Little Guide to Counselling Practice

By John Henry

The Little Guide to Counselling Practice has been written for all those involved in counselling: students of counselling and beginning and continuing counsellors. It examines a wide range of issues and how to deal with them from the author's perspective. The book stresses throughout the need to treat the work of counselling as an honour bestowed on the counsellor. It strongly recommends that counsellors be aware of their own bias so that little pieces of their reality do not get mixed up with the client's reality. It also strongly recommends regular supervision to help a counsellor maintain ones balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543404173

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by John Henry.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2017916613

ISBN:                  Hardcover                  978-1-5434-0419-7

                            Softcover                     978-1-5434-0418-0

                            eBook                          978-1-5434-0417-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/07/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

766617

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

The Space-Time Continuum

How to Deal With:

1. The Reluctant or Resistant Client

2. The Shop-Around Client

3. Your Baggage

4. Relationship Issues

5. Victims of Sexual Abuse

6. The Anxious, Panicked, or Fearful Client

7. The Depressed Client

8. Helicopter and Other ‘Spesh’ Parents

9. Victims of Domestic Violence

10. Suicidal Clients

11. Gut Feelings

School Counselling

A Final Note: Supervision

Appendices

You Have Only Two Tasks as Parents:

The Family Drama: Sibling Birth Order

Family Dynamics

Character Styles

The Alphabet of Relationships

The Seven Emotional Deadly Sins

Setting Boundaries for Children

Grief and Loss

Anxiety and Depression: The Dietary Connection

Depression

Five Six Questions to Ask Suicidal People

Dedication

This book is dedicated to those of you—no matter what your calling—who attempt to make the world a better place, better than you found it.

Remember, the measure of a civilisation is how it takes care of those who can least take care of themselves.

Acknowledgements

Counselling has always been in my family, through my family. My siblings and my cousins report that people readily come to them with issues. My grandmother, Mabel Connors Bellet, gave me the first practical examples as a child of being there for others. My mother, Margaret Bellet Henry, gave me examples, over and over, of keeping people’s secrets. After she died, I heard from various people of things which had been confided to her which she has taken to her grave.

Professionally, my supervisors have provided me with a sounding board, a reference to touch base, touch home, and have kept me on task and still together. I salute them. My first supervisors, Sue Biernoff, of Relationships Australia; Thérèse O’Brien, from Centacare, Toowoomba; and more recently, Beverley Howarth, of the Institute of Energy Science, have guided me and prevented me, as I say in the text, ‘from becoming a drooling mess in the corner’. As well, I have valued the early input from Rosemary Macdonald from Relationships Australia, then Marriage Guidance, and the most recent input from Judith Richards from Trauma Training, and Cris Jones of Seachange Psychology, Cairns.

Personally, the support of my family, my siblings, my children, and my grandchildren has been much appreciated. Most importantly, the support, the encouragement, the prodding by my wife, Pamela, has seen this project through to the end. Thank you, love.

Foreword

When I commenced formal counselling almost twenty-five years ago, I did not realise what an exciting journey it would be, especially because I had no concept of what an honour it was to be trusted with the stories that people brought to me. They had become stuck, somewhere in the tapestries of their lives, and were seeking help in picking up the threads and weaving their way on. If I achieve only three things with this book, I hope that they are these: (1) you treat your profession and your client with honour and treat the trust they give you with honour; (2) as much as you can, be aware of your bias so that your pieces of reality do not become mixed up with their reality; and (3) if your own trauma brought you to this profession, do not attempt to counsel anyone in that area until you have done your own work on that trauma.

I believe that my strengths in counselling lie in my genuine liking of people, an ability to listen to perceive the ‘kernel’ of the problem and state it, the ability to unwind problems into strands of varying parts, a balance between the ‘warm and fuzzy’ approach, and a bluntness necessary to move the problem to a place where clients can choose to take action or where clients are ready for a new perception or movement. This, I believe, helps with the progress of clients towards a new goal. It may seem impudent, but if you can make some of these your strengths as well, you will achieve success in your counselling career.

