for the first time I feel that I have a professional sharing my client relationships, their journeys,  and affirming that I am going about being with them in the right way. The few times I have self-disclosed, I have gone straight to my supervisor with it, and she has reassured me that it was ok to do so.

Overall, I would say that my confidence has improved no end through my supervision sessions, generally, in fact. I am glad that I have found a good one, I feel that I have struck gold there, and it is a good feeling. A feeling which I feel is echoing through all aspects of my work right now. Of course, ask me how confident I am feeling again in six weeks time, when the exam is upon me. It may well be a very different story…

 

journal post 25; March 25th 2013

Today’s session was, well, odd. It had a very different feeling to previous weeks. I know I am in a different mind-set to how I have been. I confess, although I have been very much on top of the placement, supervision and personal therapy side of this course in the last few weeks, I have fallen slightly behind with the writing side of things. My change of meds seems to have given me a jolt, and I can feel myself in a much more positive frame of mind than I have been for a long time – of course, I am a little concerned that this could send me into a hypomanic phase; the new found emphasis on having a personal life, and the vigour with which I am pursuing it does seem alien to me (it has been so long since I have had any inclination to do so), and the fact that I am suddenly 2 journals behind does feel like a little alarm bell ringing to warn me of a potential danger that could lie ahead. But this course; the self -awareness that it has taught me, the discipline of examining my behaviour and feelings as they happen; my focus on the here and now, the learnt skill of examining both my internal and external processes; has (I think) given me a valuable tool in monitoring myself and learning how to enforce self-care – not just for my own benefit, but for the benefit of those around me, my friends, family, colleagues and clients. After all, no-one can be counselled by a crazy woman!

Self- care has been a recurring theme within our group for many weeks now. In a way I feel  that perhaps I hit that wall before some of the others did, but check in today revealed a strong sense of anxiety resonating with the other members; a fear of the ‘ever sooner looming’ exam ( we have only 8 weeks) , and the end of the course shortly thereafter. It was also painfully clear that our tutor, J, was not feeling her usual self. Check in was much briefer than usual, and an anxiety radiated from her that is not usually present. As it turned out, she revealed later in the day that she wasn’t feeling up to teaching on this day, she was exhausted by a very stressful family situation, and she recognised that she felt a little ‘unsafe’ and took her leave early. Of course, I am perfectly okay with her doing that, but before I knew that this was going on with her I did feel slightly unsettled, and it did make me worry, and immediately wonder if I, or any of the other members of the group, had done something wrong. I guess this is how a client will feel if a counsellor practises when they really shouldn’t.

So, having spent the morning revising exam techniques, trying to keep us within the discipline of writing from a strictly humanistic perspective (not always that easy when the other theoretical perspectives are always there, lurking within my mind), and most difficult of all; sticking to using humanistic language . There are times when each theoretical school will have their own terminology for describing a similar psychological process. For instance, the psychodynamic concept of transference and countertransference occurs, and could well occur within a humanistic counselling relationship too. It’s just that in humanistic terms this would be described as ‘working with the client’s feelings towards the therapist, and the therapist in turn recognising their feelings towards the client, using immediacy, having the feelings brought to their awareness within the here and now.”

The afternoon, without our tutor, was spent discussing further, going through an old past paper and discussing it within the group. One of the other group members took it upon himself to take charge of the discussion and sat in the tutor’s seat, writing on the white board and generally leading the debate, something which the other group members didn’t seem to mind very much, but I got really annoyed by! How dare he think that he knew better than anyone else in the room? My inner rebellious streak was activated, and I found myself disagreeing with him on purpose, actively, and arguing his points, insisting that I was not going to accept what he said, purely because it was he that had said it! The other group members were a little surprised at the open friction between us, but actually he seemed to take it in very good humour, welcoming the debate. Thank goodness. I did apologise for it in the process group immediately afterwards, and he seemed to not be too upset. I explained to him that actually, in a weird way to me, my feeling comfortable enough with him to challenge him and not feel worried that he would hate me for it was a big step forward for our relationship. I think it was.

I took the feeling of elation at the progress I felt our relationship had made further within the process group, and I made it my place to continue being the rebel, and challenged a couple of other group members. I took care not to sound aggressive, but I wanted to make them think. Sometimes (as if often the case within the counselling relationship) it seems perfectly clear what is going on with people, but they can’t see it themselves. A counsellor should never tell the client what their thought process is or means (an abhorrent idea, and the absolute opposite of what a good counsellor should do) but should be able to challenge the client into thinking about their process for themselves, and helping them come to their own conclusion. In fact, this is vital, as no person can ever make an assumption about what another person is thinking or feeling or acting out. Carl Rogers firmly believed that, it is one of the corner stones of person centred theory. It is hard, as a counsellor, to challenge though (as I discovered) as there has to be a huge amount of trust within the relationship for it to be acceptable, and not detrimental to the overall process.

