Objectives

At the end of this topic you will be able to:

• clarify what is meant by self-awareness and why it is essential for the counsellor
• describe the role of values and beliefs in counselling
• identify a comprehensive range of your values and beliefs and understand how these impact on the therapeutic alliance
• identify some reasons why you have chosen to train to become a counsellor
• discuss what causes burnout and have some strategies for its prevention
• outline the function of ‘self-disclosure’ both for the counsellor and the client
• demonstrate awareness of some elements of psychological contagion
• explain the importance of supervision
• demonstrate awareness of cultural empathy.

Introduction

This topic will discuss the role of the counsellor and outline the issues involved in self-awareness. It will be argued that self-awareness for the counsellor is as important as learning about microskills. Without self-awareness a counsellor or professional practitioner will not be able to differentiate between their feelings and values and those of their clients. Self-awareness is closely related to self-disclosure and it will be explained how the counsellor and professional practitioner can use self-disclosure effectively and how to invite self-disclosure from the client. Obviously becoming self-aware involves an evaluation of your own values and beliefs about your world.

If you have not already started a process of really thinking about your values and beliefs, your motivation, your life experiences, personal characteristics and attributes, strengths and weaknesses, now is the time to connect with your authentic self. If you aspire to be an effective counsellor and/or professional practitioner, self-awareness is one of your most valuable tools. Start to know yourself now – many students choose to keep a journal and you may have undertaken this process in other units which included self-awareness. It is a valuable learning exercise for us all to acknowledge our personal development as we have come from a place of little knowledge and experience to quite a reasonable knowledge at the end of a period of study. If you are not drawn to writing down your thoughts, at least make some time to think a little more deeply on these self-awareness issues – you will not regret it.

Firstly let’s turn to your decision to prepare for a profession and study counselling.

Do you want to be a counsellor?

People join the helping professions because they want to be helpful to others. They see a need in others, but many people in the helping profession, including counsellors, also have a need to help. It is necessary to analyse why we seek to become ‘counsellors’ – are we truly altruistic in this pursuit or do we vicariously seek the fulfilment of our own needs? Peterson and Niselholz (1999, p. 2) identified the following needs which lead people to become counsellors:

• need to make a difference – prospective counsellors hope to make a positive contribution to society. But if the counsellors self-worth is dependent upon the need to make a difference in people’s lives, frustration will result – not everyone wants to be helped or changed
• need to care for others – clients need to be able to fully experience their pain to become whole. Rescuing, comforting and changing the subject when sadness or discomfort arises, re-victimises clients who were prevented from experiencing their deepest feelings in childhood, and shows disrespect for the client’s competency. According to Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, clients will do anything to make counsellors feel inadequate in order to compensate for the clients needing them. Further reading of Perls’ work will confirm that the therapeutic process is definitely not ‘tea and sympathy’ conveyed by a caring person, but a dynamic, emotionally-charged process where confrontation produces clarity and healing. Perls’ approach has been ‘toned down’ by other theorists, but confrontation is still a part of the counselling process
• need to understand and solve one’s own problems – many people enter the field of counselling to help solve their own problems. This occurs as we encounter these problems in the stories of others, as there is some commonality in the themes of human experience
• need for power, influence or status – the helping relationship conveys considerable power to the counsellor, but the whole purpose of counselling is to empower others.

Values and beliefs

Throughout this unit your values and beliefs will be challenged, both directly and indirectly. You may be very sure of some of your values – many have been with you since you were pre-pubescent. Our values are so much part of ourselves that we really cannot see them as separate. Values which we hold are worth something to us (e.g. goals, actions, other people); a belief is a personal truth based on faith or conviction (not necessarily a provable scientific fact). Even though a belief is not the same as a value, our beliefs are influenced by our value system.

Interestingly we can hold values for ourselves which we can apply differently to other people. For example, a woman may value the right of every woman to have dominion over her own body, including the right to have an abortion. However, her value for herself personally is that she could never have one. The most important aspect of an examination of our values and beliefs as a counsellor is that we must respect the values of others, no matter how different they are to our own.

