Learning Journal 14

The agenda. The clients will have one, or several. Its something we as practitioners will also all have, or several, and for me its about bringing it into awareness so that they don’t catch us out. The clients agenda may be out there from the off, or explicit but there may also be a shadow side to the reason they are there, a hidden agenda. This could also be hidden from them. The same applies to the counsellor. There agenda may also be out there and explicit, for example “I want to help people”, but what lies beneath this saintly façade? For me it’s very much about the boundaries we have also, as the relational framework in which we work will be governed by these and how they emerge from the core agendas we hold. If for example our boundaries become unclear or blurry, such as when we want to make a person feel better, help or heal, or just to not want to listen to a certain narrative or topic that the client wants to express, then whose agenda are we really meeting? What is in the client’s best interests? That’s when boundaries and agendas meet for me, when something like self-disclosure or over-identification could cross a boundary but for the cause of meeting the counsellors agenda. It is perhaps only through constant self-examination and reflection in supervision and journal writing that the apparentness of our agendas can come to the forefront. By talking through what is going on, having it reflected in counselling or therapy we ourselves engage in then we can shin e a torch on what is going on, with a view to knowing so it cannot catch us out.

I found the conversation that we had at the beginning of the day very affirming/interesting as my studies have taken me around the examination of altruism and giving to receive, but its not a view I share with everyone. For me there is absolutely no such thing. Maybe I found what I was looking for on this one as it supports my views on many things. But anyway to me the act of giving is an entirely selfish act, but not selfish in the horrible negative way, but one that has evolutionary purpose. We act for ourselves so that ourselves can survive, pass genes on, fit into society and make sure our family/similar people do ok. We are social creatures and for me that sense of contributing to others may secure us that help or reciprocation in the future. I give to you today, so you might be able to give to me tomorrow, when I might need it. I’m ok with that. It’s not a conscious thing when I donate to the soil association or the green party that it makes me feel good, but I know that I do. And that honesty is all about taking our acts of ‘generosity’ to a deeper level. For me that’s part of my agenda in helping others, that helper’s high to make me feel like I am doing something that makes me feel good is perfectly ok with me, and perfectly ok for others to want to do it too. It feels good. Its ok.

Skills practice was a neurotic nightmare for me this week. I was paired with the kind of person that I can on occasion have the propensity to lurch away from, like a magnetic opposite. The role I played was of a counsellor with an agenda. I took this to light-heartedly and the session began on the wrong foot. There is learning there for me, for sure. Its actually my most common mistake in many scenarios, not just skills practice, but skills practice is very much set up to fail for me, being when I am tired, over-fed and out of attention span. In it, I was opposite, in every sense, to a client who was barriered from the off, before I had any chance to play a role with my agenda. The client I felt decided to make it a game from her very first sentence, at least that’s how it felt to me, scuppered the session. So while I probably didn’t help the situation by being overly probing and clumsily looking for past issues that weren’t there, the fact is we are doing a skills practice and no-one in training benefits from such a difficult client. Its pointless.

In some sort of childish pointless comparison I know that in the previous role play I had played along with a counsellor opposite me that had been wholly inappropriate and terrible, deliberately, but to have been so awkward would have been pointless. I played along. Yet when I was the counsellor the client was not this forgiving. It left me feeling a little cheated. I found the experience of doing this week’s skills practice wholly unpleasant and annoying. Worse still I was barely able to be congruent with the client about how they were making me feel, which would have made it a positive learning experience for us both I suspect. I didn’t go into the skills practice aware of this so yet again I only have myself to blame for going in unprepared, but I suppose there is something in me that has expectations about skills practice. I do not feel it’s a time to be the most difficult client the world could throw at you. I just don’t. We’re trainees and ham acting to extremes is not making the best use of our time. For that reason I got annoyed with the person opposite from the very start of the role play as I felt it was just a waste of time.

I had supervision almost immediately after this day in college, which was actually very useful I think. As well as my caseload questions I brought the car crash role-play as it was on my mind. I restated exactly what I have above but instead of looking at the rights and wrongs and burdening pointless sense of injustice, the fact is I was unable to let the person know how I felt. I was not honest with the client that I felt annoyed. There are ways of being congruent with clients that are for their benefit and I think it’s a growth area for me to be more boundaried in this way. I need to be able to let people know exactly how I am feeling and what a wonderful and freeing place that would be. I think.

What then of my agenda going in to this exercise? Was it to have fun? If so that may be why it was so disappointing as it was the opposite. Why am I going into a skills practice looking to enjoy myself? Maybe the afternoon lull combined with a propensity to lack enjoyment in other areas of my life at the moment made me not take the activity seriously enough. Perhaps. Maybe it is to hide the fact that I am lacking confidence in front of others. As I was very aware I was being watched this time. I know that I am not at all like this with my clients at Chy. I actually feel like my placement is going incredibly well. I think the fact that I am so different in role-plays frustrates me somewhat as I know what I am like when with clients on placement.

Supervision this week

In supervision this week I brought a couple of my clients that are causing me to think ‘am I giving them the best service as a counsellor?’ I have two men, both called ‘S’ who are seeing me yet feel that they are ready to leave treatment and sit opposite me stating that they are ‘fine’ and ‘alright’. It then poses the question do I explore that given the reality of the fact that after decades of physical and mental abuse caused by substance addiction, it is likely that they are not ok and this causes in me some anxiety, which it is surely congruent to share, or go with it?

Should I let them use the session to talk about content rather than process or is that a waste of everybody’s time? I can’t say that I have reached a satisfactory conclusion on this question, whether someone’s best interests at heart are ok to follow. It feel uncomfortable that if I have anxieties to not be congruent to share that with the client if I am wanting to be honest and real. Yet are my anxieties for them borne of my own imagination of how much trouble they are in? Being person centred means to follow their own way, they can self-actualise, and the client knows best and deep down knows what is in their best interests. So for this reason I feel its always going to be something I have to raise in supervision for the time being.

I brought this up in supervision and it was very useful I feel. I felt quite validated that while I want to always maintain the focus on the client as this is ethically best practice, to work with their agenda, I also have to know my tendency to over-identify with clients with substance misuse issues and the historical fact that so may will relapse after leaving treatment. So for someone to tell me they are ok may not match what I am seeing, feeling or getting from the client. Then is it in their interests, not mine, to let them know my concerns, anxieties or sense of concern?

I think also that hearing back from another person in the role like I can do in supervision I can be reminded of the need to model behaviours and the greater role of the counsellor. So often it’s easy to get lost in focussing on minute bits of skills practice or for me to get sucked into thinking “wow, I’m actually doing this!” Very distracting thoughts can interfere with the actual practice and would be best left to reflection. Also I’m starting to really value the process of supervision as a second reflection, a supportive and less negatively critical process following the event.