Counsellors! Experts In Not Being Experts!
Counsellors are experts in not being experts!
Perhaps one of the strangest juxtapositions of learning how to "be" a Humanistic Counsellor might just surprise you! In so many professional roles, the idea is to become expert at what you do. This takes time, energy and practice to master.
Being a Humanistic Counsellor means learning to empower the other!
This means allowing YOU to be the expert alongside me. In that simple way, it becomes a unity, a symbiosis of intention with one goal - helping you overcome what has got you stuck! See, if the Counsellor or Therapist is the expert, there’s a danger here that you may come to rely on them for answers, never truly finding the inner strength to develop those answers for yourself. They might even be the wrong answers, for you! If we lean too heavily into trying to be what other people think we should be, we run the risk of becoming “incongruent”. That is, not living in alignment with our own values and beliefs. In my book, that’s a totally feasible place to end right back in therapy.
The goal here is to help you become self-sufficient and not reliant on anyone else for your own growth. In that sense, only you will know how to get yourself there. Your Counsellor, or me, becomes a companion, or a guide who walks along side you during this process of self discovery and growth.
Counselling from my perspective works by developing expertise in knowing when to gently invite you to contribute answers to simple questions.
Compassionately challenging your thoughts or set beliefs. It's never about imposing my will or telling you what to do. Because I don't have the answers, I believe that you do and together, we can find them!
The better our “therapeutic relationship”, the more ready both of us are to work within those comfortable boundaries of occasionally pushing through, but only when you’re ready to. Knowing and developing this sense of the work we do together is paramount to our success in therapy.
So not to put too fine a point on it, Counsellors train hard to learn when to shut up. We learn the difference between our processes and yours. We discover an appreciation and love of YOUR innate capacity for change and growth. Sure, we bring a lot of reading and theory to the table, but filtered through the most powerful tool in our toolbox...
Our hearts!
The key will always be in the relationship we develop. Everything else is useful to have on hand and ultimately contributes to it all, but our expertise is knowing who the expert of YOU really is. If you haven’t guessed it already, yes, It's YOU!
You bring the challenges, I'll bring the patience, the understanding, the kindness and acceptance, and together, we can heal the wounds.
Wondering if Counselling will work for you? Check out his little piece I wrote on whether therapy is right for your needs.
With warmth,
James