This does not mean that our values will disappear from the counselling process, all our work with clients is influenced by our values and core beliefs. There is a difference between imposing and exposing our values. It may be wiser to decide not to expose our values, unless a value conflict arises. It is then a matter of judgement whether an exposition of your values is truly helpful. Care should be taken in the very small amount of instances where you may deem it necessary to expose your values – your client can easily feel judged when his/her values do not ‘measure up’ to yours. Common issues which may cause a value conflict are:

• abortion
• the right to die and assisted suicide
• beliefs and behaviours of members of cults
• beliefs and behaviours of gang members
• child or elder neglect or abuse
• genetic engineering
• interracial dating and marriage
• premarital sex or extramarital sex
• sexual identity (Remley & Herlihy, 2007, p. 67).

Counsellor know thyself

Each person develops their own personal approach to counselling, but according to Ivey, Ivey and Simek-Morgan (2003: 2–6), there are a few areas you need to keep in mind as you develop your style:

1. (i)your view of the world
2. (ii)cultural diversity
3. (iii)your beliefs about yourself as helper and counsellor.

In forthcoming topics we will look at the three historically significant, main approaches to counselling and later on in the counselling major you will be introduced to the more contemporary approaches. Which theoretical perspective or counselling approach you eventually will choose or develop for your own practice will be determined by:

(i) Your view of the world

How do you give meaning to the world? Each and every one of us brings to this course our unique way of viewing the world. This view is developed through your life experiences, the significant people in your life, and the significant events and experiences in your life. Your view about the world consists of your beliefs about the individual, ‘family’, social and cultural diversity, spiritual values, etc.

Self-understanding

The first step for anyone wanting to become a counsellor is to know themselves, their values and the social and cultural context in which they live. It cannot be stressed enough how absolutely essential understanding yourself is to effective counselling. Repeatedly, throughout this unit and the rest of the major, you will be continually challenged to look at and listen to you. It is difficult to facilitate self-learning through textbooks and therefore through this course you will be constantly challenged to examine and explore all areas of your life.

Two essential elements – counsellor and client

You need always to keep in mind that there are two essential elements for any counselling or helping encounter:

There are two or more individuals involved – the counsellor and the client.

Both have their own views of the world and sometimes these may be quite incompatible. Therefore it is essential that you know and are comfortable with your own view of the world and your own self, ‘warts and all’. Your ideas are influenced and developed through your view of the world. Most of us never identify overtly what our view of the world is. Perhaps one of the best ways to identify our beliefs about the world is to find things that we don’t like or that conflict with our basic and treasured values.

(ii) Cultural diversity

We address this issue through this unit in relationship to the skills and qualities we learn. Here, it suffices to say that a culturally self-aware counsellor will be sensitive and pro-active in appreciating difference. A culturally self-aware counsellor also will be aware of their biases, privileges and own cultural background.

(iii) Your beliefs about yourself as a helping professional, counsellor or a helper

Each one of you has your own ideas about what is the role of our helping profession, counselling or helping. You bring with you to this course your own beliefs, values, attitudes and ideas about counselling, and many of these will be challenged or confirmed during the course of your study. This involves how you see yourself as a ‘helper’.

Acknowledging your own individuality and uniqueness

Each of you has brought ‘stuff’ with you to the unit which identifies your own peculiar individuality and which significantly influences the way in which you perceive and think about your professional role and the counselling and helping process. There is nothing wrong with bringing ‘stuff’, as we do that in every situation we encounter because it is part of what makes us all unique individuals. What is essential is to identify and know what that ‘stuff’ is and how it influences you in your professional role as the counsellor or helper. What is meant by ‘stuff’ are those components that make us unique individuals and those experiences which combine to enrich and inhibit our personal identity. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your own life’s experiences have or haven’t been. What is vitally important is that you recognise and acknowledge your own individuality and uniqueness.

Self-awareness for the counsellor

It is not possible to effectively counsel someone without firstly knowing yourself to some degree. If you think about it for a moment, how can you be tuned into someone else and their issues if you are not able to be tuned into your own issues. It is sometimes a very threatening journey learning about yourself ‘warts and all’, but it is also extremely rewarding, not only to the quest to become a counsellor, but also in your own personal relationships. I would urge you to try to develop some sustaining methods of learning about yourself. It can be a part of preventing burnout in a profession which is prone to it. Self-awareness in relation to burnout will be covered in more depth later in this unit.

