Archive for January, 2006

If the second partner doesn’t come spontaneously it is generally wise for the counselor, with the first partner’s permission, to write to him in some such terms as previously described.

“Dear Mr. , Your wife has been to see me for help in the
marital situation that has arisen between you. I think I could be of more help if I could have the opportunity of hearing how you feel about it. If you can manage to come for a talk I would be glad if you would make an appointment at a mutually suitable time. Yours faithfully, .” To ask or allow the first partner to invite him may fail because he may say “no” on principle because of the conflict with his wife. To call him on the telephone would be asking him to make an immediate decision, which is not fair, and might block his acceptance. He can carry a letter around in his pocket for some days, and think it over carefully before deciding, and his decision is then more in line with his real feelings.

The actual initial interview with the second partner will often begin more cautiously than that with the first as we have seen but with adept sensitive handling the rapport will generally come quite quickly.

This interview might begin with a simple understanding kind of comment after the formal greeting, such as, “I’m glad you were able to come, I imagine you’ve had your share of worry in all this.” In the case of Betty and Frank already mentioned, the interview with Frank might then open up in some such manner as this:

F. Yes, it hasn’t been very pleasant, we seem to get more more and more in each other’s hair, and I don’t seem to be able to make the grade in Betty’s expectations.
c. Would you like to tell me how you feel about the whole business; where you think the conflicts seem to be between you?
F. I suppose the main conflict comes because I constantly feel that Betty is trying to mold me into a kind of pattern that isn’t me at all and couldn’t be me. I’m supposed to be the good handyman and the good domestic help when required, and when I don’t fit in with these quite rigid expectations there’s a row. Not a momentary row either, it goes on sometimes for days, and if I ask her to stop picking at me she just gets more and more persistent with a kind of determination to wear me down. All I can do is to walk out and stay out for a time, I’ve even walked round the street for hours when there’s nothing else I’d feel able to do. Betty little realizes what an effort it sometimes takes for me to come home, knowing that the strife is going to be on, and wondering whether I’ll be able to control myself and avoid violence. I’ve managed it mostly so far, except for an unfortunate accident with her mother when she started to pick at me, but I can’t feel sure that I’ll always be able to restrain myself.
c. You feel pretty fed up with the pressure on your personality, and you can’t get Betty to realize that?
F. If she only knew, that sort of thing only makes me all the more determined to hang on to the little bit of freedom I seem to be able to preserve. There are even times when I can’t resist the urge to do things that upset her just to prove to myself as well as to her that I’m not going to be molded to her pattern. And that only seems to make her even more determined to organize me. Now she’s getting more and more distant and even sulking at times, as if I’m a sort of intruder in the house. When I try to make any loving approach as likely as not she’ll just push me away as if she hated the ground I walked on. And yet I know that’s not really how she feels, she used to be the most demonstrative soul. I’ve thought about it from every possible angle, and I can only think she’s going through a lot of strife inside herself. I know I’ve handled things pretty badly at times and at other times I’ve been so troubled that I’ve forgotten things I should have remembered. Do you think there’s any chance that things between us can be straightened out, I’ve got pretty despairing about the whole business.
c. It looks to you as if Betty is struggling a bit too, and you’re both ready to make a real effort to find a better understanding. Do you feel that there must be some real hope that two sensible adults who both want to do so will be able, with a bit of help, to find the way to better understanding and cooperation?
F. Yes, I feel much more hopeful than I did, I think this has only just come in time. I’m ready to give it all I’ve got, and if we can’t work out something this time I’m afraid it’s all up.
c. This is it. You’re ready to get right down into the whole thing?
F. Yes, it looks as if we’ve got to go deeper than we’ve so far been able to do if we’re to get anywhere, and I think we’re both ready for a shot at that. If we could know why we react to each other in such stupid ways, and stir up more conflict when we want to improve the feeling between us, I think it would help tremendously. But it seems a bit too difficult so far. I don’t feel very expert at what you call “getting right down into the whole thing,” and I’ll probably need some help in understanding the kind of thing you want. But I feel better for this discussion, I’m even beginning to feel interested in how this sort of thing works. I’m afraid I was a bit vague about what I was letting myself in for. After Betty had had an open go with you, and probably told you some hair raising things about me, I wondered what you’d think about me.
c. You’d thought I might do a bit of judging?
F. Well . . . yes, that’s what everybody else she’s talked to seems to have done, without much interest into any of my feelings about the sorry business. I’ve kept things pretty much to myself, I haven’t felt that it would do any good to go talking and telling tales on Betty to anyone, even to my mother. It seems a bit disloyal to me. I didn’t even intend to tell you much about her, but somehow it came out and I’m glad I’ve been able to let off some steam. I suppose I’ll have to look at some of my own less pleasant qualities too, and I think I can make a genuine attempt to do that.

