What I Offer

What is Counselling? (My Counsellor)

"Counselling takes place when a Counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore the difficulty the client is having. It is always at the request of the client as no one can be 'sent' for Counselling". (British Association for Counselling Sept 1999)

Acceptance and respect for the client are essentials for a Counsellor. By listening attentively and patiently the Counsellor can begin to perceive the difficulties from the clients point of view and can help them to see things more clearly, possibly from a different perspective. Counselling is a way of enabling choice or change of reducing confusion.

The client can explore various aspects of their life and feelings with the possibility of making them easier to understand. As the relationship develops, so too does the trust between the Counsellor and the client, enabling the client to look at many aspects of their life, their relationships and themselves which they may not have considered or been able to face before. The Counsellor may help the client to look at the options that are open to them and help them to decide the best for them.

My Counsellor

My Counsellor is a moderately screwed-up individual. He has deep-seated passion which, I find attractive, though that passion has no particular focus or at least it has had many foci over the years. As is usually the case, a persons strength is also his weakness and my Counsellor is aware of the ways in which his passion can raise for him the dangers of emotional over-involvement. My Counsellor also gets moderately depressed at times, though he seems able to work despite that. At these times I suspect he operates at about 75% of maximum holding 25% back to keep him safe. (And keeping me safe in the process). At these times I find 75% of him to be plenty for me to use in a facilitating way. I suspect my Counsellor's psychopathological leaning is in his direction of a mild personality disorder (indeed, we have talked about that). His difficulty is not so great that he cannot empathize or that he is seriously ego syntonic, but is enough to make him susceptible to projection at times. But, again, he is aware of that tendency in himself and can easily repossess his projections and not continue to push them upon me. My Counsellor can laugh at himself, which tells me that there is some degree of self-acceptance: I believe that this self accepting is important for both of us; he is a good Counsellor - a man that I can trust to be whatever he is, without pretence. He does not seek to usurp, my power, or to impose his own. He does not need me to think of him as 'clever' or 'wise' nor any such foolish thing. I like his passion and his humour: Indeed I love him dearly.

Key Point:

Counsellors do not need to have resolved all their personality conflicts. Some of these conflicts can be made safe through awareness and management.

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