Ivey, Ivey and Simek-Morgan (2003: xvii) developed the acronym ‘respectful’ as framework for exploring self-awareness and meaning making for yourself and at the same time a framework to understand others. Thus self-awareness is knowing about and respecting:

• R– religious/spiritual identity
• E– economic class background
• S– sexual identity
• P– psychological maturity
• E– ethnic/racial identity
• C– chronological/developmental challenges
• T– various forms of trauma and threats to wellbeing
• F– family background and history
• U– unique physical characteristics
• L– location of residence and language differences

Self-disclosure for the counsellor

Self-awareness is closely linked to self-disclosure; one cannot occur effectively without the other. As counsellors we need the awareness to know when and how to disclose. This raises the question whether you should be discussing your own personal observations, experiences, and ideas with the client. The literature advises counsellors that self-disclosure is to be used sparingly – a client comes to see you for help and not for you to seek attention from the client. The point of self-disclosure from the counsellor to the client is to demonstrate understanding to the client and to strengthen empathy and rapport. You may have had the same experience as your client, e.g. a divorce, a few years ago and you can talk briefly about it – just briefly.

Self-disclosure may be appropriate at times and should be used cautiously, but never solely to satisfy the counsellor’s needs. Before self-disclosing examine what is going on within yourself and make a decision about whether your motive is to satisfy your own needs or is genuinely to help the client.

Hansen, Rossberg and Cramer (1994: 211) state that there is strong support in the literature for appropriate counsellors’ self-disclosure. They point out that self-disclosure invites self-disclosure from the client. You may recall this from your personal relationships; the more you share, the more your friend or partner will open up too. In contrast, if you have just shared a deep issue and there is no personal or reciprocal sharing, you may feel embarrassed or abandoned. Thus, too little self-disclosure may hinder the process of client self-disclosure.

However, the same authors continue their literature review by noting that counsellor self-disclosure could be detrimental in certain circumstances. They note that there is ‘an optimum level of self-disclosure and when the counsellor goes beyond that it may be destructive’ (Hansen, Rossberg and Cramer, 1994: 211). You may be at a loss now; what is enough, too much, too little? Unfortunately there are no answers to this, because you are not alone in this; it all depends on your client. Some clients need more encouragement than others; some are easily swayed by your self-disclosure; some can do all the talking, without any support from the counsellor. Guess what? It is again all about awareness; awareness of self and the other in a constant process of sensitive inquiry.

How to self-disclose

According to Ivey and Ivey (2007: 373) a self-disclosure consists of:

• A personal pronoun or a so-called ‘I statement’
• Verb for content or feeling … e.g. I feel …
• Accurate description of the issue you want to disclose, e.g. behaviours, events and actions
• Feeling words and expressions of feeling.

Short self-disclosures can be very useful for encouraging your client to talk. However, telling a long story about yourself poses a real danger of taking centre-stage. This would shift the focus of attention away from your client to your experience – something that is usually counterproductive.

We already talked about immediacy, the powerful way of talking in the present tense, e.g. I feel that right now … A related term is that of relevance; the purpose of telling your story is always about supporting the client’s process. Another term that is related is that of genuineness or, as Ivey and Ivey (2003) pose, genuineness in relation to self and to client. If you are telling a story solely to invoke client self-disclosure you may appear glib and ‘professional’ in an unnatural way; the client will sense this and probably shut up.

Self-disclosure for the client

Effective counselling can and should lead to sustained self-disclosure by the client. What is the purpose of this self-disclosure? According to Patterson and Welfel (1999: 39), self-disclosure helps the counsellor to understand their clients but, more importantly, it helps the client to understand themselves better. By talking about themselves they may discover a way out, or that their feelings are ‘normal’ and acceptable, which is the first step towards healing.

