Can a Counsellor Read My Mind?

There’s a belief out there that some Counsellors are clairvoyant, possessing powerful mind reading abilities that can penetrate your most closely guarded secrets…

This… is not entirely true. Maybe some can, but there’s a more grounded reason for this belief and I’m happy to share a little detail on why it may seem this way at times. Let’s dispel some myths…

You might have heard that Counsellors can read your mind! They have an innate ability to bypass your walls of protection and delve straight into your most closely guarded secrets… nothing is safe from us.

And I guess that's something of a concern, what if your Counsellor can “see straight through you” or know your deepest secrets without you saying a single word? So let's set the record straight....

Sure, it might seem at times like Counsellors are mind-readers - capable of amazing feats of deduction not unlike famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes. How are they able to finish sentences? Offer the same words at the same time as you are thinking them? Understand something so completely and accurately before you’ve even said it? Or even more mysterious… offer you a reflection which fits so exactly with how you’re feeling, but hadn’t even realised it until then? That can seem like no thought, feeling or secret is safe from a Counsellor.

But it's not at all that mysterious, or even exciting! Counsellors are simply trained to pay attention to what you say, to get involved with your world-view with more empathy and interest than most other human encounters we tend to have "out there". Carl Rogers, the founder of the Person Centered approach referred to this attentiveness as an “as if” quality of feeling. Not becoming what the other person is feeling or experiencing, but rather bringing the whole being of the Counsellor to a position where they can feel what the client is expressing, in an “as if” way, as if the Counsellor was that person, without ever becoming the other person and overriding their autonomy and individuality. We work very closely together on quite often very emotional topics. It is therefore of absolute paramount importance for me that I have a sense of what it feels like to be in your position, the impact your challenges have on you and who you are striving to be as a person. A person of worth, value and unlimited potential. In this sense I prize your “you-ness” and aim to empower and support the core of who you are, whilst getting close enough to understand exactly what that means to you.

As a by-product of that intensive listening, we often see what's obscured from your awareness. Or to put it another way, we re-unite what you always knew but hadn't quite been able to piece together. We can do this because we approach an understanding of your position from a distance. Close enough to feel intently, but with enough distance to not override any of your experience, thoughts or feelings with our own.

I can only speak for myself obviously, but as a Counsellor, I can’t read your thoughts or see your secrets. I can only work with what you share with me freely. Something I like to make very explicit at the start of our work together. The picture you describe in it’s entirety is owned and authored by you. No other material enters the therapeutic relationship unless you choose to share it.

We all have blind spots, aspects of our lives we either cannot see, or choose not to for whatever reason, even when we want to, and yes, that includes Counsellors too!

So no, we are not blessed with super-human powers or an uncanny ability to "see into people". But we do make ourselves available to fully be "with you"....

And perhaps that is where the magic truly is!

With warmth,

James