Practicum 1 - Day 3: Hitting the First Wall

The past 2 days have been really draining. Coupled with a lack of sleep, it is a formula for disaster. An exaggeration maybe, but you get what I mean.

This morning during the regular class check-in, 2 people broke down and cried. The Kleenex box was being passed around a little bit more than usual.

Let me start by telling you a little bit about our practicum. Students are paired up and each couple is then led to a room with partitions forming little booths. Sounds like fun? Oh yeah, loads.

Counsellor Role

While in this role, we the counselling students, are usually rigid and thinking too hard about the right thing to say. The focus then comes to ourselves instead of the clients. These past few days has made me realize that there is so much more to being a counsellor than just talking to a friend. You need to be skilled at picking up the red flags (usually very subtle) and at the same time not lead the client. One thing is for sure, you would need to be very comfortable with silence.

During periods of silence, there is usually a lot of things going on in the client's mind. To try to fill up the silence with words only hinders the progress. I am also finding it very hard to not make suggestions to clients. A good counsellor is supposed to go into a session a blank slate. Or a mirror perhaps. Constantly reflecting what the client is saying without trying to do anything else. It is not easy. A comparison could be made between that and meditation. While there is so much you want to say and do, the counsellor has to refrain from it all. Does that make sense? I should really put more thought into writing these entries as opposed to just what comes to mind.

It's gonna take years of practice for all this to become second nature.

The Client Role

After 15-20 minutes as the counsellor, we switch roles. I do not understand how they expect us to do this.
Then comes the real bitch of an issue. As the client, we do not make up stories. Instead we have to draw from issues in our personal lives.

I have lots to say still, but am very tired.

Guess the jist of what I had intended to write about is that being in the client role has triggered me into thinking non-stop these past 2 days.

I apparently have issues too. And they are not the ones I thought I had.

Funny how both times, I walked into the role feeling like i was in control. Then after 2 minutes of talking, I was blabbering without being able to stop. While talking, realizations about myself and the accompanying problems kept hitting me one after the other.

I remember constantly thinking to myself - Oh, so that's the real issue here.

Believe it or not, I had a huge realization yesterday and earlier today. It is a weight that has been on my mind.

Think I need to get back to writing in my journal. If I work on it enough, we may be enroute to dealing with the underlying issue. Wish me luck.