It looks as if Frank is taking a little time to get down to the job and taking some temporary refuge in generalities, possibly helped to this by the counselor’s response to his question about whether there’s any chance that things can be straightened out. But the counselor has let him take his time to come round, and the rapport seems good at this point.

What has been described so far is obviously a brief summary of the main threads in the initial interview with Betty and the first part of the initial interview with Frank. Many of the invariable deviations from the main threads have been left out for purposes of clarity and length. But this account may illustrate something of the kind of attitude and method of handling the initial interviews in the attempt to achieve good rapport with each partner, and to prepare the way for some deeper exploration with them. It also illustrates some natural feelings of the second partner in coming for counseling and the relief that comes from the counselor’s acceptance of them, which may open the way, as with Frank, for the greater unburdening of feeling than he had previously felt able to do. The acceptance of these feelings helps to lay the foundation for a healthy rapport. Without this rapport, it might well be impossible for many men to risk baring their souls concerning matters about which they feel rather uncomfortable and even ashamed, but which have to be worked through if partners are to be freed for spontaneous relationships with each other.

As a general rule it is found that about fifty to sixty minutes is an appropriate time for any interview, unless there are special circumstances that make variation necessary. The client will generally be unable to profit sufficiently by any longer interview, and the counselor will generally have other responsibilities to discharge. There are some dependent types of client who seem to have a need to prolong interviews, and when the time is approaching for the termination they will bring up some new and important matter for discussion.

Even at some expense to the rapport it is generally wise for any counselor to hold his clients tactfully but firmly to the realities of time; this is probably good for the client’s education in “reality thinking.” If the counselor allows the client to dictate the time of interviews there will come a time when the counselor is actually unable to spare extra time and this will cause great feeling of rejection to a client who has been allowed to be the “spoiled child” in this way previously.

It is generally important to leave the client with some more positive hopeful ideas at the end of any interview, and the counselor needs to prepare for this, beginning at about ten minutes before the termination. He tries to avoid matters which are heavily charged with feeling at that time, and he also tries to lead up to a simple summary of what has been expressed and what has been planned, if anything.

The general introduction to this terminal stage of the interview may be something like this, “I’m afraid we’re coming near the end of our time, and I can see that you still have some important things to work out. But perhaps we might try to summarize what we have managed to consider together and what may be worth thinking about before next time. Then we can have time at the next session to go more fully into what you may want to talk over.” If necessary the counselor can bring up some encouraging thing that has come up in the interview, so as to conclude on as optimistic a note as possible, but it would not generally be helpful to drag in any optimistic assurance which has not been warranted.

The client should always feel quite free to decide whether or not to make another appointment, and if no appointment is made he should be assured that he can always come again if he should feel any desire to make another appointment.

At some point in the interviewing, often towards the end of the initial interview but not necessarily so, it may be helpful for the counselor to make some attempt to define the goals and purposes of the counseling. In this way it may become clear to the client that he or she may through it be helped to greater understanding, greater growth to maturity, and greater ability to deal constructively with personal relationships. This may correct any assumption that the counselor will “do something” to bring peace and concord, or that he may “bring the partner to his senses” or “make him see that .” Then it is more likely that counselor and client will work toward the same end. The client will often provide the opening for such definition of the aims of counseling by some question or remark. As the unburdening of the first or a later interview seems to be nearing its end a client will often ask some such question as “Now I’ve told you about the sorry affair, what you going to do about it?” This question may be implied rather than asked directly, but in either case it provides the counselor with the opportunity to deal with a misconception which may lead him and the client to work at cross purposes unless it is corrected.

The definition is generally best carried out tactfully, so as not to give any feeling of rejection. An example of the counselor’s response might be, “You are hoping that I might be able to offer a solution to your problem? What kind of help were you hoping I might be able to give?” The client may either convey any underlying expectations regarding the counseling, or may throw it back to the counselor with some such remark as, “I really don’t know, but I thought you’d have some ideas to suggest,” or “I hoped you’d be able to do something to help.”

