When I meet
with a client for the first time I might ask, “Why are you here?” “Why now?”
“What do you want to get out of working with me?”
Not because
I’m trying to annoy you with endless questions but as a means of identifying
how best you can use your time and energy, and let’s face it, your money, to get the
best out of your counselling experience. It’s a bit
like starting on a journey. Unless
you’re on a mystery tour and someone else is in charge of the destination you
generally know where you want to go. You
might make the journey in stages and buy a ticket for the first part, then when
you arrive there, consider the next leg and so on. If you have gone to the trouble of sourcing a
counsellor, you have already given some thought as to where you
would like to be at the end of the journey even if it’s only “not in
this place”. So a conversation about
what’s wrong with “this place” can be the beginning. Initially some
clients may come with a list of things wrong in their lives and wanting to be
“fixed”. Counselling isn’t about fixing
you or even offering you advice as to how you can fix yourself. It’s about
understanding yourself better through talking and being heard in a confidential
relationship that accepts you where you are in the here and now without
imposing conditions of where you should be. Some clients will want to explore how they got
to this point in their lives so we might look at patterns that have developed
in the past that are impacting on your life in the present and threatening to
impair your future. Or it might be that
the past was okay, it is the present circumstances that are causing your pain,
perhaps through bereavement or other losses that need the space to grieve and
to re-locate the person or event in your life. Even at this
early stage, working with the therapist to identify and clarify problems that
you might want to work on, can actually result in significant change occurring.
The fact that you have shared your thoughts with someone who is actively
listening to you and attuned to how things are for you begins the process of listening to yourself
with compassion and that’s something we all need more of.
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CategoriesAttunement and the Therapeutic RelationshipEmotional Eating - An Exercise in Mindful Awareness Getting Started in Therapy Trapeze Moments What's stopping you reaching your potential? Why is Anxiety such a Worry |
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