Shrinking and (Re) Inflation: My Thoughts On Counselling
It’s been nearly a year now since I returned to counselling. Last year when I made the decision to seek the services of a counsellor, I had hit a brick wall. I was stagnating. I was sinking into a morass of self pity over my deafness. Reflecting on another birthday, brought with it the reality of my own mortality. The death of a friend by their own hand, was preying on my mind, and found me bumping into invisible walls. I didn’t know what to do about it.
If you think about it, seeing a counsellor is not unlike seeing a sex worker. In that, you seek out someone who can or will provide you with the things, or things, you need, that no one else can or will. Or, to satisfy the desire for more than people can or will provide.
Seeing a counsellor is not without it’s irony. It’s like paying someone to be your friend for an hour. Paying for someone to listen to you. Paying for someone to talk to . You would think, quite rightly, that I could, indeed, turn to a friend, but my friends couldn’t give me what I needed. Indeed, a good counsellor is like a friend. A new found friend to whom you can open up to, in ways you can’t with your “current” friends. So what does that say about me, and my attitude towards my friends? What am I saying about me and my friends, for choosing to reveal more to a counsellor than to them?
Counselling is more than just having someone to talk to. Counselling is more than having someone to listen to you. Those two things are very important to the process of counselling, but ultimately, counselling is all about inner work. It is about a commitment to yourself. It is all about taking a journey of self discovery with a human being who stands outside of your life, and provides perspectives and commentary, to help guide you long this path.
For counselling to be effective and successful, the client, has to be prepared to look deep into themselves. To face their flawed humanity in all its glory. An unwillingness to do this, will doom any session to failure. Growth, be it spiritual or otherwise, requires
I am writing this on the eve of my last session, with an eye to my original aim for seeking counselling: to bust through the invisible wall that was holding me back, and reflecting on the work I have done this past year. There is more I would like to work on, but that is for another time. As my friend Damian told me, some weeks back, comes a point when you have to stop. There will always be issues to talk about, and you can always go back, but at some point you have to stop and seek closure. For me, that time is now [as well as the fact that I have no more dollars to spend].
Had I stopped the sessions back in July, when I actually ran out of money, I would not have reached the state of awareness and centredness that I am in now. I most likely would have remained in a state of limbo, that could have some repercussions. But two events conspired to carry me forth, for which I am grateful. The offer from my counsellor for a further six free sessions, and the appearance of a good mate, whom I haven’t seen in a decade. Both worked in tandem, pushing me along the path to self discovery, allowing me to achieve a state of awareness that I had not realised before.
I know I have said to friends, that a friend cannot do for you what a counsellor can. My mate Damian who is a qualified trainer and has some skills in counselling: listening, empathising, reflecting and feeding back, well, I have to eat my words, actually did help in ways I didn’t a friend would. Geography separates us, but online chats and webcams, help circumvent the distance between us.
The process has been an interesting one. A one sided dialogue with my counsellor, which provided the ammunition for a two way dialogue with my mate Damian. The interesting thing for me, is communicating and relating to another human being without deflecting, justifying, or otherwise obfuscating my feelings and intentions. Coming closer to being the person I actually am, and probably the first time in my life, I related to another human being with more honesty, than the smoke and mirrors I usually serve up.
That’s probably where my counsellor is one lucky bastard. He actually got to meet me!
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