Of course, if choosing to challenge for their own needs, as I think maybe I did at the beginning, one must be able to study why they do that, and whether that is significant. For me, I know that it follows a behaviour pattern for me. I do not like being told what to do or think, particularly not by men, it seems. A hangover from growing up in a house full of women (one of 3 daughters), going to an all-girls school, being ‘the boss’ for most of my working career, and being an independent divorcee in recent years. As behaviour patterns go, it is not one that I am too worried about actually. Maybe if it starts hindering my future relationships this will have to be something I re-address, but for now I am kind of okay with it. I don’t see the harm. I think I have intuition enough to know when to use it and when not to. Of course, my exes may not agree with that, but I like to think that that is why they are ‘exes’, not ’present’s…

Journal posts 22 and 23 ( a week missed, off sick); march 11th 2013

It felt like I had been away from college for a very long time; it had been half term, and then I had been ill, so I was pleased to be back, despite not feeling quite one hundred per cent recovered. I was relieved to see everyone, and feel that they weren’t too let down by my not being there last week – everyone seemed incredibly understanding, none more so than J, our tutor, and so on check in my first tears of the day were spilled, as she made sure that I – and everyone else in the room- acknowledged just how awful the last few weeks had been for me. Oh, there is nothing like feeling a bit sorry for myself to get the waterworks flowing, and it seemed that today was going to be one of those days that examined my ‘life deficit’ in even more detail, prompting even more tears. Still, painful as it is, I am doing it, I am not shying away as I used to (although I do still try the odd trick, to get out of owning up to my upset – not because I don’t want to face it as such, but because I am embarrassed at how much crying I seem to do in our sessions). This last time last year, when we were studying our CBT module, I managed to avoid being the ‘client’ for the entire process! Nothing like that is going on any more, and I feel proud of myself that I am facing up to my stuff in a much more congruent way these day, even if I am, erm, ‘soggier’ for it…

We continued after check in with a quick recap on the work they did last week – the concept of working at ‘relational depth’ in person –centred counselling (meaning ‘A sense of connectedness and flow with another person that is so powerful that it can feel quite magical. At these times, the person feels alive, immersed in the encounter, and truly themselves while experiencing the other as open, genuine and valuing of who they are.) Developed by Dave Mearns and Mick Cooper, the idea is that the core conditions are not simply ‘tools’ that are used, that they become an integral part of the counsellor, the very principles by which we work from, enabling this work to take place at ‘relational depth’, where change can happen, where communication does not skim over the surface, but is used to facilitate movement from deep within. A hugely powerful concept, and to me, the essence of person centred counselling; something that couldn’t possibly be attained without congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy being at its heart.  In my experience, the very best work that we do with clients is when it comes from the soul, and to touch someone’s soul, requires you to access your own. To me, it is reminiscent of those late night chats with your best friend, after a bottle or two of wine, where the real truth is revealed and dissected; pored over and pounded. We counsellors want the conversation to reach that level (but in a clear headed state, where the content can be remembered the next day!) Clients interviewed after  reporting back as having achieved this, have said they felt it was; Empowering and useful as a catalyst for change, that it lessened painful feelings; that there was a positive effect on the therapeutic process, a deepening and  equalisation of the relationship, greater trust in their therapist, and that they were more able to vocalise their innermost thoughts and feelings;  that from that they gained a sense of connectedness to their own selves, greater self-knowledge and understanding and acceptance and that with that they felt more able and powerful to move on and break their patterns of thinking, and enjoy better relationships with others.

Powerful stuff. This led on to this week’s subject – ‘the divided self’; the idea of sub-personalities, as written about by John Rowan (‘Discover your Sub Personalities’; 1993, Routledge, London). Immediately, this sounded very Jungian to me – akin to ‘personas’ and ‘archetypes’. Sub –personalities are pieces of the whole of the overall personality, which have a life of their own, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, intentions and agendas. There’s the rebel and the martyr, the seducer and the saboteur, the judge and the critic and a host of others, each with its own mythology, all co-existing within a person.  Counsellors must recognise these facets within both us and our clients, and understand that one of them has a story to tell. Each one views the world differently. Each one interprets the events of life differently. Which ones control behaviour, thinking, and choices? Attention needs to focus on those that constantly provoke, react and attack. They are hurt and angry, wounded and in need of healing, if there is to be any inner harmony.

