Responses of the counselor to the clients view

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.

Tags: Counseling