WELLBEING
-
Serendipity of my new studies
I am so happy to discover that Therapy Today is actually available online for free download! How many industry journals are free these days? This makes my studies so much easier for a start. I have decided to invest a small amount of my consultancy income each month in books, but I am glad I can save on this major publication. And generally, I think it is nice to see BACP being so open and accessible. I am also looking forward to finding out more about the updated BACP Ethical Framework which I printed out and read today. Of course, the first thing I have noticed was the part about social media – which is very sensible, and quite frankly useful for my current studies and my future work. I had no idea it was updated so recently! What a great time to start my learning journey. I have also found and connected online with Jeanine Connor who wrote a commentary to the new ethical framework (Jeanine works with children and young people so the area of new media is familiar to her clients). I am so glad she is a blogger too! I think I will learn a lot from her. I do like her sensible approach to tech and to the new ethics – both supporting BACP ethical guidelines. I am also happy to learn about Tim Bond – the author of the leading book on counselling ethics, consultant of the new BACP ethical framework, who happens to work in Bristol too. Since we are considering to move there sometimes soon I am really glad to see that I might be able to come across him there.This is all new. The new BACP Ethical Guidelines are a great start for me and I really appreciate the timing of my new studies. I feel that this is the right way to develop my skills and work further but I also feel that the timing is just perfect. Exciting times! -
Counseling contract – beginning of my new journey
I am going to need to dedicate a part of my blog to my counselling journal as our lessons are very inspiring and evocative – I want to capture my emotional journey. I cannot post about the content of our sessions but I can share my personal learnings, feelings, impressions. This is what I will aim to do here, in the counselling area of my blog.Starting a new path
Starting counselling studies is really emotional – even though the idea is to build professional skills in this job. Many students, myself included, don’t realise that counselling studies are aimed at people in their 30’s and so if you are younger you might find them a bit challenging. On the other hand, if you are in the right age group you might feel that you are starting a new path a little bit too late. That’s not the case. As it turns out, the counselling practice requires high levels of empathy but also resilience to emotional stress which comes with a huge amount of life experience.Initial worries
Starting for me came with two major realisations: how to manage my Eastern-European background practising counselling in the UK, and how to shift from my current job (social media marketing) defined well by openness and transparency to a profession which is based on 100% confidentiality. Both of those notions created a little bit of tension before my first session but I know that I just needed to think a little bit more about them, investigate them and find the right perspective.Most of the time I do not worry about my cultural background. UK is very tolerant and multicultural comparing to other parts of the world I lived in. (Brexit might be affecting this at the moment but we are yet to see the actual impact in the years to come). Poles, however, are much more direct than the locals! How am I going to manage this difference in the way ‘things will get done’ in my actual practice? Well, it is a very valid worry to have and to investigate. When I looked at this problem in more detail I realised that actually, my difference could become beneficial to my future practice. My uniqueness can prove to be an opportunity to help people who might struggle with their own identity (cultural or any other, really). I am not sure if this worry was provoked by the current political climate in the UK but I know that it’s really important to be aware of one’s weaknesses for those darker days when work might prove to be more overwhelming. And so I am really pleased that I have managed to look at this worry from various angles and find good outcomes – arguments that I can use for myself and others in the future when I work as a counsellor.My other worry was connected to the idea of confidentiality. The very word ‘blogger’ makes people panic in this context, but again for me, it will have to be the measure of excellence: supporting my clients in trust that none of what they share with me would leak offline, nor online. And actually, those of you who know just a little bit about the social web might guess that bloggers are actually much more aware of the responsibility they must take for their words than many other types of people out there. Working in social media has made me super vigilant to facts that are shareable and facts that need to remain confidential. But I am glad that I will learn about confidentiality even more.Contract
The word ‘contract’ gained a new meaning to me this week. The word in counselling context is an agreement between a counsellor and their client that will form the ethical framework of their future work together. It contains all areas of how they would work, what they aim to achieve and how the flow of work is to look like. It’s the backbone of the counselling process. It needs to be clear. It needs to factor in ethics of both parties, the industry standards (BACS ethics in my case) and ethical policies of the organisation providing counselling support. It is also the compass both client and counsellor can use to navigate during their journey together and I think it is not just necessary but also extremely liberating and empowering for both parties.After my first learning session, I came home inspired that the modern counselling is definitely an area I want to work with. It feels like a natural step in my life journey in terms of my skills and the support I can provide to my clients – many of which have already benefited from my listening skills in the context of their relationship with technology. Now it’s time to take it to a new, more personal level. -
Ready to go back!
