Synchronicity

Synchronicity, as explained by wikipedia is "the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner".

I experience synchronicity occasionally in counselling.

Of late I am counselling an adult who has loads of self awareness and being trained in counselling herself, puts before me her own psychoanlaysis of herself. I tell you it's not easy when you are aware that your client is silently naming the therapy you are applying with her and perhaps doubting its usefulness. So I told myself I really need to think through and do some research before the next session.

Nowadays I am always wearing a earpiece whilst doing housework, listening either to BBC podcasts or some interviews etc. These I download into special folders in my ipod. I seldom listen to music. Conditioned as an utilitarian to make the most out of time spent on mundane housework, I will try to gain some knowledge listening to these podcasts. That particular morning however I hit on the music playlist quite accidentally and let the song run, thinking of switching back to my usual podcast folders when it finished. Strangely enough after the song ended a philosophy lecture came on in the 'music' playlist. It is really strange that I have wrongly downloaded the lecture onto the music folder and have quite forgotten about it. As I listened to the content of the lecture it strikes me that the information may be of great interest to my adult client and discussing it with her may help lead to even deeper insights.

You may call the above just a coincidence but I have encountered a couple of others as well. It occasionally happens when I go to fetch my child client from class to my counselling room, the teacher says it is not a good time for the child to miss his lesson. This happens when the teacher swaps the timetable a bit and is teaching a core subject. When this happens I may think of other students that can fit into the time slot thus changing my own schedule a bit. It happens more than once when I went to look for a substitute, it occured that something unpleasant had just happened to the alternate client. He or she could be in a fit of tears having jut been penalised by the teacher or something bad had happened in the family and the child needed someone to confide in.

There were also chance meetings with teachers or student care supervisors that provided very useful and much needed information about the latest develpment of a certain child.

Synchronicity or good coincidences may arise as a guidance from somewhere which is beyond our comprehension. If that is what I subconsciously believe, it explains what I did one night. That night before going to bed, I looked out of my window at the full moon. That day my thoughts were quite engaged by the reported behaviour of a particular child. I find myself thinking about his mother who committed suicide 3 years ago. I looked up at the sky and whispered softly "If you are there and if you can, please help me help your son."