The counselor might then respond in such a manner as, “I imagine you’ve already had quite a bit of advice, and been rather disappointed that it hasn’t helped very much. Most of us find that in such complex things as the intimate personal relationships of marriage the best help we can give is to look with each person at his or her problems so that we can come to understand something of how they feel about it, and then to see if together we can come to understand better why they feel as they do. By talking the situation over as fully as possible in this way we find that people can come to see their situation and that of their partner more clearly. They are then better able to look at the various alternatives and decide what they can do about it without being confused by their upset feelings. I think you can see that this would be likely to need a few more sessions, and if you would like to go on I shall be glad to hear more of how you feel about it, and to look with you at anything you feel able to talk about.” This might not be offered at such length in one “speech,” but it represents the kind of definition that many clients may need in their unfamiliarity with the aims and methods of counseling.

A similar kind of definition may be given in response to another type of question by the client, “What do you think I should do about this?” The counselor’s response might be, “What alternatives had you in mind? Perhaps we could look at them for a minute so that we could think about them between now and the next session.” If they are given by the client, the counselor might then say, “Do you think it might be best to look more deeply into these so that we can find a really worthwhile answer to the problem?” Then he can go on to define the counseling aims as before.

At some point in this discussion it is generally important for the counselor to emphasize that everything discussed in every session of counseling is held in sacred confidence and not disclosed to anyone, even the marital partner, without the client’s permission. There may be many kinds of natural openings for this, for example when the client expresses the feeling of some kind of disloyalty in discussing a marital partner or a parent or parent-in-law; or when the client seems diffident about discussing matters of immorality or possible mental illness. Such assurances will often overcome the client’s reticence and greatly assist in the establishment of rapport.

This attitude of “feeling into” the client’s feelings is generally called “empathy.” The word comes from a German word “Einfiihlung,” which in its turn came from two Greek words which can be translated “In” and “Feeling.” It differs from sympathy (“I feel as you do”) and from antipathy (“I can’t see why you should feel that way”) and apathy (“I couldn’t care less!”). It is trying to say something like “I’m beginning to realize how you feel.” There is compassion in it, but also sufficient dispassion to prevent emotional identification which would deprive the counselor of the necessary objective perspective to help the client help himself.

Empathy in this sense would seem to be the counselor’s most important contribution to the establishment and maintenance of healthy rapport, and it is therefore one of the foundations of counseling. It is an expression of the counselor’s unconditional readiness to “feel into” the client, to look at his difficulties and problems, and his efforts to deal with them, through the client’s eyes, and thus to provide him with a kind of new dimension in which he can come to consider his problems and their possible solutions. Above all, and whether there may be any adequate solution or not, the counselor provides the renewed encouragement of a healthy accepting personal relationship for the client’s growth to greater maturity and understanding.

Empathy is not an easy quality to achieve or maintain. The counselor, being human, will have his share of emotions, prejudices, needs, and habitual attitudes, many of which may be evoked by the client’s story and expressed feelings. It is all too easy for the counselor to respond in any of the ways already mentioned, fact-finding, moralizing, advising, criticizing, sympathizing, or reassuring respectively. Or he may plunge prematurely into the “practical” question, “What are you going to do about it?” To give genuine empathy any counselor needs to be aware of most of his own emotional needs and habitual attitudes and prejudices, so that he can allow for them, and be on guard against their intrusion into the counseling process. Even the most “accepting” words can be said in such a manner as to convey indifference, criticism, and even hostility, and the counselor needs constantly to ask himself the honest questions, “Am I being too protective to this person?” “Why did that remark stir up these feelings in me?” In this way, and by regular frank discussion of his work with other counselors, he may be helped to greater emotional steadiness, and the ability to offer genuine warmth without sentimentality.

