Stepping Back

It may be that I am sometimes guilty of taking myself and/or others too seriously.

Ok, seriously.

I find myself dangerously near some level of "academic stuffiness" lately, in some of my writing and even speaking. It has been necessary for me to re-word and rearrange emails, other notes to people, and posts online so that I sound like a normal person.

I think this could be a problem.:P

This is NOT to say that the kinds of things I'm thinking and writing and wanting to think and write are not still important to me. On the contrary, I feel like I'm making progress in ways that I never have before in learning how to piece together the things I'm learning to take a stand or make a contribution.

But, when all is said and done (or thought and written, as the case may be), I am still me.

And "me," believe it or not, is really a pretty simple person.

When I was in high school, I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. In this book, Covey recommends creating a personal mission statement (and I've heard Steven Covey, Sean's dad, recommend the expansion of this to a family mission statement for married folks). I wish I had attached a date to the mission statement that I drafted then ... all I know is that I was somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16 when I decided on the following ...

I will:

read the books

do the math

take the classes

write the papers

pass the tests

make the money

draw the plans

live the laws

meet the people

required of me so that I can get to where I'm going and pursue my dreams the way I choose.

During my life, I will take time for anything and everything I feel is important, including observing and enjoying nature, caring for and loving my family, being faithful and obedient to God, pursuing my interests, hobbies, and personal goals, and being a friend and a helper to those in need.

I will never give up my dreams or compromise my standards for any reason whatsoever, and I will never settle for less than truth, honor, and integrity.

I have actually surprised myself with the number of times I have referred back to my "mission statement" since I wrote it ... it has helped me stay focused on some key things about my life and my goals. I've been wondering lately whether it might be time to revise or enlarge it somewhat. At the time, a lot of those tasks I listed were things I perceived as necessary evils, assignments to be endured and completed only so that I could then do just what I wanted to do. Now, I'm learning that many of those things are a part of my life's work that I want to embrace, rather than merely enduring.

I started a "life list" once, which I've long since lost - which I've been thinking it would be fun to recreate. In essentials, my aspirations are much the same as they ever were - I want to be of service to God and know Him personally, and I am really looking forward to being a wife and mother. (See? Simple - 3 things :) Over the years, I think these basic dreams have grown to include becoming the most genuine, real person I can be, and contributing in some significant way to the moral fiber of the community around me. I've also started to recognize the reality of some of the gifts God has given me ... and I want to use them!

What's on your list? Who do you dream of being? Who have you been that has caused you to want to be that person? What are you going to go after, and how are you going to go after it?

Confessions of a Therapist-In-Training

The end of August marked the beginning of a nearly year-long adventure in counseling at a local campus wellness center. So far, so good - I LOVE this work! I am working under the supervision of a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and am counseling with students who are coming in with a wide variety of presenting issues, from grief to relationship troubles to anxiety and/or depression to low self esteem.

I have been pondering the fact that many people come to counseling expecting the counselor to know what to do, or to tell him/her what to do, to FIX it. I knew this, coming into the internship, and have even experienced it myself, kind of expecting to be directed in a counseling session to do something or try something or talk about something specific … and I have recognized on a personal level that my counselor's direction isn’t always what’s most needed or most appropriate to help me grow. However, I didn’t anticipate how easy it would be, from a counselor's vantage point, to go right along with the client and feel pressure to provide solutions. I know, intellectually, that I want the client to reach their own solutions, that I don’t want to be the “expert advice-giver,” that I don’t want to tell them what to do. In practice though, it’s hard to avoid falling into that trap! If I am given that much power by a client, it’s very difficult not to take it and run with it.

My supervisor proposed the image of a road trip … where the client is the driver and the therapist is, to some degree, the navigator. We may suggest directions to go, and some clients may need more encouragement or direction than others, but ultimately those decisions are left up to them.

Right now there is a big emphasis, in many helping professions, on deferring to the client as the expert on his or her own life. No matter how much I know or experience, I will never understand exactly what my client is going through from their perspective ... and acknowledging that with humility in the counseling room can be a huge piece of what it takes to develop a meaningful therapeutic relationship.

Having said this, I have also found myself caught in a bit of a quandary over where counseling as a profession really enters the picture. Obviously there are many different reasons, approaches, and responses to counseling. I find myself wondering if traditional counseling (I’m not sure I’m even clear what I mean by that, but for lack of a better description) isn’t one of the most conservative (and least postmodernistic) fields there is. For example, when there is such an emphasis on being strengths-based, we are making a value judgment just by designating various abilities or aptitudes as strengths ... and thus implying that their opposite or lack would equal weakness. When meeting with a client who is depressed, we can suggest with reasonable certainty that there are things that WILL (nearly 100% of the time) help, such as exercise, a healthy sleep schedule, and healthy food choices. Here there is not so much of the postmodern “create your own reality - go your own way and make whatever you want to have happen, happen” attitude but rather a feeling of “it is almost certain that these things will help you … how can I help you resolve your concerns about them so that you can see that too?”

What do you think?