The first point here is probably fairly obvious as the counsellor does not know anything about the client and his/her situation until some initial sharing has taken place. However the other two points may be overlooked or their importance underestimated. Firstly, when someone is really listening to your story, you may begin to see how it all fits together more clearly. Secondly, I am sure we have all had the experience of feeling distressed and needing to talk to someone – anyone. The relief of ‘getting things of your chest’ is known as ‘catharsis’. It is found that not only does emotional relief occur but also new insights are gained simply by ‘feeling the impact of your story’. Thus through beginning the process of self-disclosure the client will begin to:

1. get appropriate feedback from the counsellor
2. see things in a different light
3. develop skills to cope with problems or deal with future problems
4. increase self knowledge
5. share problems
6. help let go of emotional energy and skeletons
7. improve communication
8. strengthen the counselling experience
9. make communication more intimate and meaningful.

Self-awareness for the client

The overall aim of therapy is for the client to feel trusting enough to talk about their intimate and personal thoughts. As we have said, this is self-disclosure. Out of this comes self-awareness, which leads to change. It can now be seen that the two concepts, self-disclosure and self-awareness, are intimately linked. The ways in which the counsellor assists clients in their search for self-awareness and consequent change forms the core of what counselling training is about.

It is important to realise at this stage just why we need to develop these skills and some of the stumbling blocks to our assisting the client. Why do you think the client may be uneasy about self-disclosure? Maybe the counsellor is unconsciously putting up blocks to the client or maybe the client has things that he/she has brought to the counselling session that need to be dealt with first.

Finally we need to ensure we look after ourselves as we work with vulnerable populations. This is an important part of our own self-awareness.

Self-care

Stress management

Effective counsellors are aware of the strengths and weakness of their personality type and take measures to protect their health. With this knowledge in hand, we can develop skills and build traits which will increase our efficiency and the enjoyment of our work. Activities which increase our ‘hardiness factor’ may be particularly useful. Hardy people are able to:

• view stress as a challenge rather than a threat
• fully commit to their work, families and beliefs
• control or influence events and their reactions to events rather than feel helpless (Maddi & Kobasa, 1984, cited in Peterson & Nizenholz, 1999, p. 23).

Building hardiness is not only of benefit to us – by modelling a positive attitude within the therapeutic alliance we demonstrate to our clients that they can move from despair and immobility to power and control over their own lives.

Decisions on how we handle stress depend on self-knowledge of what will work for us. Some of us will choose to run, swim or dance, some need to blot out ‘mind noise’ by sitting on the couch watching a DVD and eating chocolate, some seek the company of friends and family, others find solace in spending time alone in the natural world. Whatever method we choose to handle stress, it should be health enhancing (chocolate is good for you in moderation!) and not abusive to our bodies or spirit.

We can measure our stress levels and coping mechanisms by using formal as well as non-standardised instruments. There are various stress measurement tables available and for those who like to adopt self-care practices in a formal manner, these are quite user-friendly. Formal measuring instruments can be accompanied by a written self-care plan. If you choose less formal methods of monitoring your stress (e.g. journalling), it is still excellent practice to formulate a written self-care plan and monitor your progress against your stated goals. Your self-care plan should have plans and goals in the following areas:

• Physical

  Exercise, healthy nutrition, adequate sleep, rest and relaxation.

• Recreational

  Play activities, laughter, holidays, hobbies, athletic interests.

• Social support

  Interaction with family, interaction with friends, social gatherings, outreach to friends/family.

• Other activities unique to you (adapted from Patrick, 2007, p. 240).

Supervision

Supervision in counselling does not have the usual organisational connotation. In other employment situations we may be supervised by being overseen, managed, measured or disciplined. In counselling the term relates to clinical or peer supervision and its purpose is:

• to help the counsellor become a better mental health service provider
• to gain insights beyond the counsellor’s limited perspective
• to help the counsellor evaluate self and progress (Hackney & Cormier, 2005, p. 332).

Supervision should be structured into all our work but is not always easy to obtain. When we work for an agency this may be very well provided, or not provided at all. If you are an employee or a job applicant, this is a fitting question which you can ask your employer or potential employer. When supervision is not provided, you need to make arrangements to ensure you can utilise this vital professional tool, and your Code of Ethics will probably mention the need to access supervision. You may demonstrate your level of commitment by setting aside funds to ensure you can access a suitable person or group (there may be no cost involved for a group) if not provided by your employment. Even if offered by your manager or immediate work supervisor, this can easily become more a management tool than a professional supportive relationship. If you have issues with your supervisor, can you use ‘supervision’ with him/her to resolve these issues? This may or may not occur, depending on the skills, experience and personal agendas of the participants.

