Thinker, Feeler, Doer

Went for my second supervision (meaning I counsel someone under the watchful eyes of an experienced counselor). Argh......with feedback from first session, I tried to avoid the same mistakes second time round on a different client. Ha again backfired. See the first time I was told not to rush the client towards a goal when the client was not ready and just wanted to express her feelings. So this round I just paced the client and let her talk and reflect, talk and reflect moving in circles. At the end of the session the supervisor asked me whether I knew what the client wanted out of the counseling session? Huh? In my heart I said "I thought you told me I can not rush the client? Oh man you really confused me!"

Went home and over dinner shared about how my supervisor really confused me. My son just remarked "maybe circumstances are different ". That set me thinking. Counseling is of course no exact science. You can not apply a set of procedures throughout although you learn to give appropriate responses (externalised, personalised etc), try to help client see blind spot and how their thinking affects them; and various skills to guide clients to explore, understand and take actions. However fundamentally, each person is unique and the same set of intervention strategy can not be applied to another person. So a counselor needs to be intuitive and creative.
Not easy hhuh.

But what may help is to try and decipher whether the person is more of a thinking, feeling or doing person. So whilst the client for the first supervision is a feeling person, the client for the second supervision is a thinking person, hence I should not have led her round and round but should have gotten her to think what she really wanted.

Basically a thinker is one who analyses a lot but may risk ignoring his feelings and perhaps not acting. A feeler relies on emotions and is more subjective in his decision making process hence risking insufficient analysis and procrastinating as well. The doer is driven by the need to act and is not burdened by too much analysis and feeling. However he runs the risk of ignoring his feelings and not rationalising. We have all these in us, but one aspect may be more predominant. Hence understanding the type that the client belongs to may help the counselor find the open door to the client faster.

My Little Troll

During school holidays the attendance for the story telling session rises to around 30+ and can be quite difficult to manage. Yesterday to my huge surprise, 30 odd children sat through my story about the Little Troll, tracking his sadness and joy. I have learnt from experience the trick to hold their attention is to get a good story and add a lot of drama, almost like Johnny Depp in Choco Factory style (needless to say no parents are allowed to see me make a fool of myself).OK read on only if you have nothing much to do.

Well, trolls were little human like creatures, short, hunched, hairy, with a red rim round their small eyes, spoke coursely and loved to hiss and howl. Trolls hated human because human beings are tall, straight and speak smoothly. Well there was once this little troll that liked human a lot. He loved to hide behind rocks to observe how little children, woodcutter, farmer's wives etc behaved and talked. One day he ventured into the village church attracted by the sound of the church bell (Christians will love this). He peeped inside the church but because it was winter he couldnt see what was inside beyond some figures and the vague glow of candlelight But he knew there was something good inside which was beyond his reach, hence a tear rolled from his eyes and he went away and gave a long sad howl. (The howl that I gave out in that little room must have moved the children's hearts, for they fixed their sad little eyes on me and the room was quiet).
Coming back to the story, the little troll overheard a woodcutter telling his grandson to care for other people and be helpful otherwise he would be no more than a troll. The little troll now knew the main difference between human and troll. (Ye adults, hold your skepticism. I know you must be saying, "Are you joking? Humans caring?) Anyway from that day onwards the little troll quietly filled up the baskets of little children, woodcutters and women who went to the forest to collect flowers, berries, mushroom and wood. He also protected them from wild animals and falling trees. There was a girl who loved to go the forest to collect flowers. On the last day of autumn, on her last visit she asked aloud from whoever had been helping her but remained unknown, what he would like in return. Receiving no response she placed half her mid day lunch on a stone and was about to walk away when a hoarse voice requested her to breathe into the church window on Christmas Day so that one can see the inside of the church from outside. Meanwhile the little troll was thrown out by his kind because he had grown taller, straighter and his voice gentler. In the cold winter he felt he belonged neither to the trolls nor the human. Just then the church bells reminded him of Christmas. Ok the joyful end to all this was that the girl saw the longing eyes outside pressed against the church window when she went to breathe hot air into the window pane. She led him into the church with the whole congregation welcoming him. (Again adults suspend your cynicism and thoughts about how the troll may probably be bullied or something if he lived with them).

What My Little Troll led me into however was that I realised how much I enjoyed the aura of innocence and simplicity around me when I am with children. Perhaps this Little Troll is telling me that is an area I may explore further.

Unfortunate to be fortunate???

I belong to the generation of baby boomers who though had it rough in childhood, through the good luck of being academically inclined and armed with a college qualification, rode on the economic wave when Singapore moved from developing to develped status. I move in a small circle of colleagues,ex-classmates, husband's ex-classmates, all in similar mould who own private property, own club membership, car, goes for annual holiday and whose children mainly go to top 10 schools, JCs and on to university. Most are also Christians although this feature I run short of. Yeh, the lucky generation who suffered some hardship as a child, but lived comfortably for a long while from adulthood and expectantly thereafter.So amongst my counsins in my father's large extended family, you can see the marked difference in lifestyle between the acamdemically successful and the not so academically successful, other than the few entrepreneurial ones. My thought today is not whether this "protected" class and their offsprings will stay forever protected from the ills of economic and social upheaval, although this can be deliberated some other day. (See, many of the people in this class even have the means to make provision to ensure each of their children have a roof over their heads). My thoughts for today is that those who enjoyed privileges as something that comes naturally may feel deprived quite easily.

Hmmm.... what the heck am I talking about, I am a bit confused.Well, what starts me on this trend of thought was a small incident after taiji class this morning. My club rings off a certain area of the car park for taiji every Sunday morning until about 9.15 am when the class ends. The part fenced off is the area closest to the check in area of the swimming pool and the gym. This fencing off practice has inconvenienced people who have to walk about 50 meters to the check in area, for their weekend "Exercise Regime".Compliants have been lodged but sacrifices still have to be made for various activities. This morning just as the rope was lifted and whilst the taiji people were still milling in the area, a car sped across to the end. Wah, some alert driver who managed to avoid hitting anyone but who made his point felt.A family alighted with 2 young teenagers in tow. Some great lessons on give and take huh.

My point is the unfortunate thing about being fortunate is perhaps you feel a natural right to everything and is hurt and shocked when you do not have it. Calamities, misfortunes, financial struggles, accidents, handicaps are just what you read and watch in the news. They are unreal, they only happen to others, some in faraway land and some closer to home but in another area of town perhaps. And when someone in your "strata" gets windfall from enbloc, someone's kid got into medic school, someone's bonus equals his one year pay, someone made hell of a lot of money from betting on the right stock, (the list is endless), you may feel hey why am I so darn "unlucky" (hello I got masters leh whilst he just got ordinary degree). And then when say some imperfections in life occur, you will feel really shocked it happened to you, for example "I can't believe this can happen to me, my son can not get into the top JCs, or my daughter is anorexic or my wife quits her job due to what she claims to be too stressful (ahem) or the bloody neighbour on the 9th floor blocks the enbloc and now we will probably miss it" and so on. And if one continues to sail on and on and on in a fortunate state of perfect life, one will really be upset when " hell,I have to park my car 50 meters from the entrance".