I have now completed the Positive Psychology course on Coursera with Barbara Fredericton. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and a bit more confidence to start the offline studies tomorrow. Tomorrow is our first lesson and I feel prepared – which is rare. I guess as we grow up we need to feel more prepared? I used to risk and wait for the boost of energy in the last minute preparations but now I really want to relax while studying. I want to make time for it, take time while doing it and be really good in counselling once I get to practice. I have learned a lot about new psychology academics during this course. I learned about new trends. I also learned a little bit about the practice of counselling and psychotherapy in business, schools, personal coaching and in academic research area too. It gives me a good starting point to learn about the reality of the new profession too. I am trying not to think about all the other things I need to learn and my craving to learn it all. All the books I want to read, online courses I want to take. I am focussing on today’s learning. I find it symbolically significant that I start this new academic adventure with the subject of positive psychology and new, very suitable definition of love – the micro-moments of connection between people that shape our positive resonance and lead to better overall health and well-being! -
Back to books and learning
So I completed the Positive Psychology course on Coursera with Barbara Fredericton just now. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and a bit more confidence to start the offline Counselling studies tomorrow. Tomorrow is our first lesson and I feel prepared – which is rare. I guess as we grow up we need to feel more prepared? I used to risk and wait for the boost of energy in the last minute preparations but now I really want to relax while studying. I want to make time for it, take time while doing it and be really good in counselling once I get to practice. I have learned a lot about new psychology academics during this course. I learned about new trends. I also learned a little bit about practice of counselling and psychotherapy in business, schools, personal coaching and in academic research area too. It gives me a good starting point to learn about the reality of the new profession too. I am trying not to think about all the other things I need to learn and my craving to learn it ALL!:) All the books I want to read, online courses I want to take. About http://www.ippanetwork.org/. About http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/. I feel excited about finally, after years and years, going back to my childhood dream of helping others by supporting them emotionally. When I was younger I really wanted to be a psychotherapist but I simply did not dare to claim the dream. Today I know that we have many voices in our head but only we get to choose which one to believe and follow. I choose to listen to the one that empowers me to walk another mile, work harder and achieve more satisfaction from the fact that I do something I really believe in. And the trust is that: as the world is moving towards tech and we increasingly move away from human contact (don’t get me wrong, I do not criticise tech at all, just state the obvious) we also start to feel a bit confused. Things change with dramatic speed. Our generation, in my humble option, is the first one that holds the key to the solution of inter-generational gap. The very same generation faces a huge challenge of social web, self-driving cars and AI. What is left then but to dive into how our brains, bodies and emotions feel about all this and how those of us who are more involved in tech can help others manage their worries, fears, inconsistencies? To me it’s almost a natural step in my own self-development – a path I cannot not take. So I am really excited about my Counselling Degree. It is going to be hard – just doing this online course was not easy. I was falling asleep tired after my usual daily tasks, but I took it easy and continued. Even if a bit harder than back in my student times (we had so much time then!) I think I am still benefitting from this educational path much more because I am benefitting from my conscious motivation: I can see clearly what I am aiming for at the end of those four years. With this in mind, I find it symbolically significant that I start this new academic adventure with the subject of positive psychology and new, very suitable definition of love – the micro-moments of connection between people that shape our positive resonance and lead to better overall health and well being!
-
What a great time to be a student!
I am tired but happy. Work started and I feel it creeping into my learning time but I am determined. On one hand, I am taking on more work to allow myself more books and courses. On the other hand, I am pushing myself harder to stick to the working time – I just do work in advance. Today I did work for two clients for the entire month, so I do not have to worry about them and can study. I did the 4th week of positive psychology and moved on to the definition of love – which is very meaningful and -as opposed to static status-like meanings – is actually effective in daily life. I really enjoy studying emotions. I decided to read ‘The art of loving’ by Fromm once again. It shaped my view on relationships since university but I could do with a reminder now, after this positive psychology course too (I aim to finish it by 18.09). Last night I have also read about neuro-psychanalysis – which is a very exciting new branch of psychology. It does make sense for Freudians and neuro-linguists to collaborate though it was a reminder of my academic experiences to learn that they have initially remained in mutual disrespect for quite a while (not even reading each other’s journals!). It’s all good now and I have managed to find a lot of their published findings online, for free. EU countries announced today that they are aiming to ensure that by 2020 all academic results and work are free. What a great time to be a student! -
The positivity ratio
Today I have learned more about positivity ratio and ordered Frederickson’s two books to catch up on more of her studies of positive psychology. I noticed that taking notes on paper helps me focus in the still challenging world of household and multitasking, so I will study more in the evenings and with written notes. I also started writing down main points from Gilbert’s book on compassion as it also contains a lot of positive psychology insights and I know I will find those notes useful when working. I know many books can be read on Kindly with notes there, but I want to read and make notes from core ones on paper. School starts tomorrow and I am happy that I paid for my counselling course for this year, prepared study space and time and core books. I will spend all year identifying online resources too and blogging about my journey.