Personal growth and development

Although personal growth and personal development are likely to occur as we integrate the theoretical concepts of counselling into our practice, these are not exactly the same. Personal growth has more to do with our growth as a human being, and while we may be able to plan some of it, it is more likely that we will become aware that we have experienced personal growth after a certain experience or a period of time. Remember the old saying ‘that which does not kill me, makes me stronger’. We can all probably think of difficult times in our lives which, upon reflection, served us well as we were able to build inner resources for future challenges. We experienced personal growth by living through these experiences.

We can, however, make plans to support the personal growth experience, and some of you may already have a program in place for your personal lives – some people are extremely motivated to follow such a path. In seeking to become better counsellors, some helpful personal growth experiences are:

• personal therapy

  Psychotherapists have often undertaken quite considerable periods of structured personal therapy before starting to work with their own clients, and many practising therapists commit to a regular appointment for personal therapy. This is separate to supervision. Your supervisor should not be your personal therapist, although he/she is often the first one to hear about issues which are affecting you.

  Some type of structured personal therapy is highly recommended – there is no doubt at all that training as a counsellor will bring up personal issues which you thought had been finalised, but which beg further investigation and clarification.

• becoming aware of blind spots, resistance, and other issues which inhibit work with our clients (Sullivan, 2008, p. 97)

  We all have blind spots and resistance to certain client issues for reasons which are buried in our unconscious. We need to notice feelings which arise when working with our clients and think about the origin of these feelings – we often attribute the source to our clients, when it is actually our own issue.

Personal growth leads to a gain; personal development for counsellors can lead to a loss. Transformative learning (Merriam, 2004 cited in Sullivan, 2008, p. 95) asks us to let go of old cognitive and affective processes, ineffectual frames of reference and world views to make way for the ‘not knowing’ which will allow us to be truly open and present in the therapeutic alliance. To come from a place of ‘not knowing’ is very difficult – even if we think we have put all our preconceived ideas aside, our values and beliefs, judgments and assumptions are sitting there in the background. It may take quite some practice and experience in working with people to arrive at this point, and it may feel very strange at first to become aware of trying to adopt this stance – but it is definitely worth it!

But not all in personal development as counsellors is a loss – we can plan pathways to increased or more complex knowledge, we can instigate methods to improve our microskills, we can learn more effective ways of communicating. All of this development can be measured and evaluated, and we can be quite sure of our progress. Personal development for counsellors should be geared towards increasing competence and safety. Development programs may concentrate on one of the following aspects:

• those which are essential and impinge directly on work with any client (e.g. being fully aware of one’s own sexuality)
• those which may be useful with certain clients or client groups (e.g. ethnic sensitivity)
• those which are essential to the psychological health of the counsellor (e.g. learning to like yourself), and thus of only indirect importance to the client (Irving & Williams, 1999, p. 518 cited in Sullivan, 2008, p. 96).

Boundaries

People working in the helping professions without boundaries are not practising self-care, but it is sometimes difficult to recognise when boundaries have been breached. Remley and Herlihy (2007, p. 187) differentiate between boundary violations (e.g. sexual contact with a client) and boundary crossings (e.g. having lunch once with a regular client after a particular session). The authors suggest that an occasional well-intentioned boundary crossing for the benefit of the client may do little harm, but there is the danger of the ‘slippery slope phenomenon’ – a gradual and insidious erosion of the professional relationship which can result in serious ethical violations. Some issues which may cause boundary crossing are:

• bartering
• social relationships with clients
• business or financial relationships with clients
• accepting gifts from clients
• self-disclosure
• physical contact (non-sexual touch or hugging) (Remley & Herlihy, 2007, pp. 187–193).