This was both incredibly hard and incredibly easy for me to get my head around, simultaneously.  I am bipolar; I naturally exist in extremes – I am very well aware of the inner conflicts within me. I got the concept in a heartbeat, but when we went on to do a survey that measured our sense of self, in terms of pluralism, my results came out completely opposing everyone else’s in the room, and that made me extremely upset! For a bipolar person to be okay with themselves, they have to be comfortable with that level of multiplicity operating within – it is all right, they are all a part of me, and coexist within me; I have to accept myself as being multiple and opposing at times. It doesn’t mean I don’t know who I am – quite the opposite; I know exactly who I am, a person who exists in extremes (when not properly medicated, anyway).

We were asked to identify five inner sub personalities, and share them with the class – I couldn’t possibly get it down to less than eight (I could have named hundreds) they were; dreamer, healer, vulnerable child, perfectionist, muse, clown, explorer and rebel. I would say that these are the main ego states I flit between. I could go on to describe how, but it would take all day, and may well be enough for a book, not a journal entry!

The morning ended with a creative realisation, where were asked to firstly focus on a part of our body, then to associate a symbol with that part of the body, then to full imagine that symbol as being alive and real, and to have a conversation with it. Here is what I managed to remember and jot down of mine;

(I had focussed on my stomach and imagined a warm, soft, red heart.)

Me; Love, how do I feel about you? You have deserted me.

Heart; No, I haven’t – you have love all around you, Ungrateful Girl – your family, your friends…

Me; But I want more than that. I want romance, to feel safe, protected and warm, again

Heart; Maybe you could have these things if you made yourself open to them, and ready.

Me; I can’t do that, I got too damaged before. When I lost you before, and lost my family along with you, I broke beyond repair.

Heart; you’ll never be like you were before again, but you can still be ready for me.

Me; How? What do I need to do?

Heart; Take risks again…

 

Wow! Yet more powerful stuff, and more tears. It was lunch time straight after that, and I needed the break. I felt exhausted and a bit ill again – probably from the strain of it. I can’t remember a morning where I had been more present and focussed, for ages…

We watched another skills video after lunch, filling me with more dread about showing mine next week, and then it was the process group; lovely process group. Actually, this week wasn’t so bad. I was really trying hard to be attentive and alert, but as often does happen, the conversation at points drifted into boring drivel. When it was alive though, it was really honest, brutal and raw – and it was  for these moments that I tried to stay with it ( the trouble is with my brain, particularly after a bout of illness, and some  new mind meds that are still settling, it goes off, and it takes all my energy to bring it back, to re-engage with myself, let alone those around me, at times), and so I tried my best to participate with the others, experience them fully. I found myself pulling them back to the here and now at various times – there was much anxiety about the future being talked about; about the exam, about next year, about completing this year and where it will take us, how we will manage. I couldn’t handle it; I was going there too if I wasn’t careful, so I kept  on bringing it back with, “but we’re here, now..,” and “what would you say to a client who told you that?” and it felt pretty good to do that. It was exactly what I would do when working with a client (and probably in my outside relationships too).  I chose not to share in the anxiety though, I didn’t want to, not just to show empathy – I mean of course, I do have fears about these things, but to actually try to empathise, more than I already do, could definitely push me over the edge into anxiety, and mania, somewhere I can easily end up anyway, without taking silly risks that I know could take me to that place!

The final part of the day, the supervision section, another part I often struggle to make it through –often being quite emotionally exhausted by that time of day – was another very conscious effort from me to stay alert and participate fully. A fellow student was sharing his experience of counselling in a drop in centre; his frustration when a client didn’t turn up, and his struggle to keep boundaries in place with a centre that is new to having counsellors working there. I have first-hand experiences of these issues, and through being thrown in at the deep end somewhat, have learnt some valuable lessons and strategies that could be useful to him, so I tried to share them with him. I think he took them on board; I was very aware that he was feeling quite defensive about it – again, just as I had during my first group supervision session, and so I tried to be sensitive, yet constructive with him by offering him suggestions of techniques that have worked for me and sympathy to his situation. (Normative and restorative, perhaps?) I hope he was okay with it; I think he was.

