Last week I attended the module on Family Therapy. My, I was so smitten by 2 women. First one is my lecturer, a lady about a year younger than me of Italian and Greek origin. She is so bubbly and real and her enthusiasm is so infectious. She works as a therapist in a children's hospital in Adelaide, lectures and is an experienced family therapist for more than 20 years. Not only is she clear and systematic in her delivery but enthuses such zest in her field. At the same time she is so authentic, admitting her nervousness when facing the class for the first time and when demonstrating in class at role plays. She is also humourous and admits her vanity and love for food. Yet like any women of my age she can be quite absent minded and is technology phobic and was so grateful when the class techies came to her aid. She can be really funny like halfway when watching a video, she can pause the player and comment: "I wish this guy can cut off his pony tail" or comment about a student's beautiful toe nails. During lunch, when I shared with her my recognition of poor parenting skills after attending this course, she normalised it by sharing her own weaknesses in parenting as well. All in all a woman so full of zest, loves what she is doing, totally real,not afraid to show her weaknesses and enjoys little things like food, beautiful dresses and hairpins etc; in short a lady who is very comfortable with herself.
The second woman is a well known family therapist who founded the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy together with her husband. I was reading her book just before the course and had the opportunity to watch her in action on DVD during the course. She was Korean but lived in the US. She passed away not long ago and at the time she made the DVD she was an old lady. The DVD showed her in therapy with an American family so dysfuntional and distraught with 3 suicidal members out of 4. She was consulted by the family's therapists to assist in the case as they were feeling drained and demoralised. Watching her in action what strikes me was the great respect she showed for each member of the family. Her very gentle ways, her congruence, her unruffled calmness when addressing the son when he was about to storm out of the room drew respect from the family and the viewers. She was also very real and could break out in uncontrollable chuckles when sharing some jokes with the family. She imparted to all trainee counsellors the importance of optimism and hope. She also showed us as long as we want to do good for the client/s, there was no room for the therapist to feel hurt or embarrassed when confronted with certain words or actions of the clients. In short again, a lady who respects every individual and is very comfortable with herself.
As I move on I really would like to be like them.
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