This rambling little guide contains some of the stuff that I had hoped was around when I started. It is neither definitive nor extensive but contains, I believe, some useful advice across a number of issues. As I state throughout the book, the methodologies and modalities I use today have changed over the years and probably will continue to change. As a result, if you are reading this as a student of a counselling course or as a beginning counsellor, my approach may seem strange or almost completely at odds with what you have been taught. I ask that you read with an open mind. Above all, keep in your mind the following question with regard to strategies the client may have already tried: And how’s that working for you?

Counselling is about managing space and time; holding that space for the clients so that they feel safe, cared for, and able to build the rapport which allows the process to work; collecting the information and weaving the client’s story with them; paying complete attention to everything about them—but not in a creepy way which would send them running to the hills; having the client feel so safe that even although they may not hear these words said by you, they have the sense of ‘I’ve got you. You’re safe’ coming from you.

The Space-Time Continuum

The first skill in counselling is managing its space-time continuum.

My grandmother, Mabel, was the neighbourhood counsellor. When we stayed with her over Christmas, a neighbour would often drop in. If Grandma put the kettle on immediately, that was a signal to my sister, my cousins, and me to go outside and play.

‘I am going to talk to Mrs. So-and-So about her tribbles,’ she would sometimes say before the neighbour arrived. The kitchen table was the space. Grandma and Mrs. So-and-So would sit around it undisturbed.

Occasionally, we would be sent to the corner shop to buy two pounds of potatoes for a shilling, each of us having been given a couple of pennies extra to buy a treat. Grandma had already worked out that the time it took to choose from amongst the goodies at the shop would give her the time she needed to listen to her neighbour and her concerns.

We live in a willy-wagtail world where attention jumps from one subject, from one issue, to another. While watching television, we channel-surf to find something we wish to watch. Our news, our politics, is delivered in sound bites, distilled—hopefully but not usually correctly—into digestible bits we can grab as we go past. Reports have summaries, academic papers have abstracts, all for those who are too busy to read everything or need to decide if this is what they actually want.

Our aural world is so filled with such sound chaos that really listening to another person in an environment where neither of you will be interrupted is a luxury we are usually required to pay for. This requires both time and space. Whether that space is a kitchen table, a quiet corner at a bar, a car, a bedroom, a backyard, a shed, or an office, it is important that the space will not be invaded for a period of time.

To succeed at counselling, your best bet is the management of both space and time. You do not need an office with panelling and pictures and degrees and diplomas on the walls and comfortable seating in the room. Although something like that is often sought after and may seem the best, counselling needs a space, an uninterrupted time, and sufficient rapport with the client to continue to allow the story to unfold. I have done counselling across a fence post in the middle of a paddock, on a hay bale in a farm shed, in a milking shed, in a cleaner’s room little bigger than a closet, on the front steps of a school, at a bar, on the sidelines at football practice. While none of those places is particularly good, all are better than nothing if the client is ready to talk, and you will be relatively undisturbed. A comfortable room for an uninterrupted hour is great; if it is your own office, it is even better. However, you must never think that you must have that to be able to counsel effectively.

Managing your space, if it is not a room, also involves managing time. If you are talking quietly at a bar or on the sidelines at football training, some part of your attention must be on using your time and watching for anyone who may intrude.

Building Rapport

The second skill is building and maintaining rapport with your client who needs to feel sufficiently important to you and comfortable with you to want to tell you his or her story. In my grandmother’s 1950s house, the Formica kitchen table, the space, combined with the stereotypical symbol of relaxation, the cuppa, to help, with Grandma’s own personality and kindly nature, to build rapport. If you, as much as you can, make the client comfortable and feel listened to, you are halfway there. A huge part of building rapport is your intention to do so when you start with this person in front of you. That means clearing your mind of your own worries so that you can be there for your client. If your mind is on the argument you had with your partner this morning or whether you have enough potatoes for tonight’s meal or how to respond to the note you received from your child’s teacher, you can pretty much kiss building rapport goodbye, at least for this session.

If you have forms for your client to fill in, try as much as possible to have that done