I have also learned today about the wheel of emotions (above) – I feel I need to learn to name them all so Robert Plutchnik is a good start for that. I also have a book I got for fun read ‘The book of human emotions’ – I will get on with it after Gilbert. It contains cross-cultural perspective on emotions so I learned just from first few sections quite a lot of new feelings. At some point in the future, I will try to blog about each feeling too to emerge myself in them and to learn more about them. -
Positive psychology
I have paid for the Positive Psychology course on Coursera now to get a diploma so I need to finish it by 18.09. It’s good to be pushed for it as I make more time for studying. Today I have completed the second week and learned so much! I mean instinctively I knew some of those facts but I am so glad that science proves I am not madly positive and naive;) Aside from ‘negativity bias’ (the need for us to live the negative experiences more intensely and respond to them faster) I have also learned that the stable, more sublime, quiet way of living with positive emotions is supported by since and called ‘positivity offset’. We live many more positive moments than negative ones, we just don’t notice them so well, that’s all. In her interview back in 2003, Barbara Fredrickson mentions: “Emotions SHOULD reflect our circumstances” ergo we should feel sad, attacked, depressed sometimes. But most of the time we feel OK, good, inspired, at awe, hopeful, in love. We just don’t talk about it. We are happiness biased striving for some ideal state of super-love or super-happiness. Even back at the university when I studied love and family from Erich Fromm I learned that’s not the case entirely. But nowadays, at the beginning of the XXI century, we seem to promote, even make money on that promise of painless, light and mindless (not mindful) life. So as I study this course I am starting to see just how much work is there to be done for councillors. Acc. to Fredericton’s studies back in 2003 only 20% of Americans lived thriving life – not financially, but from the point of view of that balance.Balance is something I have also noticed in Paul Gilbert’s ‘The Compassionate Mind’ (just reading it when I can relax). I really like his list of life challenges were are facing (chapter 2) and the Three Types of Affect Regulation System:- DRIVEN, EXCITED, VITALITY: Incentive/resource focussed – wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming – activating
- ANGER, ANXIETY, DISGUST: Threat-focussed – protection and safety seeking – activating/inhibiting
- CONTENT, SAFE, CONNECTED: non-wanting, affiliative-focussed – safeness – kindness – soothing
The third I find shocking. It should be obvious to me as a mother that it’s needed but having worked in marketing and businesses I was so distracted by the main two forces: seeking/wanting and protecting/hiding that I forgot about the most crucial system: the balancing act of being simply OK, happy with things as they are. Maybe it’s the answers to things I currently find difficult to accept in my life – leaving the full, energetic, emotional life behind for calm and slow paced one? I guess that’s one for my own counselling.For now, I am really pleased that I re-discover the elements of psychology I was already learning at the Uni with the addition of immense discoveries in the last 20-30 years. That learning curve itself is immensely satisfying! -
Rogers, meditations and diets?
A long week of spending time with family, organising things and preparing my life for studies. I have purchased a few more books and a positive psychology course. I have resigned from two public roles (it was always the plan to take them on to practice making time for studies) and narrowed the remaining two to the very minimum. The rest of my time is to be dedicated to studies from now on. I spent a week on a diet and I feel much better in my body now so I hope my brain will be happier to learn better too. I have also subscribed to Headspace premium to get back to my habit of daily meditations and as for journaling I am using the iPhone app for 5 Minute Journal – still struggling with remembering to do it each day but I will get there. Small daily habits of happiness;)Tonight I progressed in studying. I read “Active Listening” by Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson to discover just how difficult work must have been in the 50’s! I had no idea! Well, I did, but to see this form of a manifesto to employers is a bit of an eye opener. I was reading it imagining that this is actually news back in the 50’s – and that reality was truly shocking to me. I know I am lucky as I had really good jobs and good mentors in my life but to think that production could be prioritised over individual’s mental health (and by that I mean sense of justness, motivation and common goal) is a bit scary, to be honest. I am glad I read this very short piece and I am sure I will read those 20 pages many more times just as a reminder of how far we have come and what we need to protect – just in case if we lose this progress in mental health! -
Freud, hello again!
Today was all about Freud. It’s nice to be back with him and refresh my knowledge about psychoanalysis but I am not sure how deep my practice should be. I think I will find out during my Foundation course?
In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud’s redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the underlying mechanisms of repression. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, ego and super-ego. Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt. In his later work Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.
Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and across the humanities.
Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is “the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person’s childhood”. Another definition is “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object”. Still another definition is “a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person … for the original object of the repressed impulses”.Transference (German: Übertragung) was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient’s feelings.
-
Listening skills in practice
I spent two hours yesterday reading the Introduction to Counselling by John McLeod – the chapter on the history of counselling as a profession both in the US and in the UK. It helped me a lot to place the counselling next to sciences I have already studied: post-modernism in literature and psychology in teaching methodology. It feels nice to unveil those new areas and I really like the idea of going back all the way to Freud and reading about his works again. But I also cannot wait to hear learn about the practice. Something nice and motivating happened to me too this week. I met a woman who has turned her life around for better so drastically thanks to my listening and comments, that I was just overwhelmed. I was trying to remember and hold that feeling as it made me think of something McLeod mentioned in his first chapter – counselling is hard and often feels like ‘just listening and talking’ but very often it is so impactful when councillor feels the results of their work and changes people’s lives for better. I really like this feeling and I hope I can be good at it – I could get used to this type of ‘saving one person at a time’.
