New York Governor, Michael Cuomo, tweeted today that there had been an “uptick in domestic violence incidents.” There is a lot of loss and human devastation occurring. People are losing their jobs by the millions. Social distancing and self-isolation are threatening to disconnect us more than ever. Our body-on-body peer groups have shrunken down to our direct family. Home dynamics are being put to the test like never before.
Of recent I have noticed national medical associations advertising the need for more doctors, and to invite those who would join the profession to seriously consider it.
Do you feel a calling to become a counsellor — to help those who are struggling?
In the time of a global physical health pandemic, there is also a mental health pandemic. Consider the social, health and financial issues of the time. Never has there been a time in living memory when the world needs counsellors more.
People have never been more physically disconnected. There has rarely ever been so much pervasive threat to life. And there has never been so much financial pressure in our lifetimes. And this is saying something, given we’ve all survived the global financial crisis of 2008-onwards.
It’s important from a counselling viewpoint to know the social dynamics of the time. But what is it that attracts us to a career in counselling to begin with? When I pursued my counselling qualifications, I’d been involved for many years in workplace behavioural psychology, and I’d been a pastor. I’d done a dozen or more leadership and communication courses. I’d been a team leader in the workplace. I’d supervised contractors and consultants. I had two degrees in allied fields. I thought I was ready. And I was.
I was ready to start.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget being in a cohort of about 25 other candidates, most of them female, not realising how each of us would be tested, as we trained to be counsellors who would help and do the least amount of harm we could.
I’d imagine others went into this university program like I, thinking, “We’ll, help people, and people will be so blessed with the counselling we’ll give them.”
I don’t think many of us would have had the slightest comprehension what a program like that would demand of us. To be seriously tested. Not that it’s unnecessary. It surely is necessary.
I remember several of us, perhaps all of us, having seminal moments. One day in group therapy one of the mature ladies just up and left. She’d been triggered by something and felt that was her ‘not yet’ sign. We all respected her for that as she left, all of us very solemn and probably privately thinking, “Is this going to be me at some point?”
You never realise that if you’re going to be ‘in a room’ helping someone else who is under some form of personal and private scrutiny that you, too, will be placed under scrutiny — to feel what it feels like, and to endure your own furnace of character trial.
None of this is bad. It’s about the truth. It’s imperative and necessary.
If there were chinks to be identified and addressed, psychology and counselling faculty would find them — and whilst it may have seemed harsh at times, they did this for our own good so we would do no harm to others we were called to help.
My moment came through assignment feedback. As I read it, I felt completely exposed, as if everyone could see right through me. Naked! Of course, not everyone could. I was a “safe pair of hands, but” my supervisor continued, “I suspect there are things you’re still not owning up to... you could benefit from a course of counselling yourself.”
BOOM! I think they call it, mike drop.
That feedback had me perplexed for days. I thought I was ready. I really did. To undertake counselling was not an invitation. It was actually something I needed to do. To not do it would have said something to faculty and it would have jeopardised my progress.
Three months later, having committed myself to eight sessions of psychoanalysis work, God led me to an epiphany, and suddenly I could see why beforehand I was ill-equipped to help people.
For me, I had a particular weakness. You could call it a weakness of pride. You see, I didn’t need people, but I felt people needed me. It wasn’t until I realised through a process that begin with therapy, that I was unqualified to do this helping work of counselling until I could genuinely and willingly embrace people — and admit I needed people, and that I was actually scared of exposure like everyone else is. This season of inner work, three months overall, let ultimately to what I call my third epiphany — more here.
The point I make is that any course of preparation for any career prepares us adequately to do the work. For counselling, there’s a lot of inner work needed, no matter who we are. And not just that.
Counselling as a profession requires a commitment to ongoing inner work.
It’s the same with pastors, but how many helping professionals tick the ‘continuing professional development’ boxes without being intentionally vulnerable enough?
I can tell you now, you do get to that point at some time or other where you become a great ‘professional’ and it usually coincides with some form of compassion fatigue. It proves that the inner work is never done, and often it’s most important and hardest when you’re years or decades into the craft.
If you see the needs out there now, and you feel God saying to you, “I’m calling you to help people in the calamity,” just be aware that what is replete with honour and privilege is also costly.
It will cost you more than you can imagine now. But if you’re called, thoughts of cost won’t stop you from entering the arena.
Photo by christopher lemercier on Unsplash
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