Relating_to_Others

Relating to Others This essay will explore the ways in which I personally relate to others, the difficulty I have experienced because of this, and the barriers within myself that have made relating to others hard. I will illustrate what I have learned from my Counselling Skills Course and my motivation for wanting to help others. All my adult life friends have come to me to discuss events, at times of crisis, confusion and frustration. Some of the subjects have been extremely intimate and private varying from, issues within their marriages and family through to questions about themselves and their reactions and behaviour to these events. I don’t invite or offer myself to individuals, they just come and I just listen. I give them the time to release their pent up thoughts, feelings and emotions. If it’s a difficult and sensitive topic, I re-assure them that I’m there and we have plenty of time. I know from their feedback that the reason they can talk to me is because they know I don’t judge them. They consider me a completely trustworthy person, who just gives them the time to talk. I have always helped people as an adult from working in the care industry, both in hospitals and the community. My experience has varied from working with children, through to the terminally ill, the elderly, mental health patients and those with learning disabilities, I have cared for a very broad spectrum of people and gained invaluable experience both relating to them and establishing relationships with them. I have learned that we are all different and unique individuals who have to adapt to one another when communicating and relating. When I initially started caring work, it was because I had an unhealthy need to be needed, the fact of which I was completely unaware. Later I went through an extensive counselling for a period five years after suffering a breakdown. My breakdown was due to past experiences and trauma which had never been dealt with, and this was one of the areas we explored and worked hard on. After my counselling ended, I emerged a new woman; I no longer felt the strong need to help everyone, just a healthy desire to help people in a more constructive way. This led me to enrol on the Introduction to Counselling Course, which I successfully completed. I thoroughly enjoyed the course which led me onto the Counselling Skills Course with a view in the future to the Counselling Theory Course that follows. If nothing else, on this current course I have learnt self-awareness along with the value of looking honestly at myself, my thoughts, needs, feelings, emotions, as well as my abilities, beliefs and values. This has not been an easy thing to do as this has highlighted my fears, prejudices and stereotyping. I do have a prejudice against paedophiles due to my own past experience, and I also tend to stereotype all Fijian men as domestically violent again from my own past experience. I know that this is wrong and it is something that I am working hard to address. My inner fear of failure comes from a lack of self-confidence. Which, although it is growing stronger all the time, is something I am more aware of since starting this course. I have a deeper insight into me as an individual than before, a greater understanding of how I work both mentally and emotionally, and how my unconscious plays a big part in my life too. One thing that really stands out for me was an experience I had on holiday this year. I met a lovely, bubbly woman who was with her husband and two children. We met by the side of the pool and she started telling me about her life and how unhappy she was with her marriage which left her feeling hollow inside, and was desperate for love. Over the following week we spent a lot of time together and what I identified in her was myself twenty years ago. She was so desperate for love and affection that she would give herself to anyone because for that brief time of personal intimate contact she thought she was loved. It was awful to see her like that, with no self-respect and no self-esteem. It was such a painful but poignant thing for me to see and made me realise how other people had seen me all those years ago. I questioned myself, asking, am I still damaged' The answer, happily for me is no. I’m nearly healed, but now am able to use mine and others experiences positively. The skills part of the course, when we do role play, also highlighted areas that I need to work on. The main block I had was being watched by the tutor, it seems silly as a grown woman to have this reaction, but with further self-examination I found it originated back to my school days. I have been working hard on this particular area using the counselling sessions which are a requirement of the course, and have already noticed a positive difference, which has increased my confidence. Since starting the Counselling Skills Course, our group has grown closer and we have got to know each other much better. We are quite a diverse group of people and it has been fascinating to interact with and get a deeper insight into each individual. We are all so different, yet we are all drawn to the same course, either for personal use or as a part of our journey to becoming a counsellor. We are of various ages so we get a broad and interesting range of ideas when we work together in groups. The most interesting thing from the course is how people reacted to their counselling sessions and counsellors. Some were quite happy with their sessions, others were not comfortable with the dynamics of the session so decided to find another counsellor. Many felt that saying they were a student changed the atmosphere of the sessions. Personally it took me weeks to think about looking for a counsellor. It felt like a huge step for me because I was moving on from the memory of my old counsellor who had in the past retired. Luckily for me after a few phone calls, I found her, the voice was right, the conversation was relaxed, and I’m now on my fourth week and find it extremely helpful. I also realised how much I had missed, what I call ‘My Time’, where I can express myself openly, talk through things that are bothering me, cry, reflect and learn. I find the whole thing very cleansing for both my mind and soul. The difference now is that I had a choice whereas before I was ill and didn’t. That is a really important acknowledgement of how much I have learnt, recognising that looking after myself mentally as well as physically is essential. I do feel that my experiences of counselling will be invaluable to me. During this course, we have learnt about Person Centred model and how it centres on the clients feelings. It focuses on the belief that clients have the ability to explore their own feelings and patterns of behaviour, in order to help themselves resolve their problems. I can see how counselling helped me, it was such a powerful tool to learn and one I often use. The same can be said for the Psychodynamic Model and the role of the conscious, pre-conscious and the unconscious. Again I can relate this to elements of my counselling along with the use of Defence Mechanisms. I don’t utilise them very much now, but there was a time in my life when using them constantly was how I survived, and breaking this pattern was very hard and took a lot of hard work and change. So now reflecting on all that I have experienced in my life, both the good and the bad and the intense healing of counselling and the extremely positive results, it has led me to want to share this with others. To want to help others to help themselves, through counselling. If not counselling then I know that I will use these new skills in another area, such as befriending or respite care for foster children, there are so many areas available where my skills can be used constructively. So to summarise, the skills I have learnt, my ability to be empathetic, non-judgemental, genuine and calm will enable me to do well in whichever direction I decide to take in life. Although these areas still need a lot of work and I still have a lot to learn, this course has challenged me to meet and understand new people from various aspects of life. The course had also taught me self-awareness, giving me a deeper knowledge of myself; both positive and negative, creating a solid platform of skills and knowledge that will be expanded and used to help others in the future.