Learning Journal 4

Diversity has a lot to do with empathy I believe. That is, the ability to really understand how it feels to walk in that persons shoes. That alone takes a real letting go of preconceptions, leaving thoughts at the door and being prepared to open a new page on whatever that person brings. They are not a book you have already read. For me it means being prepared to work on my tendency to feel like I already understand someone, rather than maintain the desire to keep trying to hear how they experience their world and not adjust it to my own objective realities. When it comes to how that person has experienced their own challenges by way of prejudice or inequality, it must be incredibly important to believe that persons recount of their experiences of diversity.

Crucially to the client that shared experience of their understanding of how they have been stereotyped or discriminated against can only come if we as workers allow ourselves to do 2 things. Both to truly experience their reality but then to convey our understanding of that reality also. Then the counselor will be able to know how that person experiences their uniqueness or sub culture/micro-culture, but in a therapeutic offer, be able to share that understanding with the other person. That would then be a communication between the two people that may form a connection and so be supportive and beneficial to the client.

Diversity is going to work on so many different levels in counseling as the therapist surely benefits from being both aware of the 100% individuality of their client, that the client may or may not know their own uniqueness within their world and also that the therapist needs to aware of their own biases and prejudices and self-held beliefs that may impact the work they can offer a client. By communicating a shared understanding of the clients individual experiences to the client from the therapist by being known, the client can have their experience validated and whatever issues they have brought they can now look upon with a degree of validation and greater self-interest.

To raise self-interest and greater self-respect is key to a lot of my current in the drug and alcohol field. Although I do not counsel clients I still support them and play I feel a potentially important role in facilitating them to access their own resources for positive change. That requires the core conditions for me and pertinently, an appreciation of their experience of diversity issues given them often come with marginalizing compounding issues beyond the drug/alcohol ones, often being the pre-cursor.

I experience a strange reaction to clients in the drug and alcohol field, that I meet sometimes that I can only describe as empathy then a building prejudice. It really is rather strange. A very recent and very illustrative example would be this week. I interviewed a client transferring from Plymouth to our region and who wanted prescribing methadone. I spent about 40 minutes being right there with him in his anxiety, difficulty to attend groups, inability to use public transport, in and out of prisons, struggle to feed 4 kids, no job, partner caring fro him as too anxious to leave house on his own. Then his exacerbation at the cost of getting to our service meant effectively he had to pay for his methadone. It was that last statement that all of a sudden bothered me. “I have to pay for my methadone” – by proxy as we do not refund public transport. Right then and there he lost me. It really bothered me that he had so much for free, then had the check to complain he may be inconvenienced to access his free class A drugs. This is big for me. It goes to my very core. I think I want a society that is supportive and inclusive and doesn’t let anyone fall through the net as it were, but at the same time I cant stand laziness, something for nothing culture and expectations of others to provide when you yourself offer society nothing. Where does that come from? Is there a something for nothing culture? If by developing a feeling of entitlement would I not simply be enabled by a lack of support and inadequate life chances?

Its only when feelings like this really jar with me that I can notice my attitudes and prejudices. Where do they come from? Maybe my parents drumming into me the contempt for laziness from an early age or the culture of working as many hours as possible to be ‘successful’. Possibly a search for validation from others that may come from being a member of a team/society and precisely not the member of a team/society that needs to be carried. I am not sure, but I do know how it feels to be carried. The trap that it is, the cycle of being tied to a ball and chain that is a dependency and with it the inability to value yourself, to be physically or mentally able to set goals let alone achieve them. Couple with that the lowered self-esteem that comes with attending services, having to claim benefits and not being able to hold down a job. Yet, even having been there in my own position of feeling trapped, I still have to actively challenge the negative feelings that can be raised in me when it comes to hearing stories about people in this situation. Are they products of environments? Was I? Do I not still feel that ultimately I had choices, no matter how limited? Therefore can I blame myself for making poor choices, still? Do I still blame myself for making poor choices and carry a burden of this blame? If this is the case, how much are these ideals still going to be present when I work with a client base that largely is dependent and may well have made poor choices? Can I realistically maintain the conflict? Its interesting that when I am working with people on a one to one basis, this has never before cropped up, only when that one comment was made and pushed buttons. All times previous I have not struggled with core conditions but I recognize in me when that service and role comes under threat.

It actually feels quite a lot of relief has passed over me by getting this on paper. By expelling these thoughts I feel lighter. By going through this process I can be aware and know that this could come up for me with clients and to be mindful of it and how I express myself in these situations, but also that I need to be aware of my buttons and what pushes them, then I can be a lighter and less burdened practioner.

Over-identification is definitely something I need to be mindful of as a worker with clients who present with drug and alcohol issues. The marginalization, the prejudices and the stigma attached can feel all too familiar, yet is it? Is it familiar to me at all? My family were particularly exhausted and frustrated but my years of addiction, yet that does not mean I can relate to another persons family problems or the lack of work, or the being in a bed-sit. I can recall multiple issues being in a fog of chemical dependence yet it doesn’t endow me with insight in to another’s world. Not one bit. Not if I to offer them true empathy.