Cultural empathy

We need to recognise that our concepts of self-awareness and self-disclosure are the product of Western society and their practice may not only be inappropriate for some of our clients, but also offensive. Foucault (1984, cited in Milner & O’Byrne, 2002, p. 23) maintained that Western society has ‘produced ways of maintaining positions of power by the use of well-guarded expertise that perpetuates class divisions and influences morality and the law’. It is not only divisions in class that can be exacerbated by our decision to utilise a certain assessment tool or therapeutic intervention when working with a client. We can negatively influence any type of difference by overlooking diversity.

Our use of language conveys the values behind our words, and despite our benevolent attitude, we can be part of the continued oppression felt by our clients. Our Western propensity to ‘talk things over’ when we find ourselves in a disturbing situation can be most discomforting to some of our clients who believe it is rude or offensive to talk about personal matters with a person outside the family. There are many dimensions to how a person from a different culture may interact – not only with communication preferences but also with their relationship to nature, time, social relations, activity and collectivism versus individualism (Hopkins, 1997, cited in Remley & Herlihy, 2007, p. 69).

When working with clients from a different background from your own, ‘check in’ with them before assuming that a verbal explanation of their issue is their chosen form of expression. There is more than one way to support our clients – build cultural empathy by finding out what will work – do not overlook the use of silence, and practise skills in attending wholistically to your client with body, mind and spirit, to be with them as they experience a difficult emotion.

The following topical reading from Bowers provides some insightful comments.

Burnout

We start our practice with the passionate flame of enthusiasm, our clients bask in the warm glow of the candle of our empathy, and then the fire goes out. What happened? Perhaps we did not pay sufficient attention to self-care, perhaps we just got too busy, we lost ourselves in our clients, the constraints of two masters (clients and the agency) became unbearable, or the boundaries between our personal and professional lives became blurred.

The recognition that we are burned out is often beyond our senses. Our colleagues will usually recognise it long before we do, and if they tentatively mention that they have noticed that we are excessively tired, taking on too much or not our usual selves, we are likely to become reactive, defensive or even aggressive. When burned out, we are blind to how we really are, and no amount of well-meaning words will convince us that anything is wrong, until we fall in a crumpled heap.

There are three stages of burnout:

• Alarm reaction stage

  Defence mechanisms start rising. Inability to adapt to new or continued stressors. Perfectionistic demands placed upon oneself.

• Resistance stage

  Energies are mobilised away from clients and are used to manage stress. Feeling of powerlessness and ceasing to care. Low functioning, professionally and personally. Interpersonal relationships deteriorate.

• Exhaustion

  Cynicism, inflexibility, withdrawal, illness, depression, suicide (Nicholson & Golsan, 1983, cited in Peterson & Nizenholz, 1999, p. 24).

Burnout is expressed:

• Physically

  Ulcers, respiratory illness, headaches, hypertension, insomnia, cardiovascular disease.

• Psychologically

  Depression, anxiety, poor self-concept, confused thinking, paranoia.

• Behaviourally

  Absenteeism, poor relations with colleagues, inability to concentrate, impaired interpersonal communication (Peterson & Nizenholz, 1999, p. 24).

Compassion fatigue

Compassion fatigue occurs when caregivers react to social problems (e.g. famine) which are unremitting (deWaal, 1995; Schubert, 1988 cited in Patrick, 2007, p. 220). Whereas burnout is linked to the stressors within a work environment, compassion fatigue is more aligned to the content of the counselling sessions. When counsellors repeatedly hear devastating information from clients, their capacity to sustain compassion can erode when witnessing the suffering of others. Listening to stories of fear, anguish and pain may cause such feelings to arise within the counsellor. This occurs because they feel empathy with their clients. Compassion fatigue has a rapid onset and includes all the symptoms of burnout as well as intrusive images, nightmares or distancing from clients (Valent, 2002 cited in Patrick, 2007, p. 221).

Once burnout or compassion fatigue has occurred, it can be quite a struggle to return to healthy practice. It is not uncommon to leave the profession for a lengthy period or even not return at all – prevention is the key.

Vicarious traumatisation

Counsellors can become traumatised by listening to clients narratives of one particularly horrific event, or repeatedly being exposed to devastating stories. Being exposed to the trauma of man-made or natural disasters, mass casualties, or circumstances where the injuries or deaths are extraordinary can cause intense reactions. When working with clients with post-traumatic stress disorder, the impact on the counsellor’s personal life can be similar to that of the client who experienced the post-traumatic stress. Counsellors may experience anxiety about safety, an amplified sense of vulnerability, decreased social interaction and emotional distancing from family and friends (Patrick, 2007, p. 224).