To return to the counselor’s response to Betty, “You felt pretty upset and humiliated about it?” This will give Betty the chance to confirm his impression of her feelings, or if she wishes to modify or extend it. It will certainly give her the feeling that here is someone ready to look honestly at her difficulty with her, and not to try to argue her out of her feelings or pat her condescendingly on the back. She will have the growing feeling that at least she can take the risk of being her real self. As this happens she will feel freer to talk about many things previously regarded as too threatening to her self-respect, and as she finds even these things accepted by the counselor, and herself accepted in spite of them, her defenses will go down and she will become, possibly for the first time, able to “come to herself,” as the Prodigal did. Of course this may not all happen in the initial interview, but when the counselor handles the initial interview well the insight-generating process will become well established.

In many cases it is found that as the unburdening goes on the initial expression of mainly negative feelings, and reports about the partner’s misdeeds will be gradually replaced by more positive expressions. At the beginning the positive expressions may be mixed up with the negative, love and hostility, independence and dependence, confidence and anxiety or doubt. This is called “ambivalence,” and it is present to a considerable extent as “mixed feelings” in everyone. When it comes out in counseling the client may feel that there must be something abnormal in having such “contrary” feelings, and the counselor can best handle this situation by a simple accepting response to the ambivalent feelings.

For example, in the course of her further narrative Betty may say something like, “And yet with all those beastly things he’s done I know he is good at heart and I still can’t help loving him. There must be something peculiar about me!” The counselor’s response might be something like, “Even though you can’t bear a lot of his behavior you still feel he’s lovable deep down?” The counselor’s simple “matter of fact” acceptance of the ambivalence will generally do more to help the client than any vigorous assurance that “everybody has mixed feelings like that at times.”

When the counselor makes the first response, “Even though you can’t bear a lot of his behavior, you still feel he’s lovable deep down?” it is quite likely that Betty will go on in some more positive expressions, such as “Yes, he’s a good man at heart, I think he must have been going through a pretty worrisome time. If we could only get some of these horrible squabbles cleared up I’m sure we could be very happy, as we used to be.” From being almost entirely dominated by her sense of humiliation and hostility, Betty has now come quite spontaneously, through the counseling relationship, to a much more objective and positive view of her situation, and a readiness to move ahead towards growth and healing of the marital relationship. She will go home from this interview much more relaxed and restrained, not approving Frank’s crude and ill-mannered actions any more than she did, but ready to accept him and to see that he may be struggling with himself and not always able to cope adequately with his feelings.

Whatever may happen with any counseling with Frank, Betty will still have a lot more to do if she is to achieve sufficient understanding of her own vulnerabilities to work towards a lasting marital harmony, and Frank too will need to do the same. It takes two to make a partnership, but only one to destroy it. But even if Frank were unwilling to come it is possible to do something quite worthwhile through Betty if she can grow in maturity and learn to handle Frank’s childish outbursts with dignity, with sustained acceptance of him coupled with a frankly expressioned disapproval of his uncooperative behavior. Many marital disorders are very greatly healed by the ability of the more far-seeing partner to rise to the challenge with the help of a good counselor, and develop the mature capacity to accept other people and their feelings even though disapproving of their conduct. Here surely is the essence of personal relationship in society as well as in domestic life.

In many cases, even when the counselor responds to the client’s feelings, there will be so many facts surging in the client’s mind that he will be unable to avoid a long recital of them. The counselor can often perform some subtle redirection in such cases by taking advantage of any further pauses in the story and again responding to the feelings that have just been expressed, and keeping the general pattern of facts at the back of his mind for possible later attention when the client may need some help to clarify his attitudes. In this way, as the counselor responds acceptingly and with genuine interest to the client’s expressions of feeling, the client may gradually come to accept the “cue” that the counselor is interested in how he feels, and then he will feel free to go on to a progressively deeper unburdening of feelings. The interview will then come “alive,” and counselor and client will achieve communication and rapport on a deeper and deeper level.

Some alternative kinds of responses on the part of the counselor may be illustrated by an actual example. Here, for her first interview, is Betty Brown, and in the course of an intense outpouring of indignation about Frank, her husband, goes on to say “The other evening when my mother was visiting me with my husband’s knowledge and was invited to stay for the evening meal, Frank just didn’t come home when he’d promised to do so, and when I got in touch with his office there was no answer. I felt deeply humiliated, and we just had to go on with the meal after giving him an hour’s grace. Then at about ten o’clock he arrived with three of his objectionable friends, all of them the worse for alcohol, and they took possession of the lounge and went on with their rough party there, demanding that I bring them drinks from the refrigerator. I started to do that to keep the peace, but my mother started to tell Frank what she thought of him, and he savagely pushed her right into the sideboard, so that she got a bad cut in her head. And all Frank and his friends did was to laugh at her!” What kind of comment could the counselor make at this point?