So, to finish the day off, a quick run through of the last essay we had to do, with a fellow group member who feels she is struggling academically at the moment. I told her “I am no expert but I can show you how I went about it,” and she seemed to be appreciative of that. It made me feel good to try to help. My inner healer, rising up again for fulfilment…

 

Strategic therapy; techniques used by Milton Erickson

Whilst looking at my blog stats, it came to light that many people had arrived here whilst searching for information on the therapeutic techniques used by Milton Erickson. I recently had to write about them myself, and became aware that there are not that many online resources for this information; particularly ‘simple’ ones, that aren’t buried deep in the middle of other (wonderful, of course) academic works. It is with this in mind that I have decide to post a small extract from one of my essays about him, in the hope that it will prove useful to any other out there who find themselves in the situation I was in – hope it helps! 

Jay Haley, the popular proponent for this approach, wrote “Strategic therapy isn’t a particular approach or theory, but a name for the types of therapy where the therapist takes responsibility for directly influencing people” It is developed from the work of  Milton H. Erickson MD, one of the world’s leading hypnotists and psychiatrists. Erickson believed that within one’s consciousness, everyone has the power to heal himself or herself, and he used some quite revolutionary techniques to facilitate the client’s acknowledgment of these resources.

His work with hypnosis continued directly from  Freud’s early findings, where the procedure was initially used, but abandoned in favour of other unconscious delving methods such as free-association. Traditional psychoanalytic techniques, although effective, are time consuming, often taking many months for therapeutic progress to be made; psychoanalysis can take years. Erickson wanted a faster moving approach. He believed that the unconscious mind was always alert and listening to the world whether a trance state or waking state;  it was said that he could make suggestions that would lead to a hypnotic state without the client being aware of ‘being put under’ or any such process that could feel unusual or uncomfortable in any way. It must be noted that as the word hypnosis” is used here, it does not apply to a ritual but to a type of communication between people. Milton Erickson explored an almost infinite variety of ways of inducing hypnotic trance and he used this knowledge to engage in what seemed to be perfectly normal conversations with clients however these speech communications would induce a trance.

Acknowledging that both hypnosis and therapy require persuasion, a degree of cooperation and motivation from the client, Erickson recognised that even when motivated, clients would still resist the benefits offered by the practitioner. There are two main types of resistance: not being quite cooperative enough, and being too cooperative. When a subject does not respond quite as he should, the therapist accepts that response, and encourages it so that the client finds himself caught; his attempt to resist is now defined as cooperative behaviour; No matter what he does, he is following the therapist’s suggestion, obliging is unavoidable, and once that is acknowledged it makes the whole process clearer. Once the client and counsellor are truly working together the new desired behaviours can be introduced and accepted.

Reframing would be used to recast a particular conflict or situation in a less threatening light. For instance; a father who constantly pressures his son regarding his grades may be seen as a threatening figure by the son. Reframing this conflict would involve gently steering the conversation into focusing on the father’s concern for his son’s future and helping the son to “hear” his father’s concern instead of constant demands for improvement.

Another technique he used, providing a worse alternative; directing the patient in one direction in such a way that he is provoked to go in another. He might ask for a response the subject does not care for, and the subject will then choose an alternative in which he participates fully. We commonly call that ‘reverse psychology’, and although with our traditional views on therapy it may seem odd for a therapist to practise in this way, Erickson proved that using this technique can sometimes provide the jolt a client needs to stimulate their autonomy kicking into action.

Sometimes when a client is particularly resistant, Erickson tried communicating in metaphor; when A is resisted, the therapist can talk about B, and unconsciously realising that the two are connected, the client can do the processing at a more comfortable level for the client.

He also advocated encouraging relapse in clients that were ‘too receptive’. He was aware of the potential for transference within the client/counsellor relationship providing a situation where the client may want to please the therapist, often through ‘over cooperating’. By encouraging the client to revert to previously discarded behaviours, he created a situation where they have either have to resist (thus breaking that transference, and pushing the client into independence) or comply, whereby he can ascertain that the therapy hadn’t been truly effective and then work with the client to find other ways of achieving the desired result, in a more effectual way.

These techniques lend themselves particularly well to group therapy, and as such Brief Strategic Therapy is commonly used as a family therapy. The therapist can take the directive, creating the right circumstances for clients to really get a feel for the point of view and feelings of the others within the group and challenging the group into working together as a team (or not). The therapist can use his powers of guidance to deal with the issues and perspectives he deems necessary, with his objective perspective.

Related articles

• Reverse Psychology (dranilj1.wordpress.com)
• Let me try to explain (lindagwalker.wordpress.com)