The nature and intensity of vicarious traumatisation to the counsellor is linked to:

• the type of trauma

  if a sudden demand is experienced to provide intense services to victims of a natural disaster, and especially if the disaster occurs in the counsellor’s own community.

• the counsellor’s previous personal trauma experience

  if the client’s trauma is similar to a trauma suffered in the past by the counsellor (e.g. sexual abuse), it is more likely to cause trauma to the therapist.

• the length of time in the counsellor role, and in some cases, the age of the practitioner

  (e.g. younger people working in child welfare being more prone to VT) (Nelson-Gardell & Harris, 2002, cited in Patrick, 2007).

• the origin of the trauma suffered by the client

  trauma caused by the violent or inhumane actions of human beings may be more upsetting than natural disasters.

The development of resilience – the ability to bounce back or recover after being exposed to stressors, helps counsellors to cope in traumatic situations. Some people attracted to the helping professions may already possess a higher level of resilience than members of the general public – if not, we need to invest in a personal renewal process – however we would like to construct this for ourselves – which ensures self-preservation (Skovolt, 2001, cited in Patrick, 2007).

Psychological contagion

The therapeutic alliance is influenced by both conscious and unconscious transfers which take place between therapist and client. The word complex was used by Jungian psychotherapists to describe ‘emotionally based personality structures, tied to certain images, and they circulate, as it were, around the conscious personality, popping up when a situation or image touches them’ (Segdwick, 2001, p. 30). One of the premises of Jung’s work was that complexes were wounded parts of the personality orbiting around the conscious personality (ego). They could then temporarily supplant the ego depending on their strength or the strength of the ego. Jung believed that people seeking therapy were really seeking the diagnosis and interpretation of an unconscious complex that was causing pain. Not only did complexes represent images from the past, but they gave an indication to the future, as new things were taking shape in the unconscious mind of the client, of which the conscious mind was as yet unaware (the unconscious always strives for health and growth). When referring to the unconscious, Jung was referring to more than the unconscious mind of the client and the therapist. He suggested that therapy was influenced by the collective unconscious, which contains all the memories of human evolution as well as indicators to the future achievement of human potential. (If these theories are of interest to you, you may wish to read more about the work of Jung – if so, it is easier to start with a text which analyses his influence rather than commencing your research with Jung’s collected works.)

Psychological contagion occurs when complexes pass between the psyches of the participants in the therapeutic alliance. Although a scientific explanation of exactly how this transfer occurs may be problematic, Jung stated that complexes have ‘a sort of body, a certain amount of their own physiology’ (Jung, 1935 cited in Sedgwick, 2001, p. 47). This statement may have seemed quite unusual in 1935, but the modern application of some therapeutic techniques and metaphysics asks us to at least keep an open mind on the form of interferences which may affect therapy. Some of these interferences are said to be the spirits of dead persons, ancestral spirit energies seeking solutions to their unfinished business, dense energies accumulating in the human aura or even demonic possession (March-Smith, 2005, p. 74). In Western society we tend to seek a scientific basis to concepts, but the practice of counselling in other cultures is more spiritually based. Spiritual aspects of our work are often overlooked, and although some of the above statements may be confronting, we as counsellors are not in a position to say what is right or wrong. Our task is to become aware – including knowledge of a range of beliefs which our clients may present to us.

Summary

In this topic we have considered why we wish to study counselling and have comprehensively investigated a range of our values and beliefs. We have looked at ways we can manage stress and ensure adequate supervision. Personal and professional development has been discussed, as well as boundaries, self-disclosure and psychological contagion. We have accessed information on burnout and ascertained some methods to avoid this common occupational dilemma. We have increased our knowledge of multiculturalism and diversity.

In your further study and work you will probably reflect deeply on some of these self-awareness issues. One major point to take away from this topic is that it is better to be proactive rather than reactive when looking after ourselves. We can prevent negative outcomes if we plan positively.