a. “What happened then?” This would encourage Betty to rake up all the facts about Frank’s conduct that she could think of, and the whole interview would be cluttered up with a mass of detail that would make the counselor’s work almost impossible from the point of view of helping Betty to clarify her feelings and to achieve insight into the deeper aspects of the situation. A succession of facts would be appropriate in a legal action for divorce or for custody of the children or for maintenance, but not for the healing activity which is the aim and purpose of counseling.

b. “Frank had no right to do that!” However true this may be, it would not assist the counseling process at all to make such a comment. It would only add to Betty’s resentment, and she would almost certainly throw the counselor’s statement at Frank in their next conflict. When she tells Frank “The counselor said you had no right to do that!” one can well imagine how hopeless any attempt to gain Frank’s confidence and cooperation in the counseling would be. The counselor is in no position to judge this issue, or indeed any issues, because he has no chance of assessing all the varied and complex factors which combine to induce any person to think and act in any particular way. He has not even any way of making sure that a client is telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

c. “You should have told him off properly and refused to have anything to do with the affair.” Or “You should have realized he wasn’t responsible for his actions at that time, and stopped your mother from interfering. She got what was
coming to her!” Here again we have the entirely unwarranted judgment of the situation in two quite opposing ways, pre
sumably dictated by the emotional prejudices of the “counselor,” together with some quite superficial and prejudiced
advice. No such attitude as this would do anything but harm to the whole counseling process. Betty will have had plenty of such advice from many quarters, to her increasing confusion, because either the different suggestions are irreconcilable, or she would feel them impracticable or futile. This kind of comment will only increase her resentment against Frank, or stirup some quite natural resentment against the counselor. Any chance of better insight and understanding would be ruined.

d. “Are you sure you haven’t done anything to Frank to make him want to stay out and get drunk?” It may well be
that Betty has had some part in the conflict and has been “needling” Frank in some way as to make him “fed up” with
things, but this is certainly not the time or the way to approach that possibility. Betty in her indignation at Frank’s
conduct will be quite unable to see any part that she might have played in the conflict, and will resent the counselor’s
suggestion to the point of breaking the rapport, possibly beyond repair. She will not be at all likely to develop insight through such external suggestions until her pent up feelings are fully unburdened, and even then insight is much more likely to arise spontaneously from within than to be “injected” from without.

e. “You poor little girl, you shouldn’t have to put up with such cruel treatment!” Here again such a statement may be quite true, but it will not be likely to help in the healing process for the counselor to identify himself with Betty in this way. It will tend to increase her self-pity and her indignation, as many other comments of this kind that she has received will have done. It is also likely that she will throw this comment at Frank next time there is an argument, “The counselor said that I shouldn’t have to put up with such cruel treatment!” This will almost certainly ruin any chance of making good contact with Frank, and of being a healing influence in the marital situation.

f. “Don’t worry about that, I’ve seen many cases much worse than that which do very well with counseling!” This
also may be quite true, but such a comment is completely in appropriate in counseling. The counselor is in no position at this point to give any reassurance, and such a comment is much more likely for the purpose of relieving the counselor’s anxiety than of helping the client. The client will know quite well that any such reassurance cannot be warranted at this stage, and will lose faith in the counselor’s ability, and even his honesty and integrity, very quickly. Every counselor owes it to all his clients to be scrupulously honest in his comments and his attitudes.

g. “You felt pretty upset and humiliated about it?” Here is a simple accepting response to Betty’s feelings, which will encourage her to go on unburdening them in a way that she will probably never have had a chance to do before this. To accept her feelings in this way does not mean that the counselor is judging the situation in any way. He is not saying that she ought to feel like that, or that Frank ought not to have done it, but simply that he realizes that she felt that way. The counselor has registered the facts in the back of his mind, but he has responded to the feelings, and in this way he is communicating to Betty that he is interested in the facts mainly for what they mean to her. He is inter-viewing, looking at her situation with her, feeling into her feelings without being involved in them. In that way he can provide a firm reliable support and can help to “lift” her spirit in a way that would be impossible if he were identified with her in her feelings as her own relatives might be.